Category — Protector

Me, Thing One, Maria and Coach Bill$

I read an article in the Wall Street Journal called This Is Your Brain Without Dad. Scientists studied rodents called degus whose brains react similarly to humans’ brains to environmental stimuli. These scientists attempted to observe what happens when fathers are taken out of the picture. And the verdict was:

1. When deprived of their father, the degu pups exhibit both short- and long-term changes in nerve-cell growth in different regions of the brain.
2. Their preliminary analysis indicates that fatherless degu pups exhibit more aggressive and impulsive behavior than pups raised by two parents.

In other words when degus where deprived of their fathers care (licking, preening, snuggling) the degus suffered brain damage. The study also showed short absences of fathers away from pups was less damaging than long or permanent absences. The study also goes on to say that the pups continued this brain damaged state into adulthood. I will let you read the article to get the explanation as to the science-y reasons any of this happens.

It got me to thinking, am I causing my kids brain damage? I’ve tried my best to form my schedule where I can spend as much time with the babies as possible. To a degree, I’m successful but not without a lot of sacrafice in other areas of my life. But even with that effort my non-parenting obligations simply don’t neatly conform to a court ordered 50/50 custody schedule.

Inevitably, I’m spending guilt-filled time away from the babies. Although the babies are much better off than most children of split marriages/relationships in that they see both of their parents consistently and frequently, it’s still not ideal. The article was a swift reminder I need to be diligent in carving out time with the girls, both quality and quantity. There are a few things I try to do and would suggest for any parent, especially parents who do not live with the children 100% of the time:

Choose your companion well.  Eddie Murphy once joked the secret to relationship happiness is finding someone as f’d up as you and settling down. [Read more →]

Flickr by gremlin90

So this past weekend I’m watching Liam Neeson’s latest flick, Taken. It’s one of those movies where you can tell the plot and the ending just from the trailer. But it’s definitely a movie that caught my attention the first time I saw the trailer run in the theater. What? Some masked men are taking this dude’s daughter? Maaaaaan, that heat started welling up in me immediately. I immediately put myself in Bryan Mills’ (Neeson’s character) place. Maaaaaan! If someone tried to take my babies!! Boooy! Umph! Umph, umph, umph.

Only a father of daughters can really know what that “heat” I referred to earlier feels like. Those cats at 20th Century Fox had sold me a ticket although I hadn’t purchased it yet. After I finally saw this movie, I thought about all the movies that had fathers who definitely earned their “Big Piece of Chicken”. Here are 10 that come to mind: [Read more →]

Flickr by 77krc

So daughter number one (Thing One or T-One) complained to me the other day that she had to do yet another paper on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. She then went on to explain how she’ll have to do a paper a year all the way up through middle school. Still being of single digit age, I doubt my daughter has any real understanding of King’s significance, especially in the Obama era.

I asked her what was wrong with writing a paper a year on King. She responded that she was running out of things to say. Mind you, each paper so far has been a one paragraph essay. She went on to explain, “All he did was help end segregation!” (As if that’s some small feat.)

My mother (The Duchess), who was in earshot, gasped. “All he did?” My mother grew up in the segregated south, participated in sit-ins and marched on Washington in ’63. So to her saying that s all King did was, well, a little disappointing. But my mom wasn’t so disappointed in my daughter. She was disappointed in me. Somehow I had dropped the ball in making my daughter aware of her history. Where we had been as people of color in this country and how far we had come.

“That little girl needs to know!”  [Read more →]