Furder Fahdah

Po Boy Views

By

Phil LaMancusa

Further Father

Or

Lessons Learned

            Okay, here I am, going to write about fathers and Father’s Day and all the joys that a positive male role model can have on a fertile and impressionable child and/or children; I apologize if I disappoint and I hope to have another happy American ending for a column I’m asked to write to uplift, impress and inspire those of you that celebrate this auspicious day in our calendar. I may fall short in that endeavor.

            My father grew up in a volatile immigrant family and was strange from the time that he was young. He went into the armed forces during the second war and came back as crazy as an outhouse rat. He came back not only jumpy, lethargic, violent and psychically wall eyed; he came back without a respect for the common social mores of his times of which at that time were precious few. He was reactive and unreliable.

            Consider this; in times of worldly conflict, you take a million or so seventeen to twenty year olds, give them guns, send them out to kill other people, inform them that they may die as well and then expect them to come back sane and stable? Not a f**king chance; consider them lucky if they come back with all their body parts. My father came home damaged.

            I was a lad of three when I pissed him off sitting in my high chair and with my hands locked underneath the feeding tray he began to beat me. When my mother intervened, he beat her. Only after he and his brother knocked over a pawn shop and my mother wrote down evidence, threatened to have him jailed if he didn’t leave the city and us alone forever, did he disappear from my life. My mother had very bad taste in husbands and I could write a book on that one.

            I grew up without a father and the memory of that beating faded. My mother remarried another immigrant unable to relate to a pack of street rat kids, and I was raised with a man in the house but not a father. I was taught that empathy was for sissies; kindness is weakness         

Eventually I grew and had children of my own and I knew nothing about being a father except that physical violence against anything smaller or weaker than I am is categorically wrong and unacceptable. No instruction booklets or elective courses were available for me; nobody teaches you how to be a father and I failed. Times have not changed that much for grown males in today’s society and there are, a number of fathers today that labor under these same influences and lack of moral compasses when they deal with the fruit of their own loins. Happy Father’s Day.

            There is a dichotomy in fathers these days: those who have learned the lessons of the counterproductive actions that a father can have on their children and possibly whose fathers have learned and passed that evolution of behavior to them; or, on the other hand, there are still fathers that have a ‘deliver beatings, raise your kids tough to be able to deal in a tough dog eat dog world and take no sh*t from anyone’ and are raising their children to pass on that mentality of me/them/mine by any means bully as a hero tough guy smart talking badsass ghetto cred don’t give a f**k attitude misogynist role model to look up to. Seed banks; bread winners; Alpha males. Welcome to the world Sparky.

            Are you a father? Have you ever been a father? Do you see yourself as a future father? You had better have your act together because not only is it a full time job, but, you don’t get time off to be a weakling. To be successful you have to be mentor, clergy, older brother, psychiatrist, guru, friend, confidant and gentle disciplinarian all at the same time. Patient, understanding, guiding and a person to look up to at all times. There is no one now that can hold you and tell you that everything will be alright; you are now the person that must hold. It’s a wake up, get up, suit up, show up and never give up on yourself or your kids kind of job.

            I have daughters. I see them, their husband, their kids, my grandchildren; and I see the adults struggle to be a stable force while dealing with their own and their kids’ challenges; I’m proud of the job they are doing. I’m proud of their single grandmothers who bring logic and love to the growing beings that know nothing of what is going on in their world and who need the consul of someone they look up to.

            It is sobering to be a father; there are no breaks; there’s no time off. There’s a nightmare in the middle of the night to console; the embarrassment of a bed wetting; the dealing with that bully at school; the emerging hormones of a preteen; the heartbreak of young love and attraction that can all be devastating to a newbie on this physical plane. It’s a heroic position to uphold.

            So here’s to you and your fathers out there on Father’s Day. Men of my generation were taught not to be in touch with their feelings and emotions; here’s hoping that your father ignored that teaching. Reach out, rub their balding head, stroke their fragile ego, tell them you love the way they burn things on that outdoor grill that they use once a year. And while you’re up, get them a beer.