One of my favorite scriptures is Psalm by David, commit everything you do to the Lord, trust Him, and He will help you. As a parent, you’ll never be perfect, but you can always get better. And as fathers, we need all the resources we can get when it comes to parenting and fathering. Recently I’ve been seeing and hearing a groundswell of momentum around fatherhood issues. It’s been really cool to see this progress, in both my efforts and to be able to celebrate the efforts of others. One of my friends emailed me to say he’s becoming a father for the first time, and his wife is having twins. Next week, I’m presenting a workshop to fathers in Atlanta about ways to be an educational advocate for their child. I got my schedule yesterday of the fatherhood courses that I’ll be teaching at a local program for Teen Dads in Metro Atlanta. It’s an exciting time to be pursuing what I believe to be my own personal theory of change.
Far too often, children in communities of color, particularly black communities, and particularly low income communities are growing up without active fathers in their lives. It isn’t me just saying this, there are numerous statistics to demonstrate this problem (see http://www.fatherhood.org or my next post with the specific stats). That’s why it’s critical that more men become actively engaged in first, being the models of fatherhood and mentor-ship that our young boys need. It’s also why I envision a role for myself in my own community where I get to be a part of helping other young fathers learn how to become the men and fathers they were destined to be.
Which is why I was so excited to see several of the resources that came my way this week. A few cool websites that I want to shout out that other fathers are taking the lead to also share their experiences:
http://moreclaremore.com/stay-home-dad-leaves-post-wife/
And, a recent post on Upworthy describing the real conversations we need to have with boys about manhood http://www.upworthy.com/theres-something-absolutely-wrong-with-what-we-do-to-boys-before-they-grow-into-men
For the men and fathers out there doing great work, let’s keep it up.
everyday fatherhood 