SHOW UP

This letter is addressed to all the fathers out there who get no credit for doing the absolute best they can. I was born in 1999 right in the middle of the old generation and the new one. For those who don’t know I’m talking about millennials and Gen-Z the two generations who have the most hate toward one another. My parents however were significantly older and fall into the baby boomer category, so I got to see life from an altered perspective.

Baby boomer fathers are bull headed and although they don’t go after what they want completely, they will do whatever it takes to make a decent living for themselves and their families. My father for example from the time I can remember has been working himself to the bone for me and everyone else in his sphere of influence. He retired honorably from the Army after 20 years and decided he could do more and took another full-time job as a trucker. During that time, I didn’t see him much because you know he was driving a truck all over the country, and at the time I remember not understanding why he had to work so much.

A couple years of working myself answered that question for me and all I heard was a resounding “He had to”. He went on to retire from Con-Way after 15 years of great service there and was only forced to stop because he tore his rotator cuff in both arms. I must admit I was excited. It sounds bad but I enjoyed having my father around. He was able to teach me things and speak to me about subjects my mother couldn’t or simply had no idea about because she wasn’t born a male.

However, a couple months down the road I noticed that my parents were arguing more by the day. It went from once a week to twice a week and then everyday building in intensity by the second. By the time that year was over they were at each other’s throats. Barely speaking to each other when they were in the same room and refused to sleep in the same bed. My adolescent brain couldn’t fathom why my mother would treat my father like this after all he had done for us. After all he was the greatest man alive in my eyes.

My confusion forced me into a corner, and I finally asked my mother why she was being uptight and flipping out daily for what seemed like no reason. After being chastised about being a child and staying in my place she let me in on a secret. “Our” money as she put it was all dried up. With my father out of work because of his ongoing surgeries and recoveries, doctor visits, medication everything keeping him alive was killing us as a family and more importantly meant that the responsibility of ensuring our wellbeing financially was placed on my mother’s shoulders.

Now my mother is no weak co-dependent stay at home mom no she’s a worker too and if my father was the backbone making sure we stood up straight my mother was the heart keeping us alive. To see her utterly losing her mind daily because she now had to do most of the housework, take me to school, work two jobs, help my father with his ailments and all the while still not have enough money to cover us shook me to the core. It must have done the same thing to my father because in the beginning of the quarter he was back to working.

He drove buses for elementary and middle schools during the day and at night he would work at the gas station down the street from our house. It was one of the hardest things I’ve watched someone do because I couldn’t help at all, but he didn’t want me to. He told me that a real man provides for his family no matter the cost, and even though he was still recovering and had more surgeries to undergo he didn’t care. He was going to give me a sense of security and my mother a sense of peace. We ended up moving twice that year and the last house they bought is worth over half a million dollars today.

Now at 22 I realize that whole time I was being taught a lesson. That lesson is real men, real fathers, show up. No matter how difficult or how annoying the circumstances may be they show up without a doubt because they said they would. How will they do it? When will they do it? Those questions never stifle a man with the intent to do better for his family and himself. There might not be a way to get it done and in your eyes, he might be late, but I guarantee you this it will get accomplished.

Unfortunately, like I mentioned before those were baby boomer men. Today those type of men are revered and respected but are a dying breed. The sense of family has gone out the window along with the pride that comes with that. Millennial dads watched their fathers work themselves to the bone and have decided not to live that way giving birth to Gen-Z. The most chaotic generation the Earth has seen to date.

We only know what we’ve been given, and the future does not look promising. Women hate men, men hate woman the divorce rate increases every year and with that so do single parent households, and the poor children that must be brought up in those homes. We must take a stand together now and fix the new way with old principles. The past is not meant to be forgotten completely but learned from and applied to the future to reduce mistakes and make us better people overall.

Men we must realize that woman need us just like we need them. They’re stressed out just like we are and yes, I agree some stress is more severe than others but that doesn’t give us the right to be insecure and blow them off. Both our good and bad days effect one another and without mutual understanding we’ll never take steps forward from where we are.

Provide for your wife and not just financially. If you haven’t noticed woman can make their own coin now, we must do more than just provide income and sex. We have more worth than that. Speak to your wife daily, when you ask her how she’s feeling or how her day went really listen. Occasionally, take her out and make her feel priceless and clean the house from time to time it won’t kill you!

Speak life into your children, make sure they know they are forever loved by you and how much you really love them. Teach them, bond with them, let them know why things are the way they are, but most importantly show up. That’s really all we must do. Say what you’re going to do without a time frame and then proceed to go do it. In doing this we can take back not only the control in our individual lives, but our marriages and our community.

Shout out to all the men who already do this and lead by example, but your job is not done. Consistency is where we really win and it’s not all about you all the time! Teach someone to get to where you are so they can teach someone else, and the cycle will continue. Your work does not go unnoticed just keep showing up. You got this.

Sincerely,

Ittabe