When my sons reveal certain physical aptitudes, expose some odd humorous bent, display a uniquely characteristic nod of the head, tilt of the jaw, it crosses my mind that I may be “seeing” their biological dads, glimpsing some semblance of the men who fathered them.
I do think about these two men — especially on Father’s Day — and hope they thriving wherever they are. In ways that my sons may also ponder, although I have not asked them, I wonder who these men are. I consider if each even knows about the baby he fathered or, if he does, thinks about, grieves about what he has sacrificed, missed, or lost.
I would jump at the opportunity of meeting my sons’ biological fathers. I’d go to such an event alone and find an opportunity to express my thanks for their vast contribution to our lives. I’d try to suss out how they’re each doing in hopes of suggesting an opportunity for them to meet our sons. I’d offer my sons the opportunity to choose his path toward connection with his biological father and hope that each would embrace such a connection and enjoy the long term potential and benefits from such an opportunity.
You were “easy” babies, fabulous toddlers and terrific young children.
You were hilarious preteens and mostly cooperative teenagers.
Now, you are productive, employed, adults.
I have written to readers far and wide – often to severe resistance – my belief that parenting ends.
While I will always be your dad, you may have recognized that some years ago, wise or unwise on my part, believing I had imparted all that was necessary, I “pulled back” and gradually stopped parenting each of you. You have been making almost all your own decisions for years and have both been rather good at it.
Now, we are three men (mostly) enjoying our shared relationships and one of us happens to also be your dad.
As far as possible I will be available for you. I probably will “jump in” if I discern a dire need to do so, but generally I will resist any urge to impose my need to parent upon you.
I love you, I will seek your highest good and love all whom you love. Know this: each of you in your own way saved my life. You have made this dad really appreciate Father’s Day and I thank you.
Recap on anything the group would like to look at again or to reconsider.
The Humble Samaritan – why it this such a radical parable?
Fables and other resources
Post-traumatic Growth
Helpers’ Lives
POWER Balloon
Every person has been given a Power Balloon that represents an allotment of power. This is the power to have a voice, to decide, to be, to have opinions, have fun, learn, experience, to be autonomous, to be intimate, to be fulfilled and to love.
Within every person’s capacity (power) is the ability to do research and to decide things for oneself, to worship, pray, accept, reject, remain free of abusive relationships and to create and enjoy safe relationships.
Every act of manipulation, of cruelty, of “over-functioning ” and of “under functioning ” is the denial of the power of another or of others.
People, for various reasons, will try to burst your balloon, boost your balloon, take your balloon, give you their balloon or render your balloon insignificant.
Resist such acts from others and resist doing such acts to others. Care for your balloon only; leave others to the divine task of caring for and nurturing their own balloons. This is not selfish.
Think of how selfish it is to say to someone, “Here, let me take away your power from you,” or, “Here, I do not want to take care of my own life but you have to do it.” Not even God will take your balloon from you. Your balloon is God-given to you for your care and nurture. (God has God’s own balloon to care for).
The power for you to be fully human is yours and that power should be offered to no one under any circumstances and the position of exercising power over our own lives should never be abdicated except in extreme situations of medical emergencies.
Every baby and child has his own balloon to be respected as much as the balloon of every adult. This, of course, does not mean that babies should be caring for themselves or that children must be given their every whim. Reaching such a conclusion is to misunderstand the concept of what it means to have personal power. The art of parenting a baby, of nurturing children involves respecting and nurturing their sense of personal power. Parenting is exercising the kinds of discipline and care that do not diminish a child’s self-worth or distort their capacity to discern and appreciate the power that is their birthright. Anything less is to “spoil and child.” It is to “spoil” their capacity to see and know themselves with accurate personal assessment.
I hope you are learning a lot and seeing a lot and enjoying what we are doing together.
My goals are very simple.
I will consider myself as having done a good job if:
You live more powerfully from today than you did before by making very simple decisions to speak up more than you did before and to clarify yourself more than you did before. Self-advocacy comes with immediate feedback and rewards. Keep in mind that not everyone you know will applaud your renewed or “discovered” voice, especially those who have benefitted from your choice (known or unknown) to function at lower levels. If you are stronger on some days than you are on others do not despair, you are human. No one is highly functional everyday although we can by practice and newly formed habits improve our averages.
I have given you an overview of a subject I love and around which I have built my life. There is far more to Family Therapy and to most topics of mental health and counseling that can be covered in a week. Those of you who enjoy this particular approach to mental health and counseling will find yourselves motivated to go deeper. You’ll immerse yourselves into the readily available vast array of books and reading on this and many related topics. Try to read as much Roberta Gilbert as you can. Robeta has several books available and two that come to mind are Extraordinary Relationships and Extraordinary Leadership.
Today we will finish the 8 principles and then look at some disguised but real client family stories.
We will review teaching with an overview of The Formidable Triangle.
Your DAY 3 challenges:
How is your Backbone? If it were a tank of courage is it running on empty or full?
You were a creative child – what have you done with that God-given capacity?
How is your Voice and are you using it for its intended purpose?
To be human — like it or not — is to be endowed with power and influence.
What will you do with yours?
Will you use it to enhance the lives of others or feather your own nest?
May we all choose a path that empowers those who could do with respectful assistance and, for ourselves, know when enough is enough.
Will you over-power others or seek equality and mutuality in all your relationships and all your dealings?
May you and I seek only to love knowing that authentic love seeks to exercise power over no one.
Will you reduce your size and influence and consider yourself a victim so as not to feel responsible for the power that comes with your humanity?
May we develop our skills and giftings and take responsibility for the talents with which we have been endowed.
Will you relate to all as fellow humans on a journey toward fulfillment and meaningfulness, all of whom deserve respect and recognition?
May you and I develop willingness and the capacity to offer our highest regard for all, especially those who for whatever reason are unable to return anything to us at all,
Will you and I accumulate more and more assets and more and more symbols of wealth and success?
Rather, may we have the discernment to know when enough is enough.
There are a few ways I can tell when an unwell client is gathering strength and becoming well……
He begins to speak up. He resists “falling into line” and acquiescing to others when he’d previously kept his mouth shut and conformed to the expectations of others.
She starts to think things through. She turns consequences and ramifications over in her mind before agreeing with or accepting my suggestions. She trusts her own insights more than she trusts her therapist’s insights about her.
He develops a growing “bird’s eye view” of his life. He begins to see with greater and greater clarity how seemingly “small” decisions of repeated healthy choices rapidly usher in larger positive outcomes than can be anticipated.
She begins to enjoy the rewards of making difficult but healthy choices. She wakes up most days with growing anticipation despite her substantial challenges.
He sees and feels more and more courageous and confident about his own life even while appreciating the humility required of those who desire to live meaningful lives.
She expresses thanks and appreciation for her life despite its struggles and anticipates being an agent of hope to others with similar challenges.
Your dad may try to give the impression that Father’s Day doesn’t mean much. I’d suggest you ignore his resistance. Make a big deal out of it. It’s not the gift or the card that he receives from you that’s important to him, it’s that you phoned and chatted, you wrote, you remembered and recalled your lives together and recognized his commitment to you.
Your dad may try to brush off your attention at Father’s Day and tell you that he doesn’t need the focus and the attention but lavish him with it anyway. Neither of you will be around forever so make this one a good one, one to remember. Another shaving set or pair of socks will never be as treasured as a carefully composed letter recalling your best memories with your dad.
Fathering is a fragile journey for many men, many whose frames of reference were often lacking. Many of our dads fought unseen demons of ravished childhoods. Let the adult within you find grace for him —- if this be you — and celebrate your dad despite the struggles you too may have known.
Mozambique, Malawi, Rwanda, South Africa, South Sudan, Namibia, Burkina Faso, Zambia, and several other African countries were well represented. Three were from the USA. One was from the UK and one was from Canada.
We were a collection of pastors and counselors, writers, journalists, and artists. Two were television journalists who covered little known wars. I was aware of at least 1 engineer.
I heard people speaking English, Portuguese, Xhosa, and several languages I could not identify.
While I have no way of knowing anyone’s net worth it became clear from multiple conversations that some lived on very very little while others have all they’ll ever need.
Several people among us had buried their children, faced wars, famine and experienced violence first hand.
Some had faced forced removals and had to resettle in areas unknown. At least 2 had endured brutal torture.
For 10 days we lived together, shared meals, and talked. We learned. We laughed. We listened. Some cried.
Over the days it became clear that happiness and peace and goodwill all come from within and defy purchase. We learned, some for the first time and some again, that it’s not where someone lives that delivers contentment, but always how.
I enjoy moments when life places me with people of diverse cultures. I love it when individuals are sufficiently comfortable to discuss the power that culture has in shaping our lives and our perceptions.
Mary is amazed that Anvi met her husband for the first time at their wedding. Mary is further surprised that Anvi says she is happily married. Anvi tells Mary she could never have been brave enough to pursue a “love marriage.” Anvi says her parents, whom she does trust, know her better than she knows herself and therefore knew what kind of man she would want to marry.
John is amazed to hear that I’m willing to respect women leaders. John is even more surprised to hear I raised two babies without women to change their nappies (diapers). He tells me I insulted the men of his culture by doing “women’s work.”
Sunmi is confused at hearing June is unwilling to give up her career to take care of her aging mother-in-law. She expresses that such a choice in her culture would be considered unusual.
A child, to the annoyance of some of the adults, interrupte his mother while his mother is talking. The mother considers it perfectly “normal” for a child to exhibit such behavior and is unaware that a child interrupting an adult in many cultures is considered gross disrespect.
Gut wrenching for the Smiths from a dozen angles while also displaying a vast array of flowers, tropical, indoor-outdoor whites, greens, shades of purple, yellows, sturdy, strong and luscious, endless developing beauty — reaching for sunlight, proclaiming life and charisma — even within our motherless home.
It’s the early 2000s and Mother’s Day: the boys wake, wander into my room, at least one son is aware of the day given the many things he had to draw, cut, glue and color at school for me, his dad-mom. He’s also performed in “Mother’s Day Bunny” where I was the only dad in attendance. The school’s admirable efforts to include us, or rather efforts to never exclude us, get a little ridiculous but I play along lest some real mother get whiff that my children be faced with the truth that they don’t know their mothers, a reality from which we, in the privacy of our home, have always openly addressed. Blanket strewn over his shoulders and with an inspiring attempt at positivity, he says, “Happy Mama-Day, Dadda,” and I embrace him and then his brother trailing dutifully behind and I leave it at that.
We meander through the morning, sometimes sluggishly, but with momentary caffeine-stirred urges to “make it memorable for the boys.”
At lunch the restaurant tables are packed with girls-and-boys-with-mothers and flowers and gifts piled high with color and sweetness. Octogenarian mothers swoop in to hug multiple generations vying for hug-inclusion as raucous laughter buzzes through the air.
Friends see us and platitudes flow as they do when people don’t know how to talk about loss or abandonment or death while attempting kindness to quell their glaring uneasiness.
“You’re in a better place.”
“God knew your dad could be both.”
“You know it’s extra special to be ‘chosen,’” a mother says to my son as if she’s the first to offer adoption this spin.
I’m uncertain. Should I laugh, cry or lead the boys out the door and flee the overload display of all my boys don’t have?
Instead, we’re three-strand strong, and face it as if nothing can touch the Smith-bulwark.
It’s Mother’s Day and about 2015: my first-born off-handedly reports he’s going to make a gift for his mom and, his car loaded with equipment, he leaves. Mid-afternoon he returns, buries himself in his room to emerge hours later with a 4-or-so minute movie that still blows my mind every time I watch it. I don’t know if his mother ever saw her gift on YouTube but within 24 hours he was interviewed on a local news station and his “letter” had traveled the world. I have a hunch his mother did see it but I know she did not respond. A few years later he reached out very directly to her to be firmly and gently rebuffed.
“Adoption is a very powerful tool,” I whispered into his ear as I tried to comfort my distraught son as he sobbed and sobbed.
“Thank you for the choice you made. I didn’t mean to upset you,” he wrote, time-stamped seconds after his biological mother expressed her wish not to hear from him again. The boy was ashen, disoriented, for days.
Yes. Adoption is a powerful tool.
Rest assured, my boys’ mothers, despite their physical absence, have been more than present in our lives. They are not sitting proud at our all-male out-of-the-way Mother’s Day table, but they are ever-present guests as we steel ourselves for life together.
Nate did not learn his gentleness from me. He did not get his unflappable nature from me. I’ve spent much of my life in a hurry, and, apart from when on sports fields or a basketball court, he’s never rushed a moment in his life, not even when chasing the dog. I didn’t teach him to anticipate when I’m not feeling well and to silently — late in the night — enter my bedroom and place ice water next to my bed in the event I may want it.
I like to think we as a family are generally kind people, but, I tell you, Thulani’s natural kindness cannot be taught, tutored or trained.
He was born kind.
Kindness tumbled down through generations of his kin despite the traumas and brutality they knew. Kindness flowed into my boy from unknown generations like the mother’s milk he never tasted.
My sons’ mothers may not be at the table with us on Mother’s Day but I meet them every day in the beauty with which each of the generous women stamped their claim on the lives of our shared, fabulous sons.
Had I an opportunity to reunite with my sons’ mothers I’d say a deep and welled up “thank you” for the gifts of two magnificent humans with whom I’ve shared the last 25 years. I’d say “thank you” for the bravery it took each woman to make her generous choice.
I salute you, your bravery, your untold story, your capacity to engage in enduring, long-distance and painful, love.
difficultrelationships.com 