“Dude, you can live with us if you need to!”

My childhood buddy, Tim, blurted these words when I told him my parents were divorcing. I was 17 years old at the time, and to this day I appreciate his dramatic concern for me.

But I had to smile and remind him: “I’m not becoming an orphan. But thanks for the offer.”

Tim’s offer was tempting. His parents, Jerry and Ann, had been like a “second Dad and Mom” to me for years. Although I enjoyed a healthy upbringing and loved my parents, Tim’s house became the neighborhood “hub” or hangout, especially for boys, during my childhood. The main reason? He had three brothers—Cary, Bryan and Brendan—who loved to play pick-up sports.

The brothers and a group of neighborhood buddies would play street hockey out front, ping pong in the basement, and/or card games in the kitchen nearly every day. During a few of those early years we even played ice hockey on a backyard rink, and Jerry would help me tie my skates. Even before we knew we were hungry, Ann would provide a vat of chili or a pan full of bacon to be devoured by growing boys.

My Second Mom — the “boy whisperer”

Looking back, Ann was especially gifted as the mother of four boys. Somehow she navigated all that roughhousing and trash-talking (along with all that equipment) with grace. And her skills as a nurse helped with all the minor injuries compiled along the way.

You could say Ann was a “boy whisperer.” She often used humor to cope with the chaos surrounding her. For example, she hung an attractive sign above the toilet in the basement bathroom that read: “My aim is to keep this bathroom clean. Your aim will help.”

One of her favorite stories about raising four boys involved her son Bryan when he was young. On a particularly frustrating day as a tired mother buried in childcare, she lamented aloud that she always thought her life would be filled with fame and fortune. Then she heard Bryan’s little voice try to encourage her.

“Guess you have to go to Plan B, Mom!” he said.

Ann would always cackle at that punchline, displaying just how much she loved her boys—a different kind of family wealth.

Ann was not all food and games, however. Whenever we stepped out of line, she would gently nudge us to be better people by saying “hear—hear.” That was her way of getting our attention. What she was really saying was “Have a conscience at the base of all that goofing around.”

No doubt my childhood friends and I didn’t thank Ann enough back then. But that is what made her well-attended 80^th birthday party so special several years ago. Because Ann had “showed up” for them as boys, many of those neighborhood buddies “showed up” for her decades later. I have never seen so many grown men (including myself) proclaiming their gratitude to one woman for positively impacting their boyhoods.

During our many toasts to Ann, it was as if she had created a “Fifth Son” Olympics in which we were all competing. Of course, she had already won the gold medal in the “Second Mom” event. One guy even called Ann his “Second Mom” in front of his “First Mom,” who looked on approvingly because she was Ann’s friend and former neighbor.

Appreciate “Second Moms and Dads”

Sadly, Jerry passed away many years ago, and Ann passed more recently. Perhaps the most poignant image from Ann’s memorial service featured many of those same grown men “showing up” again to carry her casket. That is the power of a “Second Mom.”

Although “second Moms and Dads” don’t get a national day of recognition, maybe they should. So be sure to think about the people who may have acted as “second parents” in your childhood. Try to thank them, if possible. Hopefully, you can also serve as a second parent to some of your children’s friends. Be a host, coach, teach, carpool, tell stories or just plain show up and listen to them.

Tim’s offer for me to join his family back in a moment of crisis when I was 17 made me realize I would always have both a first and a second home in this world. Many decades later, I visited Ann in a nursing home, shortly before her passing. When she saw me, her eyes lit up and she whispered: “Vin-Man.” That was one of my nicknames in childhood, and hearing her say it made me feel like a superhero. 

In essence, that’s what “second parents” do. They make children feel special and show them they have a second home if needed. Hence, “Second Moms and Dads” are like Plan B. So here’s to Plan B!   

The most prevalent examples of fatherhood tend to be built around the same story. It’s one about lazy, uninvolved, and at its worst, abusive dads. These often come accompanied by complaints about men not taking on their fair share of the physical and mental load of parenting. These stories of weaponized incompetence fill pages and pages of books, magazines and social media. Rarely do these tales offer corrective advice or give solutions.

Meanwhile, the handful of positive stories about fatherhood that have made headlines in recent generations tend to center on people later discredited or found disreputable (hello, Bill Cosby!) or sports stars who are gone from home half the year. Not that you’d find even these or any stories about dads in parenting publications and websites — unless, of course, it’s related to that one day in June.

It can be quite refreshing when fathers are ignored, though. For a minute, we can at least imagine we are part of the parenting world. The quiet doesn’t last long, though. Soon, more words are written. Did you hear about fathers who go on fishing trips with the boys and — wait — they end up in a strip club? And the question that is asked, if one ever is, is this: Why are all fathers like this?

That’s where I want to push back.

Dads need support, inspiring examples

Richard Reeves of the American Institute of Boys and Men has written much about the issues our gender faces. (His Substack is fascinating. He also wrote the book Of Boys and Men which is also a great read.) One of his many concerns is the lack of environments where boys can exist and learn from each other. But not as some “old boys’ network” of the past, but as a new way forward. Somewhere young males can develop their emotional intelligence and build friendships. Sounds great, right?

Another upcoming book, BoyMom by Ruth Whippman, is another great read about the issues facing our sons. She is one of the first to actually go into the “manosphere” and talk to incels or “involuntary celibate” males. One of her major research findings is the lack of good examples of masculinity. But after reading it, I also noticed — once again — a lack of good examples of fatherhood.

Society seems primarily to want fathers who are stoic men of action. These are the dads who “man up,” ignoring their own problems while fixing the world for everyone else. Other times, it wants dads who can cook a 12-course meal, make $200,000 a year, and do so without so much as a thank you. What it doesn’t show are examples of a dad who simply exists in the same space as his children and peers, parenting the best he can without feeling like he is letting someone else down. Why? It’s not dramatic. It has no diabolical twists and turns. It’s a straightforward tale of a man who works hard to fulfill his paternal responsibilities and shows up. Every. Single. Day.

Positive fatherhood role models are out there — right out in the open — and everyone seems to miss them. For some reason, at-home dads are rarely held up as the example of what fatherhood and masculinity could be at their best. Instead of showing these fathers (and other good ones who are not at-home dads) caring for their family, giving out hugs like it’s a beer share, or spending countless nights sleeping next to a crib, we inevitably hear, “Why aren’t dads doing more?”

We are. But it’s not very dramatic and, thus, rarely headline-worthy.

The silent story of fatherhood

I recently wrote about football player Jason Kelce’s retirement announcement. In that article, I used the phrase “silent story of fatherhood.” It served as a nod to Jason’s description of his dad, Ed, who supported him every step of the way from childhood. No fanfare. No awards. No recognition. And that is fine. But this is a story I think is way more common than the clickbait articles that allegedly “speak for fathers.”

To me, this is what at-home dads are. It’s what single fathers are. It’s what married fathers who work 60 hours a week and come home and still find the energy to let a toddler crawl all over them are. None of us want condescending credit or hollow compliments. We just want to spend time with our kids, and we’d appreciate it if we got some support along the way. We would love to be part of a world that recognizes our difficulties without turning them into a competition with other parents. And, we would like to turn on our computers and TVs and see a better example of fatherhood — one that speaks more clearly and personally to our reality.

Using these fathers as springboards, we should be able to change the story of fatherhood. We can develop narratives that show what we do well, what obstacles we face, and how we try to overcome them. We will still need to call out the bad fathers who leave their kids and never come back or who refuse to change a diaper but because they don’t deserve our respect they will serve far fewer words in our story let alone headlines.

Fathers DO have their own support groups: either online or in real life. Some are even specific types of fathers: at-home dads, dads with daughters, and so on. In these places, men can come together, simply exist and support each other like Dr. Reeves recommends. We can talk about the latest sports news and, just as confidently, tell another dad, “Hey, I don’t think I’m doing so well.” It’s where we can be vulnerable and further develop our emotional intelligence, just as Ruth Whippman wishes for her sons. It’s a place where we can be whole human beings, not the fraction of ones that much of the world has taught us to be. We should hold these men up as examples of and role models of fathers working to be, if not acting like, strong, competent and caring parents. I know they are because I see them every day.

And we need to do all this in a way that does not demean women and mothers. They need to be celebrated for their sacrifices as much as we need to be recognized for ours. Parenting isn’t a competition, so we should stop treating it that way especially when we speak and write about it.

So come to a dads’ group gathering sometime. Talk to the single dad who is an expert at French braids and who can also build you a deck. Find the at-home dad who gave up his career for playdates, doctors’ appointments and volunteering behind the scenes at his child’s school plays. Listen to the divorced father who would rather have a tea party with his child than a tee time at the links.

We exist. You just have to look and listen.

Fatherhood story photo by Pavel Danilyuk via Pexels.

Seated at a table this past spring in the courtyard of a nursing home, I squeezed into the frame of my iPhone camera and snapped a selfie with my parents. In this fifth decade of my life, it’s the only photo I have of the three of us together. It’s among my most valuable possessions.

This family portrait is neither flattering nor joyous. My mom and I are covered head to toe in the garb required of nursing home visitors in this Age of Corona. A face mask covers our noses and mouths. A curved face shield extends from our foreheads to our chins. From the neck down, we’re draped in a flimsy gown of blue plastic that if it were yellow, could easily pass for the infamous hazmat suits from “Breaking Bad.”

My dad, 90, is in the center of the scene, clad in a faded navy blue polo, smiling as a big as he can despite missing teeth and oxygen tubes running from his nose. His thin, frail body has been ravaged by time and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, but it’s clear he’s happy to be with us in this moment — he mustered the strength to sit upright and pose.

It’s a family portrait that had been in the making since 1974, the year I was born.

No pictures exist of me and my dad before 2006, the year I concluded my journey to find him, arriving in the lobby of a senior housing complex in Inglewood, Calif., where he anxiously waited to greet me.

He was 74 at the time; I was 31. I’d last seen him when I was six years old. It was the only time I’d seen him. And it had been 25 years.

My dad missed out on becoming a father. He met my mother in 1973. They carried on a relationship for two months, maybe longer. Then, she stopped coming by his place.

“I didn’t know she was pregnant when she left. I really didn’t,” my dad once told me, reflecting on the memory. In 1981, when I was 6, my mother arrived unannounced at his home — with me in tow. She was married by then but apparently felt it was important for us to meet. That was the last time I saw my dad.

When we reconnected a quarter century later, my dad took those first awkward lurches toward a bond with me, those wobbly steps at becoming a father. During our first Father’s Day conversation, he shared stories about going fishing with a favorite uncle and hunting raccoons and soft-shell turtles as a young boy.

As I’ve gotten to know my father over the past 15 years, he’s shared his discomfort with being called “dad” — he says doesn’t feel worthy of the title. Instead, he prefers I call him by his military nickname, “Watashi,” Japanese for “I.” It’s how his friends greet him.

Where my father was out of the picture, my mother was front and center. For nearly every milestone moment in my life — the day I was born, my favorite childhood Christmas, my college graduation, my wedding day — there is photographic evidence of her anchoring presence, from holding me swaddled in her arms at the hospital to dabbing tears from her eyes as my wife and I exchanged vows in a Hawaiian garden.

Now here she was with me, visiting Watashi in the twilight of his life while bringing closure to a piece of her past.

Photos are memories you can touch. And the memory that eluded me most was a photo of me with my parents, a family portrait. It took 46 years, eight months, and six days —from the day I was born to that nursing home visit in May — for the timelines of our lives to finally intersect, placing us in the same place, at the same time. As it turned out, when I was growing up in Los Angeles, my father never lived more than six miles away from me and my mom.

The layered and complex narrative behind my one and only family portrait is what makes it so priceless to me. It represents the culmination of the steps I took as a man to find my father and fill the holes in my origin story.

But my photo also reminds me of something else: the important role dads play in documenting family life.

From camcorders in the 1980s to the camera phones of today, I’ve witnessed fathers joyously capture everything from baby christenings and weddings to family holidays and exotic vacations. The technology of this digital age allows us to snap scores of photos and video clips with the press of a thumb and edit (or delete) them on the spot. At times, we have to remember to simply live in the moment instead of fussing over how to get the perfect shot or angle, something I’m totally guilty of myself.

All I ask is that you fit as many people into the frame as possible—mothers, sisters, brothers, grandparents, cousins, good friends and, last but not least, yourself. There will no doubt be one photo in the bunch that will come to mean the world to your loved ones, today or years from now.

Don’t let it take 46 years to make.

EDITOR’S NOTE: City Dads Group is working with longtime partner Dove Men+Care to create “how to” videos for the grooming products company’s “Dads Care” campaign. We will be featuring the videos and scripts our members appear in. This one features Flor Mercado of our Orlando Dads Group, with a little help from his daughter talking about co-parenting while social distancing during the pandemic.

Co-parenting can be a struggle sometimes and, let’s be honest, adding social distancing to it can bring up even greater challenges. For those unfamiliar with co-parenting, it is when a mom and a dad live in two different households and still do everything possible to take care of their child.

Take care errands when your child is away

When my daughter is with me for the week, her mom takes care of all her grocery shopping, any post office runs, doctor visits — anything that would involve her leaving the home and coming in contact with others. That way it keeps all of us safe and her out of harm’s way. Next week, I will basically do the same on my end.

Keep others away

Another precaution we take is to eliminate visits from family and friends. Although we love them and we want to see them every day and as much as possible, we have put that on pause for now. We instead utilize video calls, sometimes multiple times a day. This, again, is keep both households and ourselves as safe as possible and away from any potential threats or viruses that we may encounter.

Quarantine when necessary

Sometimes life happens and we may have to come in contact with others. In that case we do quarantine ourselves for 14 days. Even though this is outside of our routine schedule, sometimes it has to be done to ensure the safety not just of our daughter but also for us, her parents. We don’t want to be transferring things from one house to the other so a 14-day quarantine is something that we do for ourselves just to make sure.

Photo: © Satjawat / Adobe Stock.

Editor’s Note: Orlando Dads Group co-organizer Flor Mercado spoke at the recent Dad 2.0 Summit as a featured “Spotlight” reader. He read this piece advising divorced/single fathers raising children, especially daughters, to the audience in Washington, D.C. A version of this piece first appeared on his website Dad Style 99.

Getting divorced is something no one plans on when they get married. Having a child in that marriage adds a whole different level of challenges. This is a difficult step for either parent to go through. All you can do is hope to have a civil, respectful relationship between the parents and equally provide for the child.

I couldn’t find myself to be without my daughter and I couldn’t take her from her mom. If both parents are present, then that child needs both parents. Co-parenting is a lot more work, but the focus should only be on the child.

Raising a child isn’t a walk in the park. Raising a daughter, though, opens dads up to a world where we aren’t experts. It can be terrifying. You can feel lost and clueless. There are things that you need to know as a parent and also things your daughter needs to learn as she becomes independent. Here are some of those things I have found important during this journey.

Learn and teach

I knew my daughter would go through changes, as a girl, that normally her mom would help her understand and teach her right from wrong. As a single dad, I needed to learn these things. How to brush and style her hair. The importance of female hygiene. How to generally be a lady. The steps to becoming a big girl. These are things dads’ usually do not have to learn. In my case, I needed to do my part when my daughter was with me so she doesn’t only learn this in mommy’s house.

In addition, teaching her to be a problem solver helps her become independent. Now, I do have to get better at this as I’m by her side with every lost direction and every fall. Allowing her to think of how to get herself out of a problem, get herself up and brush off the dirt will help her to be more of a leader in the future. Giving her small chores will give her a sense of responsibility, making her feel like she’s a big girl and included in the household. Kids usually want to do everything and anything, so use that to your advantage. It will help you with time and help your children sharpen those skills.

Family

My daughter knows her immediate family consists of herself, her mom and her dad but the concept of an extended family is made difficult when the parents are no longer together. It’s up to mom and dad to bring this important value to their daughter’s life even though they are living separately.

I make sure I involve my family with my daughter and her mom does the same with hers. Having the support of the women in each of our families and each other’s close female friends is definitely great to have when raising your little girl. Having a role model outside of the parents is not a bad thing.

If either parent chooses to move into another serious relationship, then practicing good family morals is just as important. This new person has to care for your child the way you would. The other parent should not interfere with this relationship because that will affect your child, often negatively. As long as no parent puts their child in harm’s way, there’s no reason for the other to interfere.

Her knight in shining armor

We fathers want to be the man in our daughters’ life. It’s important to be involved, to listen, and have open communication while at the same time, letting go and letting her be independent. My daughter is 7 years old and I’m not completely letting go completely any time soon, but it’s probably a good idea to start. Giving her that trust and responsibility will help our relationship grow stronger over time. I want her to learn that she needs to be respected and deserves nothing but the best. To be honest, that’s all I really want. At the end of the day, I want her to know I will be there for her no matter what. When the conversation of “boys” comes up, she will know how she should be treated.

My journey of raising a daughter has been very eventful so far. There have been some extreme challenges, some great lessons, and some most memorable moments. What I want to say to other single dads is: keep your head held high, learn as much as you can, make time for your little ones and teach them what you learn. But most importantly, show them love in everything you do. You are the GREATEST DAD EVER! Don’t let anyone take that away from you.

Raising a daughter photo: © OscarStock / Adobe Stock.

“How much does a divorce cost?”

I asked myself this when my wife was pregnant with our second child, Justice. I even Googled this very question. I don’t remember what the answers were, but I knew they weren’t for me. A divorce was going to cost me money, a divorce was going to cost me time, and a divorce was going to cost me my family.

When my wife was pregnant with our first child, Journey, pregnancy was a new experience for both of us. It was such an exciting time. I was all in and completely connected with the entire process, from the second my wife’s said “I’m pregnant” all the way through the birth.

I once heard someone say the devil does everything he can to get you in the bedroom before you’re married and everything he can to keep you out of the bedroom once you are married. I also heard someone say the biggest intimacy killer in a marriage is responsibility. The more responsibility you have, the less time you have to focus on being intimate. Many couples with young families fall prey to this intimacy killer without even realizing that their relationship is slipping away. We didn’t want to fall prey to that.

Before our struggle became too great, we started seeing a marriage counselor. This turned out to be very good for our relationship. So good, in fact, that we decided to have a second child. But as the second pregnancy progressed, I was a little less engaged than I was the first time around.

By this point, my wife and I had been married for nearly 10 years. I knew she had become a person, who, if she really wanted something, would tell me. I trusted she would let me know if she had a need so I could connect with her. However, I had disengaged to the point that I didn’t notice some emotions she was feeling during the second pregnancy.

I thought that I was all in. I made sure things were good with our first child, so much so, that I began to neglect what my wife was experiencing and feeling during her second pregnancy. It got so bad that at one point we sat down at the table and asked ourselves, “Do we want to be married?” That was a very difficult question to ask.

Relationship ‘staff meetings’ for marital status check

As a couple, we routinely have a weekly “staff meeting.” During this weekly meeting we check in with one another and go through a list of questions. The questions we ask each other include:

1. What are your biggest barriers to your relationship with God?
2. What are your biggest barriers to your relationship with your spouse?
3. What are the most serious temptations you’re facing right now?
4. What are your greatest points of vulnerability?
5. How can I help you the most?
6. Do I truly want what is best for my spouse?
7. Do I want my spouse to feel loved by me?
8. Does my spouse believe that I have his/her best interest in mind?
9. Does my spouse see me looking out for myself first, or him/her first?

This routine kept us on track for where we wanted to go as a couple and in our walk of faith.

Sometimes it would be a quick 30-minute meeting. Other times, especially during the second pregnancy, our meetings would last nearly two hours. During one of our lengthy staff meetings, I said, “Let’s ask ourselves this question. ‘If we got a divorce, what role did I play in the divorce?’” She would answer for herself and I would answer for myself. It was a difficult question because I said, “We know the obvious thing.”

The obvious thing was actually getting divorced. We were both talking about it and thinking about it. The conversation was intense. If we were willing to pay the cost and go all the way to the very end, we needed to know that we had thought everything out. So, we asked ourselves the “what if” question.

The next week we came to the table, my wife had a list of things that she knew she would be responsible for if we got a divorce. The answers she provided surprised me because there were things that I thought she felt, but I didn’t think she would ever say. Then, I shared what I thought I would be responsible for. It drew us closer. So close, in fact, that we realized divorce was not worth it. We recognized we were just in a tough spot. This is part of being married. I feel, from my personal experience, that marriage is one of the things that you just don’t do by accident. You do it by choice. You do it intentionally.

Each day I wake up and I choose to be married.  There are going to be certain things in life that cause me to know that I’m choosing to be married, not just the “getting by” type of married, but striving to have a flourishing growing marriage. I don’t want a marriage where my daughters are miserable watching their parents together. I want them to see two broken people coming together daily for the better good of what they believe that they can have and offer one another.

How much does a divorce cost? Too much for me to ever want to find out because I am not willing to make the sacrifice. These are the types of conversations that should happen in marriages when children are involved. They need to be asked, they need to be discovered and deciphered because, if not, it’s too easy to get blindsided by not knowing what your spouse is thinking or feeling.

Marriage is a constant routine of re-evaluating, tweaking and re-engaging. Sometimes hard questions in marriage have to be asked, and when they’re answered, the goal is to see the answers from my spouse’s perspective. In essence drawing us closer to becoming one.

How much would a divorce cost you?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jonathan “J.O.” Oliver is a personal development coach, motivational speaker, author and a stay-at-home dad. He is happily married to Dr. Saran Oliver and together they have two adorable daughters, Journey and Justice. Being diagnosed with the gift of dyslexia and ADHD has allowed him to see what is possible rather than feel limited by his condition. He has authored two books, Joy In The Journey: 1st Year Chronicles From A Stay At Home Dad, and Impersonations. His next book, To The Little Boy In Me: Learning with Dyslexia & ADHD will be released in spring 2019.

Heart on a string photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Successfully blending families through a new marriage requires a lot of patience with the all issues that arise for stepsiblings, stepparents, stepchildren and, many times, ex-spouses. When blending families also means blending races, as my family is, it becomes a balancing act.

My wife is white and I am black. From my previous marriage, I have three kids who are of mixed race, black and white. My wife has two boys who are white, also from a previous marriage. This creates a unique dynamic. While many people can forget the differences they see in other races and cultures throughout the day when they get home, in a multi-racial family like ours, daily reminders instead follow us home.

With so many events regarding race and civil rights in the news these days, my wife and I often find ourselves having either to inform or comfort our kids. This is complicated by their ages. Having two children in high school, one in middle school and two in elementary school means the level of questioning and understanding varies greatly. Coupled with the multitude of different cultural influences each has encountered – from extended family to the national media, our work becomes even more challenging.

Blending families, racial understanding

The key, we’ve found, is creating an environment of open communication and emphasizing that we are, at all times, a family unit. As difficult as these conversations are, we make sure our home is a place where our kids can safely ask honest questions and share honest concerns about racial tensions. We talk about how these issues relate to each member of our family and share how we see things from each of our own unique viewpoints.

But the complexity of having such a diverse family is also one of its greatest strengths. My kids joke about the “advantages” of being of mixed race: being able to conveniently identify at any given moment with whichever race suits their witty narrative. It is also equally interesting to watch my kids’ reactions to their stepbrothers as they relate observations about race from a perspective that my kids can’t ever really understand because, as much as my children like to joke about being white from time to time, they will never have a genuine Caucasian experience like those of their stepbrothers.

Our kids are fortunate to have the perspective of my wife as well. Having lived and worked in culturally diverse areas, my wife brings a broad and informed view of many issues and is particularly adept at helping our kids relate to things from both sides of those issues. Working in a law office, she can often bring to their attention scenarios of social inequalities that our kids hear about on TV but don’t have a tangible parallel to relate to in their lives.

Blending families, combating stereotypes

As for me, I feel fortunate to be involved in the lives of my wife’s sons as it gives me the ability to provide them with a positive black male role model, one who combats the images and stereotypes they may most often be exposed to in the media and pop culture. They see my passion as a father with my own kids. They know me as a person on an intimate level. They have a daily view of a successful, responsible and educated man who is dedicated to providing for his family, and is as dedicated to them as I am to my own kids, and who just happens to be black. I can think of few better ways to give back to society than providing a positive male example across racial boundaries.

Yes, we get some looks when we are out as a family. Then again, any non-mixed couple with five kids in tow would turn some heads. But we do love to see the wheels turning in people’s heads as they surely assume my kids could be mine and my wife’s, but the white kids, probably not so much. More often than not, we will have a good laugh about it when we get home. But most of all, we also like to use those moments as openings for further conversation with our kids about race.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sean Singleton is a husband, proud father and stepdad to five children. The Northern Californian resident combines his passion for fatherhood and design as the founder of The PopLyfe Shop, one of the fastest-growing lifestyle brands for dads. He spoke about blending families at a recent Dad 2.0 Summit panel. You can follow him on Facebook or on Twitter.

Blending families photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

I see what I want for my own children: always to have love in their lives … whether that be in a monogamous, lifelong relationship or whether their evolutions take them on journeys with multiple partners — or other forms I can’t even imagine.
_____________

I have been to a couple of weddings in the past few months. As one who has been married and divorced twice, I have felt myself wince each time when the couples pledged to be together for life.

The wince registers on many levels. An abiding sense of failure on my part, particularly with my second marriage. I have two sons, now ages 10 and 12, from that marriage, and I share custody with their mother. As I watch the boys go back and forth, with their own adaptive grace and resilience, I still think this is not the life I wanted for them.  I experience a sense of failure in not giving them the family life I wanted for them and I worry, and sense, that they miss this. And yet the wince is also that kind of knee-jerk reaction one has when witnessing something painful, like a car crash, that makes them turn away cringingly.

I am not writing a piece here about the impracticality of monogamy. Rather, I am thinking about what I want to model for my sons in terms of how they seek and enjoy love throughout their lives.

I have gained much from each of my marriages. I can’t call them mistakes; and if I think rationally about them, I’m not sure it is fair to see myself or the marriages as failures.

I entered my first marriage at the age of 22 as I headed off for graduate school. It lasted eight years and ended, in my view, because as my first ex-wife and I embarked on our post-graduate lives we discovered we wanted very different things. People can change quite a bit between the ages of 22 and 30. My second marriage, which lasted 12 years, ended more messily and its end took longer. Some time ago I behaved badly. We stayed together and worked things out for several years after that, and then she decided she wanted something else. While the end was painful and difficult, I have since come to realize I wasn’t getting what I needed in the marriage either. But I can’t really call it a failure or a mistake. The two sons I had with my second wife are the loves of my life, and fatherhood brings me much joy.

Endurance race or growth experience

My point is that each of these marriages gave me much, and I am happy to have had them both as moments in my evolution. They both helped me learn and evolve, and made my life better.

A good deal of the pain and difficulty of ending these marriages, I believe, is a product of the expectations set by the institution of marriage. The ceremonial ritual of marriage asks us to make a pledge to stay together for better or worse and till death do us part, even though statistics tell us more than half of marriages these days end in divorce. I know with each marriage I came out of, my self-esteem took a big hit. I felt bad about myself on some level because I was breaking a promise. To leave a marriage was an erosion of one’s integrity, a breaking of a promise, a welching on a commitment. The judgment from others, from society at large, is clearly felt.

But what if we didn’t have all of the expectations around marriage being for life — not to mention all the legal entanglements? We might be able to weave narratives of lives of loving that more flexibly and faithfully accounted for who we are and what we need as human beings. With that evolution of ourselves anticipated, we might engage in different relationships with people as we grow, change, and seek transformative experiences and be content in our lives.

The current love of my life, who also recently divorced after 27 years of marriage, likes to quote a friend who says, “What? Is marriage supposed to be an endurance race?”

More to the point, perhaps, are the words of a friend of mine. In counseling me through my second divorce, she suggested I think about how lucky I am that I had the experience of falling in love with great intensity — and fairly good longevity — twice in my life.

These words really struck me, and they came from someone who is now in her third marriage and has a great relationship with her now adult daughter from a previous marriage. Far from judging her, I admire the heck out of her.

And when I think about her words and watch her live her own life with grace, brilliance, self-confidence, and love, I see what I want for my own children. I want them always to have love in their lives, to be in a position to give and express it and to receive and be nourished by it. I want the love they experience to fuel them in all they do, to carry them to a greater sense of fulfillment of who they are and want to be. I want for them to be, in Neil Young’s words, miners for a heart of gold. As they live out the narratives of their lives of loving, I want them to have available to them forms through which to evolve as they love, whether that be in a monogamous, life-long relationship or whether their evolutions take them on journeys with multiple partners — or other forms I can’t even imagine.

Divorced or married: They are watching, learning, evaluating

While I have gone through personal struggles in my marriages and divorces, I try to model for them how to move on and find love. I am now in a relationship in which I am experiencing a love I never thought I could know. I find myself saying to myself and to her, “So this is love? This is what love is supposed to be. I have never felt this before.”

Her children are adults and have been having, seemingly, a harder time adjusting to her after getting divorced. My children, who were 8 and 10 when I divorced their mother, have adapted rather resiliently and almost seamlessly. Perhaps, at the younger age, their sense of reality and understanding of the social forms through which we live our lives are more malleable and fluid, in the process of being formed. They do not yet have a clear sense of a “norm,” or they are getting it from me.

I know they watch me. I know they learn from me and even critically evaluate how I live. So I want to show them how to love and be loved as I try to figure it out for myself. They are part of the process of forming a new and different kind of family. We are inventing our own environment of love.

The wedding I went to the past October I attended with my current love, who is once divorced, and a friend who is once divorced and now re-married to a woman in her third marriage. The friend also had a reaction like mine to the couple’s pledge to be wed for life, which I found validating.

And yet here we were, three people finding happiness and more love as we evolve and grow through life.

It would be hard to imagine not having the experience I am having with the woman I am with now and with whom I want to spend the rest of my life (if that’s not too ironic to say in this context).

Luckily, I don’t have to imagine that scenario. Instead, I would like to leave a legacy for my sons that allows them, gives them permission, to re-imagine themselves endlessly and to move through life lovingly and with love, recognizing that giving love and being loved, in whatever form, is the way to live life with most integrity.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Editor’s Note: City Dads Group is proud to occasionally feature writing from members of The Handsome Father, a support community that helps connect, prepare and inspire gay fathers. In this piece, Patrick Roth writes about letting his new husband into his daughter’s life.

I was a single parent during my daughter’s preschool years. It was a period of transition for us. We moved from the West Coast to the Midwest, contracted to build our first house and learned to live with the new dynamic of single dad and his little girl. I can remember tucking her in, reading bedtime stories and kissing her goodnight, only to wake the next morning to find a head of curly blonde hair on the pillow next to me. She would sneak in, ninja-like, in the middle of the night to crawl in bed with Daddy.

During that time, I was so focused on being a father that I didn’t give much thought to having a partner. I had learned to be content being single, was thrilled being a dad and totally absorbed in our daily routine. As these things tend to happen, I found THE guy when I wasn’t looking. He wasn’t looking for a partner either, and certainly not for an instant family, so naturally we fell for each other.

He knew I had a daughter from the beginning, but he didn’t meet her until he and I started to get close. I was very careful who I allowed in my child’s life. When they did meet, he was introduced as “Daddy’s friend.” She actually called him “Friend” for the first year or so. I knew he had potential because of how much they adored each other right away. Still, he didn’t spend the night until she asked if he wanted to come for a sleepover.

When we met, I had my own home and he had his. We were each established, stable and content with our lives. Neither of us wanted a “let’s live together” relationship and I wasn’t about to move someone in and let my daughter get attached to them unless I thought it was forever. We agreed that if we were to live together, it would only be if we decided to get married and commit our lives to each other. This was around the time that Canada legalized same-sex marriage. We married in a park in Vancouver with our adorable little flower girl at our side.

Pops enters the picture

Still, for the first few years together, she was MY daughter. While he was a fully committed and involved stepfather, all major decisions about her where mine to make. Even after she began calling him Pops, I had her long-term happiness and stability to think about. In my will, she would go and live with my mother if anything happened to me. At the time, she had known Grandma all her life, but Pops for only a couple of years. We knew that eventually it would be better for her to stay with him, but there were no set guidelines for when that would be.

After several years as a family, Pops asked to adopt her and officially be her parent. Coincidentally, the court date was set for the same day as our wedding anniversary. I remember him looking at me and saying “you realize this means you’ll have to start letting me make decisions for her too, right?” He’d tell you I still struggle with that.

We are 12 years into Pops being in our daughter’s life, more than twice as long she was alive before they met. We are completely and legally a family. He has all the same rights and responsibilities of a father as I do, but if I’m being completely honest, I will always think of her as my daughter. The time spent when it was just the two of us left a permanent and particular mark on my heart. I can never fully let go of that.

Now our family is even bigger. Pops and I jointly adopted a son last year. Even though I look back at my time as a single parent with warm memories of special times spent with Daddy’s little girl, I can’t imagine how I could have made it through the last 12 years without her Pops. I would certainly not have a son if not for him. His strength, compassion and commitment have been lifesavers for me and our daughter in so many ways.

That’s a funny thing about the human heart. No matter how full of love it is, there is always room for more. Me and my daughter became us and our daughter. Then it became us and our children.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Patrick Roth became a father in 1998. He lives in Austin with his family — husband Wade, daughter Julia and son Cephren.

I fly back to my hometown of Boulder, Colo., every Memorial Day weekend to run in its annual 10k race. While I’m sure the “Bolder Boulder” race began as an actual competitive event, it’s transformed into a mobile festival that winds through the city’s most beautiful neighborhoods. My husband and I have participated in it every spring since we first met. My daughter, now 14, started joining us later with this past event making it three years in a row the three of us ran together. It has become an official family tradition.

As a recently crafted family, we’ve been building these family traditions one ritual at a time. We celebrate the end of the week each Friday with burgers at our favorite restaurant. We have certain songs we now listen to each December when we decorate our Christmas tree. We hike up to our favorite scenic view spot every year on my daughter’s birthday. And now, every May, we run this race.

Some family traditions are tougher to maintain than others as we move further into my girl’s teen years. We used to play frequent card games together after dinner, but now she’d rather disappear into her room for the evening. We used to love to sing boisterously to the radio together in the car, but now she prefers to block us out with her own earbuds in the backseat.

But despite her growing independence and predictable self-imposed adolescent separation from us, my daughter loves running the Bolder Boulder with us.

She shouldn’t. It involves several things for which she has total disdain: athletic activity, getting up early, and being around people she doesn’t know. Anyone who knows her would expect her to detest a 10k.

And yet.

Family traditions start on your marks

On race day, we wake, stretch, eat a light breakfast, pin on our numbers, and have a relative drive us to the starting line where we join thousands of people — many in costume — eager to kick off their heat of the race.

My daughter grins ear to ear. Her mood is bright. She lets me take selfies with her as we get closer to our start time. She laughs at my husband’s jokes. She waves at the local TV news crews filming from the sidelines.

During the race itself, she maintains the attitude of a champion, as we alternate between running and walking, threading our way along a race course flanked by rock bands, belly dancers and Elvis impersonators.

She paces herself like a pro, never balking when we pick up a little speed at each mile marker. The girl even shows a rare willingness to high-five strangers on the sidelines who are out to show support. On race day, she puts away her teenage angst for a few hours and becomes this luminous, long-limbed gazelle girl with her ponytail streaming behind her, face shining.

I watched her this year, as our sneakers slapped the pavement together and we ran through town. This girl, my girl, who prefers to have most of our conversations lately with her closed bedroom door between us. This girl who can barely get through a sentence at dinner some days without a professional-grade Sarcastic Eye Roll. This girl who wouldn’t give me any details about her school day when she gets home if I held her at gunpoint.

Why does this race make her feel such open, unabashed joy?

It’s not the running. It’s not a need to compete. So … what is it?

I would ask her, but I don’t want to jinx it. (I tend to be the king of that: experiencing a nice moment with someone, and then ruining it with talking and questions and overanalysis.)

Plus, I don’t need to ask her. I think already know.

Her family structure was reshuffled several years ago, which is tough on any kid but probably especially so on one whose father divorced her mom, came out as gay and then remarried a man. But through all the changes she’s been through, my daughter knows she is surrounded by love and support. Even on her most temperamental day, she knows she has a father and stepfather who are with her, all the time, all the way. With her at the starting line, with her at the finish line. It’s true on race day every spring, and it’s true in her life.

This year, as always, we started our race together. We also finished it together, crossing the line at the end in the middle of a stadium with crowds cheering. As we did, I looked up and caught a glimpse of us on the Jumbotron screen: my daughter in the middle, her dads on either side, shoulder to shoulder, holding hands up high, cheering for our own victory.

It looked how it felt: good, strong, reassuring. It felt like something to be proud of.

That’s why my daughter loves the race.

I get it, of course. That’s why I love it, too.

Family traditions photo courtesy of Seth Taylor.