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Tag Archives: pride

So Many Questions, So Little Time…

27 Jan

Fat Ethan Approved

Hey…I COULD tell you that I never look for advice, but that would be a lie.  That said……

Over the years, there were several instances in which my daughters would come to me and tell me that other students in their classes were cheating.   EVERY time, I would tell them basically the same thing,” It doesn’t matter what everyone else is doing.  WE DON’T CHEAT.  If you don’t get as good a grade as them, that just means that you need to study harder.  We go about things the right way. ”

But now I wonder, if by holding them to a higher standard than some of their classmates, was I tilting the playing field against them?  Was I forcing them to play the game according to a set of rules that very few others were playing by?

I mean, I understand the lofty goal of taking the high road, doing the right thing, manning (or in their case “girling”) up, being a stand-up kind of guy so on and so forth, but is that type of idealism DEAD?  Is it wrong to even teach it?

Is it just me, or does it seem that cheating has become more and more a part of the American mindset over the years?  Is it still true that cheaters never win?  Or have the cheaters taken over the game to the point where we all have to cheat at it just to compete?

Case in point, let’s look at all of the cheating scandals that have come to light over the last couple of years:

1) Harvard:  http://nyti.ms/1i4FZ3N
2) Air Force: http://cnn.it/1m87TLX

Sure, these people got CAUGHT, but the bigger story lies in the question of whether or not they only STARTED cheating in their current situations, or is it more likely that they cheated to get TO that situation?  How about those that didn’t get caught.?  I’m sure that if we knew the whole story, the numbers would indicate that it is much more widespread (and accepted?) than we thought.  I mean nowadays, cheating people out of money is almost considered a viable biz practice.

Does this lead to a bigger conversations regarding cheating within/between large corporations?

Anyway, I was just curious as to what you guys think of this?  Is it just my imagination?

( Sorry about all the questions today.  Chalk it up to the 5 cups of coffee coursing through my veins atop and sending my natural ADHD into overdrive.)

 
2 Comments

Posted by on January 27, 2014 in business, children, education, encouragement, fatherhood, parenting, Uncategorized

 

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St. John vs The Bootlegger

23 Jan

I know that the majority of my writing is about fatherhood, but I’m going to devote this post to motherhood….more specifically, my mother.

Now before we get into this, let me explain (again) the geography  of my upbringing.  On one side of my house was a church.  It wasn’t just ANY Church.  It was St. John Missionary Baptist Chuhch.  (Yeah…I know I misspelled “chuhch”, but that’s how we say it in the country.  Say it slow…you’ll get it.)   If I sit quietly, my mind will still let me hear the sound  of all of the heels tapping against that old wooden floor when the choir sang.  Even though I’ve moved on in life, have lived in MANY places and have been a member of many churches, I still call that place my home church. (See? Even without thinking about it….u said it like “chuhch, didn’t you?  Just admit it!)

Now, on the OTHER side of my house was a bootlegger.  (For those that are unfamiliar with the term, a bootlegger is one that either  a) makes homemade liquor or b) sells homemade liquor that they buy from someone else .  I’m sure, that in some places, there may have been an option “c) Buys liquor from the stores and resells it”, but hey, we were in a poor area and selling the fancy, schmancy, high highfalutin’  rust free, store bought stuff with its FDA safety regulations and quality inspections and things like that took MONEY.  Besides….iron is good for ya, right?  So the rust made it healthy.  ( I have a similar philosophy about how you can eat as much as you want and as long as you eat it fast, the calories cant stick. too….sue me.)

So, on any given day, I could either see a bunch of staggering drunks drowning their hopelessness in  mason jars filled with homemade liquor; tinted red with flakes of rust from some back woods still or I could see people  filtering into the church to look for hope when they were otherwise surrounded by bleakness.

It all painted a pretty curious picture of the world for a kid like me.

But to my mother, it was pretty cut and dry.  If I wasn’t suffering from Ebola, scurvy or rickets ( And you thought I wasn’t paying attention in Health class, DIDN’T YOU, Mr Ramseur???) ………..I would be going to church.  It wasn’t  JUST Sunday morning church either.  There was Sunday School, Sunday Service,  prayer meetings, revivals, Vacation Bible School, Youth Choir practice, usher board meetings (She was also the president of the Usher Board at one time, so guess who also had to usher?) ,and so on and so forth.   So, church attendance was pretty much the rule of the house.  And try as I might, I never figured out how to fake ricketts, so I found myself in the pews…….a lot.  Now don’t get me wrong, I didn’t always pay attention….and sometimes, being that we lived DIRECTLY next door, I could sneak out and go home for extended periods of time and sneak back in without her knowing

But the fact of the matter was, Mama, in the only way that she knew how, ( and in a wisdom that she didn’t even know she had) was exposing me to hope when there was nothing but sheer hopelessness just on the other side of the house.

Mama was fighting for us…and we didn’t even know it.

All those cumulative weeks, and weeks, and WEEKS, and W-E-E-K-S of church that I was FORCED into gave me a belief that even though my CIRCUMSTANCES said that  I was poor, that they didn’t control who or what I could become.  It helped me to understand that even though many of those near us had given up, that I could still have hope for a brighter tomorrow, and when tomorrow came, if it wasn’t brighter, that I could continue to make THAT today’s tomorrow brighter.  She taught me pride that even if I didn’t have the best clothes,  (remind me to tell you about pants with rings around the ankles), that I could keep what I had nice, clean and pressed and be proud just the same.    It taught me that even though there was a den of despair just a ditch jump away one side of the house, that as long as I had faith, and if I put my time in,  that I could strive to be something greater than that; that I didn’t have to subscribe to the hopelessness there.

Faith can  trump common sense, and sometimes…you should LET it.

I have to say that I’m grateful for where I’m from.  I’m grateful that I had a mother that forced me to see a better way; not BECAUSE of me or because of what I could do,  but DESPITE me and irregardless to what I did.

Now,  I’ll admit…I do find myself drinking out of a mason jar from time to time, and I’ll even “pour a sip out for the brothers that ain’t here”,  and let me tell ya…………it’s some of the BEST iced tea I’ve ever tasted.

 
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Posted by on January 23, 2014 in children, fatherhood, parenting, Uncategorized

 

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Once…twice….three times a Lady (part one)

17 Jun

Sup, Daddies??  Happy belated Fathers’ Day!

I figured I’d take a little time today and write a lil somethin’ somethin’ to encourage you (us)  all  since, well, you know…Father’s Day is over and we probably won’t get any more props ’til next year at about this time.  Anyway, I wanted you to know that the stuff we do all year round IS important and it IS recognized, and it will have lasting effects on our daughters…

I know, I know, I know, sometimes,it may seem like your  daughters aren’t listening or don’t even pay attention when you talk…but, dear reader, I have evidence that at least SOMETIMES, they listen.  Here’s the proof!

Cue the flashback music!…..

“Doodle loodle loo…..Doodle loodle loo…….doodle loodle loo………………..”

(Hey, I don’t have a budget for special effects and a fancy, schmancy soundtrack, so I do what I can.)

Anyway, the year is probably about 2005 or so, and my oldest daughter, Tee was about 12 (13?) years old.  At the time,  they had three rules that I would give them pretty much EVERY time they left  the house.  We always followed the same ritual.  (It was probably more so to help ME remember the rules  than for their benefit….my memory has never been the best, and I needed to make sure I knew what I was punishing them for if the need arose…)   I would ask them what each rule was and have them tell me what it meant.   It went something like this:

Me:  What’s the first rule girls?
Them : Respect ourselves.
Me: what does that mean?
Them:  That we should never do anything that we wouldn’t be proud of.

Me:  What’s the next rule?
Them: Respect our surroundings.
ME: What does that mean to you?
Them: That we should always know what’s going on around us and pay attention to things so we don’t get hurt.

Me: And the third one?
Them: Act like little  ladies.
ME: And what does that mean?
Them:  That we should always carry ourselves like ladies.  We sit like ladies.  We talk like ladies.

So, that was what we went through day in and day out.  Now over the course of time, the ritual got shorter and shorter, and eventually it just got to the point where I would just have them recite the rules to me before they got out of the car.   I hadn’t had an opportunity to see if they were actually FOLLOWING the rules, and they were never actually put to the test.  Heck, I wasn’t even sure that even remembered the rules after the car door slammed……….until….

One day, I took Tee and three of  her neighborhood friends to the mall.  They were all about the same age, except for one, who was a few years younger.   As usual, and without discriminating, I had her AND HER FRIENDS go over the rules with me.  I said them one at a time, having them repeat them to me and asking Tee what each one meant.  She did it without missing a beat. So I let them get out and go into the mall.  I drove off and went home.  One of the other girls mothers was going to pick them up in a couple of hours.

About an hour or so later, the phone rings.  On the other end is one of the parents.  Apparently, the kids had gotten into trouble for trying to steal some jewelry and she was bringing Tee home.

So, of course, when Tee gets there…I was  ready to read her the RIOT ACT with both guns a blazin’.   I didn’t  ask any questions, and we went straight to my room.

“What happened, Tee?”

She looked me right in the eyes and said, “I didn’t do anything wrong, Daddy.”  and she began to cry.  So, me being the concerned, loving, sensitive Daddy that I am, I thought, “Okay…here she goes with the waterworks to throw me off balance, but I ain’t no SUCKER.”  (Yeah…I kinda am…don’t judge me!) She continued  to tell me what happened.  We didn’t get to talk long before there was another knock at the door.   When I answered, I saw the neighbor girl (the young one) and her mom.  The daughter,   was standing there ; her eyes all red as if she’d rubbed them with sandpaper and flushed them with bleach.  The mother asked me if she could talk to Tee for a minute.

I called Tee to the door, and she came and stood beside me in the doorway.  The mother then said, “Mr. McDuffie, I want to tell you that your daughter didn’t do anything wrong so don’t be mad at her.   Our daughters weren’t stealing from the store.  The other two girls were the ones stealing….Our girls were at another store .  Security just assumed that because they were in the mall together, that they were in it together.  (There’s a LOT more to this story that I’m saving for next time.) Then she looked down at Tee and said, “Thank you for keeping ___________out of trouble.”

The next voice we heard was that of the neighbor girl.  What she said hit me like a truck and I’ll NEVER forget the little life lesson that I got from it.  With that tiny, scared, still borderline crying voice she said simply…

“……you told them to act like ladies…You TOLD them…..and they didn’t do it.  They wouldn’t listen……”

Mind….blown.

This little girl, who had only heard the rules  that I drilled into my daughters ONCE, had taken it to heart.  She remembered it!  Granted, it was only two of four that heeded it…but that was better than ONE of four, right?

Now, the message behind all of this is larger than this post, and it’s larger than just me, my daughters and their friends.  In essence, it ain’t about me and mine, it’s about  about YOU and YOURS.    If my words could mean that much to her; a little girl that I hardly knew past her first name, apartment number and mother’s name, think how much weight YOUR words carry with all of the potential “little ladies” in your life.  God has placed and continues to place them in your path all the time.  You have the ability to help guide these little ladies and TRUST me….they listen to you more than you think.

Funny thing is….out of everything that happened that day, the biggest disappointment that BOTH girls seemed to have  was that they thought they had let ME down.  It wasn’t a trip to the mall suddenly cut short.    It wasn’t being questioned by mall security.  It wasn’t  that their “friends” were now mad at them.  (I’ll explain that in part two), but what was most important to them was what I thought of them.  Heavy stuff, huh?

I say ALL of the above to simply say  this:   Your words carry WEIGHT, gents…don’t undervalue yourself.

So until, next Father’s Day, stay encouraged.

I’ll share part two with ya next time.

Thanks for reading.

 
4 Comments

Posted by on June 17, 2013 in children, education, encouragement, fatherhood, humor, love, parenting, Uncategorized

 

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It’s Okay Not to Be Okay

20 May

God always helps me to see the big picture.

Now,  I have to apologize, to those that read my ramblings here.  My apology is this…I’m sorry I left you for so long…

When I first came back to writing after losing my brother, I thought I was ok….I wasn’t…nope..no siree bob….not even close.

There were some other things that happened around the same time that I just don’t have the strength to share yet, but just know this.  Everything that I had grown and had been taught to believe suddenly found itself in the cross-hairs of a sudden, overpowering disbelief.  Where I had once seen order, I could only see chaos.  EVERYTHING.  Enough punches can make the strongest personn want to bow out…and it seemed like me and my family were taking the best swings that the world had to offer….

So, I faked it a time or two..I wrote SOME stuff, but it really wasn’t what I was feeling. I wrote like I was okay… I wasn’t okay.  For a few weeks, every smile that I gave was as hollow as those grinning chocolate Easter bunnies.  I was hurting inside and I wasn’t allowing it out.  I was so busy trying to convince everybody else that things were ok, that I wasn’t allowing myself time to actually BECOME ok.  What I was giving wasn’t me… It simply wasn’t …Every time that I put my hands on a keyboard to write, I was puitting out sunshine and rainbows when my whole world seemed like clouds and rain….and I promised to always give you ME….not some alternate reality version of me.

So, I stopped writing.  Nada.  Zilch.  Nothing. After a while, I figured that working on another book would help me out of the funk.  It’s a much darker, project than anything else I’ve written.  I figured that the pages would just SCREAM for release.  But guess what?  Nope.  Almost nothing.  Next to nada.  Almost ZILCH.  I was completely, utterly without my words.  I think I wrote four paragraphs in like a month….(Now they are GREAT paragraphs, but still…it’s only four.  LOL)

Then, God showed me something thru a song…It had a great message that really hit me at the time.  It’s called, “Who You Are”:

Who You Are

I stare at my reflection in the mirror:

“Why am I doing this to myself?”
Losing my mind on a tiny error,
I nearly left the real me on the shelf.
No, no, no, no, no…Don’t lose who you are in the blur of the stars!
Seeing is deceiving, dreaming is believing,
It’s okay not to be okay.
Sometimes it’s hard to follow your heart.
Tears don’t mean you’re losing, everybody’s bruising,
Just be true to who you are!
(who you are [x11])Brushing my hair, do I look perfect?
I forgot what to do to fit the mold, yeah!
The more I try the less it’s working, yeah
‘Cause everything inside me screams
No, no, no, no, no…

Don’t lose who you are in the blur of the stars!
Seeing is deceiving, dreaming is believing,
It’s okay not to be okay.
Sometimes it’s hard to follow your heart.
But tears don’t mean you’re losing, everybody’s bruising,
There’s nothing wrong with who you are!

Yes, no’s, egos, fake shows, like whoa!
Just go and leave me alone!
Real talk, real life, good love, goodnight,
With a smile that’s my own!
That’s my own, no…

No, no, no, no, no…

Don’t lose who you are in the blur of the stars!
Seeing is deceiving, dreaming is believing,
It’s okay not to be okay…
Sometimes it’s hard to follow your heart.
Tears don’t mean you’re losing, everybody’s bruising,
Just be true to who you are!
Yeah yeah yeah

So, thru something as simple as that, God  helped me see that it was okay for me NOT to be okay sometimes. I had to learn that I would not be okay until I learned how to forgive myself for NOT being ok.   Even the strongest tree sways in the strong wind….the key is not to break.

And with that, if you can forgive me for my absence..I would like to keep sharing with you.  Let’s get this party started.

Ty

 
2 Comments

Posted by on May 20, 2013 in fatherhood, life, mourning, parenting, Uncategorized

 

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Stuff like this makes it all worthwhile…..

23 Apr

Sometimes, being a good Daddy can feel like a pretty thankless job, and half the time (well, if you’re like me, WAAAY more than half the time, you don’t even have a CLUE if you’re doing it right.   I spent many a day second guessing what I did or what I said; wanting to make sure that my actions and words always built and never destroyed.  Sometimes I succeeded, more often than not, I failed. I am FAR from the perfect Dad.   But the fact of the matter is, like I tell my girls, “The only way you can GUARANTEE that you’ll lose a fight…is to not fight.”  (Of COURSE< I wasn’t being literal …..ESPECIALLY with as many fights as I lost…Heck, if I would’ve been a professional boxer, they would’ve had to do post fight interviews with  me HORIZONTALLY….wait for it….wait for it….)  . In this case, the only way you can guarantee that you won’t be a good Daddy is to not try.  You HAVE to TRY.  The rewards may not come immediately.  Heck, they may NEVER come…but sometimes….sometimes………you get blessed with things like this:

So I got this text from my oldest daughter, Tee,  yesterday.  It was a screenshot from her Instagram account. .  Anyway,  this is the kind of thing that would make a man that is less in touch with his machismo shed a tear or two when nobody was looking.   ME, on the other hand,  being the tough guy that I am, celebrated by watching some Rambo movies, bare hand  hunting some honey badgers,  and gator rassling…you know, ‘ cause I’m a rough and tumble kinda guy.

(She meant that I was 29 when we adopted them, btw)

Tees Bday Post large

 
6 Comments

Posted by on April 23, 2013 in children, encouragement, fatherhood, humor, life, parenting

 

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Models, Media and Meaningful Motivation – Part Three: Meaningful Motivation

21 Mar

Meaningful Motivation

(Disclaimer:  I am NOT a psychologist, nor have I ever played one on t.v.  I could probably USE one though.)   

Okay, so I’ve been thinking about this stuff…you know, the effect that media has on the mindscapes of our daughters and I’ve determined  two things:  1)  It’s pretty doggone bad.  (Signed, Captain Obvious)   and  2) It ain’t going nowhere. (Co-signed, Sergeant Overly Simplified.) Those things said, I believe that there is no one stop answer for it.  On the opposite end, though, I do think there are some steps that we can take.   Here’s my take.

We could always wait for all of the executives in radio, print, television and music  to suddenly have an epiphany and decide that it’s more important to protect the ideals, morals and self esteem of our daughters than it is to make an extra dollar so they can afford the latest model Bentley that hits the showrooms.  (Talk about run on sentences…..whew!)  Yeah…YOU hold your breath on THAT one…I’m gonna go get a smoothie.

Ahhhhh….refreshing.

So, what are we left with?   The old saying of the best offense is a good defense jumps into my head. (Well, that and  who would win a fight between Superman and Gumby, but I digress…)  We have to develop the methods of instilling self reliance and  strong self esteem into them to help them defend against the unreachable and unsavory images that they are getting bombarded with..   It’s not like the arrows are ever going to stop coming their way, so the best thing to do is to give them thick armor to deflect them.  The trick is that an individual can’t  GIVE anybody self esteem or self reliance.  The best that we can do is to help them to REALIZE it for themselves, about themselves because, like most things, just telling somebody something doesn’t have the same effect on them as their experiencing it.  So we, as Daddys, have to motivate them to build their own sense of self esteem.  And sometimes, that requires a little  finesse, and as Bernie Mac said, “trickeration”.  Let me explain.

I like to use a term called meaningful motivation.  Okay, so what’s meaningful motivation?  Meaningful motivation is a term that that I use to indicate TRUE, GOOD  motivation,.  Trust me, there is fake, bad motivation.  ( You like how I just did that?  I did a comparison between true and good versus  fake and bad….pretty slick, huh?  Look at the big brain on Ty!)   Anyway, I digress…yet again.  To show you what I mean, and to appease my ADHD, we’ll give a quick example of  bad motivation.

When I was in basic training for the Air Force, I had a Training Instructor (T.I.) named Sgt. Blah, Blah, Blah.  (Did you REALLY expect me to give his name?)  Now, Sgt Blah, Blah, Blah was pure, unadulterated, unfiltered, concentrated evil.  He was almost comically evil.  I mean like arch nemesis evil.   His superpower was intimidating people…and leaking obnoxiously nasty gas when he walked  through the barracks.

We bumped heads.    We bumped heads a LOT.  He would always win, of course.  (One would think that I would’ve been smart enough to realize that he was in charge, and the deck was stacked against me winning, but nope.)

Whenever the head bumping would happen, he’d be right in my face, screaming, at the top of his lungs, all the while his  funny looking T.I., smokey the bear hat would karate chop me across the forehead as he leaned in to make his points.  And….as embarrassing as this is to say…as disturbing as it is to admit…sometimes…his tongue lashings….would be accented with….with…..with…….  hot,…. wet…..SPITTLE slowly running down my cheeks as I stood there at attention.,  THAT, dear readers was, in scientific terms…DA WORST.

Anyway, on the occasions when he wasn’t trying to impose his will on just me, he would wander around the barracks screaming at other people, and leaving behind the previously mentioned cloud of Gastric FUNK.  This was always fine with me…(the screaming at other’s part….not the funk part….THAT was ALWAYS disgusting.)  Now, I would LIKE to say that when he was going on his rampages, that we would stand up to him.  You know; put him in his place. Knuckle up….Show some MACHISMO!…However,  99.997% of the time, we’d do exactly what he said.  This phenomena can be broken down by the following (edited) words of a great modern day philosopher:

“Man, I got mind control over Debo.  He says “shut up  “, I be quiet…. but when he leaves, I be talking again”
Smokey- “Friday, circa, 1995

My mother once told me, “You can learn from a fool…you just have to know how to pick the knowledge from the foolishness.”  That said, how in the WORLD could Smoky’s line relate to what I’ve been talking about?  Well, in essence, it’s a brief commentary about bad motivation.  Sgt. Blah Blah Blah would tell us to do something.  We’d do it, but as soon as he left the room, we did whatever we felt like.  His motivation only lasted as long as he was there in front of us.  Our motivation to DO the job, even if it was something that would improve ourselves, or that we would eventually LEARN from, left the room when he did.  Fear is actually a bad long term tool for motivation. It’s like the short term memory of motivation.    So, what we have to do, is find motivation for our daughters that is meaningful to THEM.  I have a term that I use called H.A.R.P.  It stands for the four tenants for motivation  that I used in working with my daughters. (If I missed anything, feel free to let me know…….Add it to the list.  Just make sure you come up with a cool new acronym…it took me WEEKS to come up with H.A.R.P.)

1)  Heroes that look like her– Find examples of women that have achieved successes in life that your daughter want to achieve.  If she wants to be a CEO one day, search the business journals for articles on female business women. Make sure they have lots of pictures.  Print them out and give them to your daughter. Talk about the path that the woman took to get to where she is.  Point out how your daughter can do it too.  Then, reach out to the people in the articles.  You may be surprised because they may just respond with a personal note to your daughter.  Once, I was looking for a mentor for a lady that wanted to start a give her info on starting a day spa.  I actually found her in a magazine.  I contracted her office, and told her about what the young lady was doing.  Long story short; she became her mentor.

2)      Attainable Goals- It’s got to be a goal that they can actually achieve.  Anything else can be a recipe for failure. Now, I’m not saying to give them something that is EASY, but rather, something that they can actually DO.

3)      Rewardable – What good is an accomplishment, if there is no reward at the end?  The funny thing about this is, it doesn’t have to, in fact, it probably SHOULDN’T be a physical reward.  It shouldn’t be things. What you want to do here, is to create a memory of a feeling; a memory of how the success felt, a memory of how it felt to put a smile on Dad’s face.  Our daughters take great pride in making us happy.  We need to take great pride in showing them that they have.

4)       Personal Pride– The motivation has to be something that is meaningful to your daughter.  It can’t be a goal that she reaches for someone else; not even you.   It has to be something that she would take pride in doing.  They also have to feel as if this is something that they are better at than anyone in the whole world.

I have a seven year old niece.  Right now, I’m doing this thing with her in which whatever she does, I tell her that she’s the best at it EVER.  Last week, she was the best “shoe tie-er upper” in the whole world.  Before that, she was the best “arm twirl in a circler” ever.  Before THAT, she was the best “peanut butter and jelly spreader-er” the world has ever seen!  Yeah, I know that it sounds silly,  but she’ll actually come to me now with new things that she can do because she’s developing a belief in her ability to DO things that she can be proud to show.  AND, she’s PROUD of herself.  It’s not a belief in what “Unka Ky” can do, but a belief that what she’s doing is special and important.

Best Crab walker-er EVER!

Best Crab walker-er EVER!

The end result, the most important aspect of our actions, and the big payoff of our efforts as Daddies  in this regard, however, will be to regain our voice as the one who helps shape our daughters’ sense of self worth.  We have to stop allowing the media to tell them where their value begins and ends and stop letting it  define who or what they are for them.  The power truly is in their hands but we have to help them to develop the strength to believe it for themselves.

Ty

 
2 Comments

Posted by on March 21, 2013 in children, fatherhood, humor, life, parenting, Uncategorized

 

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Daddy’s Doing Hair?!?!?!? (The Poem)

21 Mar

So, I’m having a bit of writer’s block, so, while waiting on my muse, I decided to share another piece of the puzzle that got me started on writing  Daddy’s Doing Hair?!?!?!  in the first place.  (Like I have a “muse”!  LOL) .  Anyway, when my girls were much younger, I used to do  their hair sometimes. I did it quite often actually.  (Okay, so I feel the need to adjust some expectations here.) I’ll be be honest….they weren’t very GOOD hairstyles.  At  BEST, they  probably looked they were done by some terrorist group that decided to take over the world with some ill conceived plot that involved sending little girls to school with messed up hairdos, but hey,  I tried.  Besides, I think, in the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t  really about the end result.  It really was all about the journey…the bonding.  

To me it was  enjoyable because it gave me a chance to bond with them on their level.  They seemed to get a kick out of it too, and from time to time they’ll still ask me to wash it for them .  Although I think it’s just because they’re being lazy.  Anyway, I wrote the poem below a LONG time ago to describe how it all went down. I’ll share it with you because you’re family.   I think I’m going to use it in a freestanding children’s  book to accompany the release of Daddy’s Doing Hair?!?!?  Enjoy and PLEASE let me know what you think.


I Like When Daddy Does My Hair

I like when Daddy does my hair

But I’ll never let him see…

The grins and smiles on my face that show

How much it means to me.

Instead,  I fidget and fuss and twist and turn

And slouch and make faces  too…

And sometimes I pout and cry and such

And even make a tear or two.

And I stomp, and I frown

And I cross my arms, and I give my maddest stare

But  in my heart, real deep, there’s  a secret…

lean close to hear

…………I kinda like it when Daddy does my hair

I like when Daddy does my hair,

Because he listens when I talk

About “dressesssss” and “bowwwws”  and  pretty stuff

And that doll that I want that can walk

And secret places and rain and spaceships too

And flowers and frogs and kites

And jellybeans, and tea parties, and clouds, and swings

And the monster s in my closet at night…

Shhhhhhhh…….

We talk about how I love to play dress up

With  colors…reds and  pinks and blues

and bicycles, and ponies, and caterpillars too

but mostly…. pretty bows on shoes

I know he likes to hear me giggle when we talk

‘Cause I’ve seen him try to hide,

his smiles behind his “Daddy” face

but  his smiles can’t stay inside.

I LOVE when Daddy does my hair,

And he’s getting better…I saw it…last night

‘cause now instead of two ponytails pointing straight up

At least ONE of them , points straight out…to the right.

 
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Posted by on March 21, 2013 in children, fatherhood, humor, parenting, Uncategorized

 

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Models, Media and Meaningful Motivation – Part Two: Media

20 Mar

Media…

I talked just a little bit yesterday about the power of visual imagery in shaping girls’ perceptions of themselves, and we did a little experiment with the t.v..  This time, we’re going to talk a bit about NON visual imagery…and being that I’m the simple minded guy that I am…I always need examples. So, we’re going to do a little experiment with music.

So, all that said, this is what I want you to do.  Plug your headphones into your radio, and settle into listening to ANY popular Hip Hop/R&B radio station in your area; the more popular, the better.  ( I only chose Hip Hop/R&B, because that’s primarily what I listen to…..Well, that and talk radio and stuff like that.  I kinda like talk radio.  Okay, so overall, I’m pretty boring….sue me.)  Do this for an hour.  Just listen for any references to violence against women, sexual references, “baby mamas”, gold diggers, groupies  or references to women’s body parts and write them down on a notepad. (Also, keep in mind that this is PUBLIC radio…and the stuff that you DO hear has already been cleared as being “ok” by some censoring body(ies)).    Just like yesterday, use your own daughter as the measuring stick.  If it’s something that you wouldn’t want said about your own daughter to your face, write it down.   It shouldn’t take more than thirty minutes before your hand starts to cramp up from all the writing. Wanna know how I know?  I know ’cause I did it, and not because I sit at a keyboard and type all day and that my fingers get tired of doing actual WRITING.)  I walked away with this inescapable fact:  Even our own media ain’t necessarily our friend.

Now, I know that BET and R&B/Hip Hop stations aren’t the only media outlets that feed us negative stereotypes of females, and I don’t mean to single them out…not solely.  I also know that the musical stylings of other genre’s of music probably portray women in a negative light as well.  I ALSO don’t think it’s a “Black” thing…I think it’s simply a pig headed, chauvinistic, objectifying, self aggrandizing thing that spans all cultures.   I think that I I could safely bet that if I was a fan of Rock music, or Heavy Metal, that  I’d find the same messages in that music as well.  However, I try to only speak about my personal experiences on what I know and since it just so happens that I’ve always been immersed in the Hip Hop and R&B culture, that’s what comes out.

Now before you start getting all huffy, and  I start getting the hate mail about my  trashing Hip Hop and R&B let me share with you a piece from one of my earliest posts…one from when I first decided to write this book about raising my girls.

“… allow me to be the first to say that I’ve watched the videos…heck, I ENJOYED the videos. I’ve uttered the “B word”  and Ho out of both jest and anger.  I’ve talked junk about my conquests to my boys, and overall, I’m still a work in progress, but I think that if we are truly honest with ourselves we can work towards fixing this.  And since a reformed, renewed, revived, and restored former crackhead is the best to give advice about the dangers of using crack, and  why one should not smoke it, I offer up my insight in regards to not promoting disgusting, destructive, disingenuous, disheartening, degrading images for our lil girls. ”

See?  I pointed the finger at myself first.  I noticed early in the game where my error lied…..(laid?…heck……ANYWAY)  Yeah…I convicted MYSELF before I ever called anybody else out.  I found the mote in my own eye, so to speak.  I can’t really take any credit for the change of heart, though.  It really came from my girls.  True story…at first I used to doubt the whole adoption thing.  I wasn’t sure if I could do it.  It was tough.  But night after night, I would go into their rooms as they slept.  I’d kiss them on their foreheads whisper “I love you.” in their ears, and kneel at their feet to pray for them, and one night it hit me…These girls need somebody to protect them…and I that was the beginning of the change for me…I went from somebody that could call a woman a Ho, to someone who couldn’t stand the thought of it anymore.  (God can make dummies into geniuses, huh?)

Anyway, let’s get  back on task here.   (Besides, I can’t have you guys goin’ ’round thinking I’m some kinda softy that tears up at the thought of his daughters…I got my tough guy, street cred to maintain! )

I also know that  a lot of times, our music does offer  positive imagery as well.  Heck, our local R&B station here even plays Gospel music on Sunday mornings.  However, once again, I’ll quote someone from my past, “One well planned right don’t make up for a life full of lefts.”  Simply put, just because a drug dealer deals only a little bit of crack in the neighborhood, then hands out turkeys on Thanksgiving, doesn’t make him a hero…just a crack dealer with a marketing budget.   The end result is still a community getting destroyed.

So, this is what’s happening thus far.  Our daughters are already being told by the images that they see that they are..not skinny enough, not “elegant” enough,  not pretty enough and overall  just not good enough.  Then, to top that off, they’re being told verbally that they are only good for the use of their bodies and how they can benefit men.  I know…it was kinda eye opening for me too.

And don’t think that there’s a minimum age to start falling victim to this stuff I’ll put it in perspective for you…I have a 7 year old little niece ..She’s a very petite lil thing and is one of the lights of my world.   I’m constantly affirming her and her value and her worth to the world.  I try to make sure that she realizes how important she is and that her true value comes from within and not without.  That said, why, in the Yosemite Sam Hill  did she come to me one day and tell me that she was fat and that she needed to go on a diet?  I SWEAR I can pick the little girl up with one hand and spin her above my head like a basketball without even breaking a sweat.  (Trust me, that says a lot coming from a doughnut eating, remote control hogging, couch potato like myself, but that’s another story.)  Then, to top that off, they’re being told verbally that they are only good for the use of their bodies and how they can benefit men.

Okay, I think I’ve held you captive long enough for today.  And in the morning……we talk SOLUTIONS!  (Done in my best Donkey from Shrek voice).Tomorrow, we talk SOLUTIONS!

 
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Posted by on March 20, 2013 in children, humor, life, parenting, Uncategorized

 

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Models, Media and Meaningful Motivation – Part One: Models

19 Mar

Models

 “…. And the idea is, these men are so important and so powerful, and these women conversely are so dime a dozen… that they don’t matter, they’re just eye candy, they’re worthless.”

Actor, poet and playwright

Sarah Jones 

For right now, we’re going to talk about IMAGES;  just what can be SEEN.  We’ll tackle other stuff later.  Now, to start it off, we need to do a bit of an experiment.  I’ll never ask you to do anything that I wouldn’t do or haven’t already done myself, and this is the case this time.  I did this, and was shocked by what I learned.

That said, I have a challenge from me to you.  It’s actually divided into two parts, but we’ll do the other part in a day or two when I post part two of this post. part two .  Thisa is what I want you to do.  One day, sit and watch some music videos on T.V.  Tune in to one of those music television stations. (For me, it was BET).   I want you to mute the volume and I want you to try to keep count of how many degrading images of women you see in the course of one hour.   It’s easy to figure out what you might consider to be demeaning.  Anytime you see a woman in a video, ask yourself, “Would I want to see my little girl doing that?”  If the answer is “No.” then chalk it up. (Keep this list.)

Now, here’s a bit of back story, in an earlier post (https://daddysdoinghair.com/2013/01/17/chapter-1-what-is-this-book-and-how-to-use-it/) , I referenced a conversation that I had with a young sister regarding her goals in life.  If you recall, I said that it seemed like her sole mission in life was to become a video vixen.  She wanted to be just like the women that she saw in the rap videos because she equated the attention that they seemed to get with the attention that she longed for.   Now, I need you to lean in REALLY close for this one because I need you to really hear what I’m saying.  Ready?  Here it is:  That attitude  is screwed up!

First, let’s look at the most obvious effect.  I bet that if I could dip into a young girl’s mind regarding this subject, this is how I bet thought process would go:

1)      Hey, I see the girls in the videos….

2)      Wow, they must be REALLY popular…

3)      They get ALL the attention…

4)      I want to be like that….

5)      But I don’t look like that….

6)      Maybe if I dress like that, the guys would like me, and I’d get attention too.

We could go further, but I think we’ll marinate right here for now.  If you look at it, what’s happening here is that these little girls are beginning to view their sense of self worth solely by how men view them.  They begin to think of themselves in terms of what their bodies have to offer and so, they begin to objectify themselves.  Did you catch that?  If they see this enough,  after a while, the videos won’t have to tell them that they are just objects any more, they will tell that to THEMSELVES.   This, fellow fathers, is plain old, basic, run of the mill, everyday low self esteem.  ANYTIME someone allows their self worth to be determined by how others see them, it’s because they don’t value themselves enough.  It’s just that simple.  This is a huge problem in itself, but it also leads into another problem.

To put it bluntly, most music videos and magazines now promote a slightly “Idealized” idea of beauty.   I really hope that, during your experiment, you proved me wrong, but I bet that you noticed that the majority of the women had long flowing hair, light complexions, flawless skin, impossibly perfect teeth and were perfectly proportioned.  Now, I know that when I did the experiment, none of the women in my family fit that description of beauty, so should I consider them as not beautiful?

Models are also often rail thin, showing our daughters an image of beauty that is, for the most part, unreachable without plastic surgery. In their minds, though, these are the people that they want to look like.  They don’t necessarily understand that these models and actresses work for companies with big budgets and teams of graphic designers that are pros at Photoshop.  It gives our daughters a false sense of reality, and to make matters worse, it’s a reality that they don’t fit into.

Now imagine that  you’re a eight or nine year old girl being shown constantly that  light complexioned, long haired, tall and slender, flawless skinned, perfect toothed (is that a word?) girls are the height of beauty when what stares back at you from the mirror is a dark skinned little girl with short curly hair,  thick lips, freckles, pimples, gapped teeth  and wide hips. (Or maybe you were like me with ears that didn’t quite line up properly…)  You can forget being a supermodel.  How long before you start to think you’re super ugly?  How would you compensate?  How do you make yourself more like the “pretty” women that you see?  What would you do to be one of them?  ( I learned to tilt my head JUST RIGHT when talking to people….no…really…I did.)

Talk about feeling like an outsider.

Next, we’ll talk about media, and then motivation….And maybe, just maybe, with your input, we can stumble across a solution that works.
Cheers!

 
6 Comments

Posted by on March 19, 2013 in children, fatherhood, life, parenting, Uncategorized

 

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Daddy’s Little Girl (Interview 2)

19 Mar

As I mentioned at the beginning of an earlier post (Peurile), part of the process of prepping for the upcoming book, “Daddy’s Doing Hair?!?!?!?” was a series of interviews with women that discussed how their relationships, or lack thereof, affected them throughout their adulthood.  Some of these stories were heart wrenching, fellas…..seriously.  Others, like this one, although not the textbook example that we have grown to accept as Daddyhood, (I coined that phrase myself.  Cool, huh?You can use it…….for a dollar.) , it still shows how even if you can’t be there with your daughter PHYSICALLY, you can still be there for her and make a positive influence on her that will last a lifetime.  Distance is NO EXCUSE!

Daddy’s Little Girl

 I grew up living with my grandmother as an only child.  Both of my parents lived separately in NY.  I spent my school year in NC with my grandmother and a few weeks of the summer with each of my parents and my aunt.  Each of them would go school shopping for me.  My dad always drove me back to NC at the end of every summer with all the stuff they bought me during my summer vacation!  I always thought I was so special.  My daddy brought me home!!!  He was a star in my eyes!

Child support wasn’t as popular back then as it is now.  There was no court appointed amount that my dad had to pay.  My mom told him that she didn’t need anything from him, so he did whatever he could, when he could.  He sent about $100 a month to my grandmother and paid for anything I called and said I needed.  Girl Scouts, Cheerleading, 4H, school trips, you name it, I did it and he paid for it!  I was always proud to say my daddy sent me money!

As I got older, I promised myself, when I graduated from college, that I wouldn’t ask my dad for anything unless it had to do with major auto repair.  I never asked for birthday or Christmas presents either.  I stuck to my word for many years and I was very proud of that.  I didn’t want him to think that I was using him for his money.

I bought my 1st home a few years ago.  I asked my dad if he would help me with a few things.  He said, “Don’t you worry dear, I have been saving up just for this occasion!”  He took some vacation time and came to NC to help me move!  He bought all of my appliances and had them delivered and installed.  He also bought me an entertainment stand and put it together for me.  He bought groceries and household items for my fresh start.  He even fed my movers twice that weekend!  I still think he’s a star!  My friends love him and often ask when he’s coming back to visit.  I wish we lived closer to each other.  Sometime I just need a hug from my daddy…to make it all better.

He wasn’t around much for me growing up, but that’s partially my mom’s fault.  He was always there in my heart!  I’ve always been a daddy’s girl.  Even when my mom tried to convince me otherwise, I loved him!  In my eyes, he was golden and still is!

I don’t have any children, but I pray that if I have a little girl, she’ll have the same type of loving relationship with her dad as I do with mine.  There’s something about a man and his baby girl!  I’m a grown woman, but I’ll always be Daddy’s Little Girl!

K.B. (Raleigh, NC)

 
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Posted by on March 19, 2013 in children, fatherhood, parenting, Uncategorized

 

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