Over the weekend, I was home alone as the girls enjoyed a short jaunt sans me to rural Yazoo county. It was wonderful having the abode to myself to speak to for days on end. This always helps me reset my head. And this is needed on occasion because when they're with me, I usually do what I can to keep to myself - at least from the standpoint of dialogue. My thinking is - why compete with so many voices?
As opening time approached at the deli I was stationed out in front of, I took note of a handful of cars that pulled up to the front door in order to drop off a young black female employee(s) who was soon to start her / their shift work. In each case, the cars were packed with young, black females, a few of which had babies in their arms. Growing up here in Mississippi, what I was seeing wasn't new to me. This represented the norm. Blacks here in our state mostly live impoverished, marginalized lives, therefore in order to survive, they pool their resources generationally & platonically. Or at least the black females do.
Taking all that I was observing into consideration, in light of my present situation as a father / husband, this devastatingly sad racial / gender reality hit me particularly hard yesterday.
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Angie and I married almost 24 years ago at First Baptist Church Jackson. Immediately following, we made a commitment to be involved within a young newlywed Sunday School class - no matter where we chose to worship. And this brought us in contact with lots and lots of other middle to upper-middle class white couples who were similarly within the throes of newlyweddedness as we were.
One Saturday during this season, many decades prior, we attended a weekend dinner party hosted by a fellow couple which had been organized for the entire class. I recall vividly using their upstairs restroom during the event and whilst sifting through their reading material down by the loo, finding a copy of a paperback titled How To Make Your First Million Dollars.
I must have read and re-read that title twenty-five times as I sat there relieving myself.
Just holding the book made me feel shallow (& I might add superior). From there, I felt pity regarding the state of humanity. But especially regarding the state of man-kind.
Soon thereafter, we made a discreet exit from the party, and I struggled to see this couple with clear eyes from that point onward.
Stupid book and stupid superficial me.
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The role of father to daughters solidifies as daughters grow, and I would argue the role of husband does too. No doubt, my Sunday School colleague felt drawn to the pursuit of material wealth as a means of obtaining a positive identity as his wife's new husband (at the time few couples within our class had children). And this makes sense, but man, it seemed so very pagan to me at the time. Whilst looking back though, I didn't really know anymore than he did relative to whom exactly I needed to position myself to be as husband (much less a future father).
But having a lot of grey hair above my ears and three daughters to rear has changed all of that. Not to mention living smack dab in the middle of the racially polarized, economically depressed Magnolia State.
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The world we live in is and will always be a man's world. Therefore, for women to thrive, they need fathers / husbands who're wise to this truth and therefore looking out for the best interests of the women / girls they're called to serve.
Let me repeat that because it's of upmost importance.
The world we live in is and will always be a man's world. Therefore, for women to thrive, they need fathers / husbands who're wise to this truth and therefore looking out for the best interests of the women / girls they're called to serve.
I want to circle back to the beginning of this post and mention again my recent weekend alone.
A fair amount of that time was spent with friends who're also men, doing things that we as men enjoyed together. Obviously, being a short-term bachelor helped to facilitate those encounters.
But, I can tell you, that time alone - even as sweetened as it was with friendship - didn't satisfy me as my now opportunistic yet very routine time being husband / father does.
Why was / is that?
It all goes back to those black females I saw yesterday morning filing out of those Japanese sedans with their delicatessen uniforms on (as they handed off their babies one to the other). What a sobering reminder that certainly was (for me) of the pivotal role I'm privileged to play as husband / father and therein the impact it does / will no doubt make down the road.
Bring it on.
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