Every time I read a column on this subject it hits home. Hard. When you started writing you might not have known how "on target" and how universal your personal experience was, but I'm sure you do now. I would say that almost every person I know who grew up in some sort of split home can relate to your experience. Some were obviously much worse than others, but you wrote something that I think is essential to understanding the problem: "the intersection of our selfishness and our willingness to sacrifice for our children." Once humans have children they need to come to grips with reality: It's not about you any more. It's only about your children and I'm sorry, but parents OWE THEIR CHILDREN b/c the child didn't ask to be here, that was the parents decision. Now it's time to be the responsible adult. And as a child from a split home I'm sick of the excuses. To the dad's out there I have one thing to say: Stop whining and man up.
I was lucky as my mother was superwoman. She wasn't perfect, but as I've written before, I've been extraordinarily successful and have lived an incredible life and I owe it all to my mother. But there is still an empty spot where my father should have been and oddly enough as I've gotten older and had time to reflect on things in some ways I feel it more acutely now than when I was younger. I have a whole part of me that I'm just learning about, an entire family in Hawaii and some pretty cool heritage that I never knew anything about. So I'm learning and the more I learn the more I feel my dad's absence.
Your story and the honest and open discussion it has spawned is so important for our society and our culture. Thank you and keep up the great work.
Thank you for sharing your story with me. I'm glad my writings resonate with you. I'm hoping that this book can be a major tool to help heal people like us and prevent parents from making choices that destroy their children's prosperity.
Every time I read a column on this subject it hits home. Hard. When you started writing you might not have known how "on target" and how universal your personal experience was, but I'm sure you do now. I would say that almost every person I know who grew up in some sort of split home can relate to your experience. Some were obviously much worse than others, but you wrote something that I think is essential to understanding the problem: "the intersection of our selfishness and our willingness to sacrifice for our children." Once humans have children they need to come to grips with reality: It's not about you any more. It's only about your children and I'm sorry, but parents OWE THEIR CHILDREN b/c the child didn't ask to be here, that was the parents decision. Now it's time to be the responsible adult. And as a child from a split home I'm sick of the excuses. To the dad's out there I have one thing to say: Stop whining and man up.
I was lucky as my mother was superwoman. She wasn't perfect, but as I've written before, I've been extraordinarily successful and have lived an incredible life and I owe it all to my mother. But there is still an empty spot where my father should have been and oddly enough as I've gotten older and had time to reflect on things in some ways I feel it more acutely now than when I was younger. I have a whole part of me that I'm just learning about, an entire family in Hawaii and some pretty cool heritage that I never knew anything about. So I'm learning and the more I learn the more I feel my dad's absence.
Your story and the honest and open discussion it has spawned is so important for our society and our culture. Thank you and keep up the great work.
Thank you for sharing your story with me. I'm glad my writings resonate with you. I'm hoping that this book can be a major tool to help heal people like us and prevent parents from making choices that destroy their children's prosperity.