Be There

Greetings

Having just returned from a well deserved holiday, I was privileged to watch a program which was conducted by CNN called Black in America. The program which really struck me, was being a black male in America, and about absentee fathers. The statistic in the USA is that 60% of black children are born without a father within the home. so it got me thinking, namely why are there such a lack of fathers in the home, and what is the secret of being a great father.

I'll deal with my second point first, as that answer came to me first. I believe the secret can be summed up in two words. Be there.

Be where you ask? There, where ever your child is, be at home and ask them about how their day was, be there for their parents evening, be there for their sports game, be there at the dinner table, if you don't live with your children, be there on the phone, everyday keeping track of them. Just be there, it's not that hard, most mothers seem to do it, and mine seemed to annoy the heck out of me when she was doing it, but she was there.

Now to deal with the first question, why is there lack of fathers? To be honest, I don't have all the answers. But from what I understand of the situation, I think it boils down to a fear of responsibility and selfishness. You see from what I understand, as I don't have a child yet, when that child comes into your life, your wants are secondary to their needs, and please be attentive to what I just wrote. Your WANTS becomes secondary to their NEEDS. So quite honestly I don't think a lot of guys are ready for that. It will interfere with buying the latest trainer, or blazing, or simply doing what the hell they want with their money when they want to.

Some people could say it's generational curse which has passed down the bloodline from the father's to their sons. This could be true, but as a young man, who has been through not having a father their all the time, what happened to me, will never happen to my children, ever, and so I would think other guys would want it the same way for their children. However we must remember, that not having a dad around means we don't know how to behave as fathers, and who ever took the replacement of the father figure, that's what we're gonna think as to how a father should be.

I like to highlight a problem, but I prefer solutions. So what can be done? The first thing that needs to be done is for the future fathers to understand what it means to be a father. How do we do that, well those of you who live with your father try and learn his good qualities on how to be a father, and be grateful he's around, if you don't have a father in the home,you can take examples from the bible, but what if you don't read the bible? Ok take an example from some one who is a good father. But what if you don't have that example? Ok take an example of a good teacher, because a good father is a good teacher. The examples are out there you just have to be willing to look. Once you understand what means to be a father, practise behaving like one towards younger siblings, cousins and even your mother, by doing certain things that they would appreciate. Try to teach and guide them away from your past mistakes.

For those who are already fathers, all I can say as a son, is accept what you have done and be there. Try be there little by little, but show interest, kids are not stupid, and they will remember things, that you won't. But be there.

I'm Out.

Blessings

What do we Aspire to?

This is my first blog, albeit slightly unplanned, however the reason for writing this is because I've been recently watching the dis-armament season on channel 4, talking about gun and knife crime. What especially moved me to write was the program fallout. This program talks about a young black male who are considered to be the "neek" because he wanted to get a good education and leave the endz, and aspire to be a mover and shaker in his surroundings. However he was picked upon and eventually stabbed.

For those who have not watched the program yet, I will not spoil the whole story as you can still watch it on channel 4's website. However, what the program did do is made me think. It made me think about my life, and living in my area or "endz, manner" what ever you want to call it, it's just an area code, a couple of roads linked together to share a common name and that it's or is it?

I was blessed enough to go to a half decent school in south London, but that doesn't mean there were half decent people there, and coupled with the fact, that where I live is now considered to be dangerous, I regularly witnessed robbing's, and now when i came back home, I'm now not surprised to see my area littered with yellow boards. I'm not saying my area is a ghetto, as I believe there few if any "ghetto's" in London, but what I am saying is that I saw all of this going on around me, was tempted to join in, because I have been and could have been a victim again, but didn't. So I wonder why I didn't back then, and what's so different now?

For starters I had the "stereotypical" upbringing, single black mother, with two children, working all hours to make things work. I could go on about not having a father in the home, but I'm sure we've heard it all before, so I'll just say it was hard. I did see him regularly, however it wasn't the same as him being there, but I guess that is another blog altogether.

However what I will say is that I had a no nonsense mother back up by no nonsense family members to try and keep me on the track. I strayed many times, but she never gave up on me. But I'm still trying to find the difference between me and them, because I'm sure many of them could say the same or could they?

Maybe it's the fact that I was converted to christianity, and started to take it seriously, however we should all have a basic understanding of what's right and wrong. Some would say it's a spirit that has taken this youth, but I don't want to pursue down that avenue just yet, as I think it's something more fundamental than that.

To be very honest with myself, I can't say me and them, because we do share similarities, and I believe that there is a bit of "them" in me and in a lot of us. As we get older, we hope to control our feelings, and become master's of ourselves, so then we can become master's of our environment. A wise women once said, "If you can learn to control your lusts, then you can conquer the world". I believe there is a lot of truth in that. However I'm digressing, as the title is "What do we Aspire to?"

I ask this, because in my opinion it seems to me, that if a black boy is not involved in some sort of gang or is not carrying a dangerous weapon, he's done very well for himself, and he should be proud that he's managed to do that, and get a job and just survive. The reason why I say this is because as I was reading articles around this subject and talking to people, I almost felt proud that I wasn't involved in these activities, but I thought hold on, this is what I'm meant to do in the first place

It almost led me to believe that I'd made it, and I should be content in the situation that I'm in now, just recently graduated from a redbrick university and I've done well, because I wasn't in a gang. So I had to ask the question to myself, What do we aspire to? Because if it's just to the fact where we don't commit a crime, then we have a long way to go. I often say to my close friends, that I want to be great at what I do, I want to be the best. But what are our young black males aspiring to? Even those who've decided to stop the madness, what are they aspiring to? and whose inspiring them?

All I'm saying is that, yes the country has a problem with this gang and knife culture and no it's just a race isssue. It's a soci-economic problem, and don't let no one fool you otherwise, as there are 4 times as much knife crime in Scotland, just to use one stat. But what I'm saying is that OK, we've now got some of them to stop this madness, we need to make sure we inspire our young black males to reach higher heights and deeper depths, and not be content with the fact that I'm a responsible black man, because I haven't shot no one today.

Peace Out