I am my Father's child

As above, so below. Each step up or down revealing new complexities and shapes never seen. So we humans continue our evolution, genes matching and adapting and creating echoes of what has gone before. We, breathing for ancestors, carrying their traditions, traits and beliefs forward to our progeny. A link in a chain far greater than we imagine. Not i, but i as the river of life, flowing strong against our environment. 

I was blessed as a child, with good parents and family, who taught me well. I was taught morality, and love by example, and until older could not even conceive of things like violence, and drunkeness. While i did grow up, as we all, nay some, eventually do, i carry within me my past, and appreciate the value, in a world without. 

But even my father got it wrong. He lost me, for a time. We are different, and looked at the same things with completely different eyes, and not always in a friendly way either. But these things pass, as all things do, and we were able to make amends between us. I stand between my father and my children, with his father looking on, (a man who i still greatly admire, a man whose heart was always good) and accept the burden that fatherhood is, or can be. 

For to be a good father takes sacrifice. You cannot give to your children without taking some of your own share. You pour your life and passion into them, and you do it hoping that they will be better people, than you know you yourself are. For we are all weak, and fail, ourselves, our women, our children. That's just life. To me, the only thing that can be expected of fathers (and mothers) is to put their family first in all things. You HAVE to put yourself, your interests and preferences second to your family.

Not all parents are good though. And i think we have created a society where the good father is a myth. So many of my friends have split homes, and a split home is the definitive sign of a failed father, a failed leader, and failed citizen. For if a man cannot guide and protect his family, then what shall we do with him? I make it perhaps overly simplistic here, but a man who allows his family to walk away is no man, he is broken. If he does not feel the loss, then he did not deserve the honour, if he does feel the loss, perhaps he should have acted sooner, removed more of his ego in the building of the family. But it's a social problem now, where little boys are so ego stroked, especially for displays of strength and prowess, and then promptly inserted into a situation where ego and strength need to be subdued for the game to be won. And they don't know how.

I have stood to take my place in this flow of fatherhood. And in doing so face my own fears and insecurities and weaknesses, and accept them humbly as they ARE mine. But i do it with resolve, that i shall try not make the same mistakes as my father made, but i will still use what was good, whether i thought it was at the time is irrelevant now, i understand where my father did good by his family, at cost.

We are fortunate though, us humans. Caught between mud and the stars we share a Father who has always done what is good, even if we doubt it, or argue against it. There are rules to be followed throughout life, some assumed by choice, like vegetaranism, and others that are universal, you reap what you sow, what goes around, REALLY goes around. We know these things, in our lives and especially with our children.

With a son who has been rather aptly nicknamed "sparkey", the rules exist that if you play with electricity you will get shocked. I am not making these rules up, they exist without me. All i can do is try teach respect for those rules. You break them you're going to get hurt. Sometimes, you have to sit quietly and watch the child break the rules. Don't stand on there you're going to fall .... ok, so don't listen ... crunch ... Waaaaaa .... next time, they'll listen, you hope. If you always catch the child, they'll just keep doing it, they have to learn consequences all by themselves, even if it hurts. As the parent, you can only stand by, perhaps minimise the pain with a pillow or something,and dry the tears.

It takes strength to watch your child fall, it takes care to pick them up, and it takes more love to watch them run away again, now fixed. So it is for us all. We play, run, fall, learn, cry, laugh and all other emotions, but we fall, and are picked up, because that is the way of it.

As confusing as my ways are to my young children, so are the ways of the Father to me, i don't get half of it to be honest, and certainly don't like bits too, like eating all your veggies, and having to wash hands before eating(whats THAT about? i was eating the dirt earlier, i'm still fine?) But what i do understand i accept, and know that it is for my benefit. I am just a child, at play among adults. I don't understand them, much, but i know my Father is standing to the side, over there, as i do when my daughter goes hairing off into a crowd with nary a thought for safety. She KNOWS i am with her always, even when i know i'm not, that's faith right there.

I'm only human after all ...