Ever wondered what makes a father truly irreplaceable in a child's life? In this episode of "Parenting with a Purpose," we uncover the critical role fathers play in shaping their children's futures. I, Donna Janel, dive deep into the heart of fatherhood with our special guest, Drew, who brings profound insights and personal stories that illuminate the necessity of active and engaged dads. We explore the unique challenges faced by single mothers and debunk the misconception that they can fully replace the role of fathers. Along the way, I share my own emotional journey as my daughter prepares to enlist in the Marines, highlighting the preparation and emotional resilience required for such significant milestones.
This episode goes beyond just discussing the presence of fathers; it celebrates their unique contributions to stability, discipline, and guidance. Imagine fathers as the foundation of a house or the wind that strengthens a plant—these analogies drive home the indispensable role they play. We emphasize the complementary nature of parenting, where both mothers and fathers bring their strengths to the table to provide a balanced upbringing. From tackling societal changes that have impacted family dynamics to examining how historical manipulations have disrupted family unity, we leave no stone unturned in understanding the pivotal role of fathers.
Lastly, we highlight the importance of building supportive communities, especially for black fathers who face systemic challenges. By creating positive messaging and accessible networks, we can empower fathers to break cycles of absenteeism and contribute more effectively to their children's lives. We also touch on the broader societal implications of strong family units, drawing lessons from historical figures and movements to showcase the power of collective action. This episode offers a rich, nuanced discussion on the authoritative role of fatherhood, making it a must-listen for anyone invested in the well-being and future of our children and communities.
Parents are the Bows and Children are the Arrows they will land wherever we aim them eventually!
Ever wondered what makes a father truly irreplaceable in a child's life? In this episode of "Parenting with a Purpose," we uncover the critical role fathers play in shaping their children's futures. I, Donna Janel, dive deep into the heart of fatherhood with our special guest, Drew, who brings profound insights and personal stories that illuminate the necessity of active and engaged dads. We explore the unique challenges faced by single mothers and debunk the misconception that they can fully replace the role of fathers. Along the way, I share my own emotional journey as my daughter prepares to enlist in the Marines, highlighting the preparation and emotional resilience required for such significant milestones.
This episode goes beyond just discussing the presence of fathers; it celebrates their unique contributions to stability, discipline, and guidance. Imagine fathers as the foundation of a house or the wind that strengthens a plant—these analogies drive home the indispensable role they play. We emphasize the complementary nature of parenting, where both mothers and fathers bring their strengths to the table to provide a balanced upbringing. From tackling societal changes that have impacted family dynamics to examining how historical manipulations have disrupted family unity, we leave no stone unturned in understanding the pivotal role of fathers.
Lastly, we highlight the importance of building supportive communities, especially for black fathers who face systemic challenges. By creating positive messaging and accessible networks, we can empower fathers to break cycles of absenteeism and contribute more effectively to their children's lives. We also touch on the broader societal implications of strong family units, drawing lessons from historical figures and movements to showcase the power of collective action. This episode offers a rich, nuanced discussion on the authoritative role of fatherhood, making it a must-listen for anyone invested in the well-being and future of our children and communities.
Parents are the Bows and Children are the Arrows they will land wherever we aim them eventually!
Thank you, we'll be you next time. Thank you, hey, everybody. Welcome back to panther with purpose. I am your host, the one and only donna janelle, where we strive to bring back the responsibility, nobility and beauty back into parenting. As you know, parents are the bows and our children are arrows, and they will land wherever we send them. It may not be today, news flash, it may not be tomorrow, and definitely it may not be today newsflash. It may not be tomorrow and definitely it may not even be in five years, y'all. We just don't know what time they will land, but eventually they will land wherever we aim them. As long as here's the thing as long as we close them with the right things and we give them the tools to be successful, whatever success looks like in their life. Because, honestly, if we don't close our children with the proper things, the world would dress them with anything, and we can see it now. What's going on in the world of how our children are being dressed with all types of things, right? So again, you know our job here is bring, have engaging conversations. We talk about what they don't want to talk about, right? So this week we are still talking and focusing on dads, all things dads, right.
Speaker 1:The last couple of weeks we talked about the role of a dad, the significance of a dad and how important it really is for dads to be in our children's life, to be active, right.
Speaker 1:Last week we talked about listen, I'm a single mom out here, but I'm not a father. So we talked about last week about not telling mothers happy Father's Day and all that crazy junk that's out here. We may be doing a lot of roles, but we ain't no fathers. I'm telling you, I've been doing this thing for over parenting for 25 years. Y'all 25. Heck, I've been parenting for 25 years. Don't look like it, I know, but I've been doing this single parenting thing for about 15 years and I ain't no by father and I know the importance of having an active father in their life. So tonight we talking again about that. The rest of the month Like we got another week that we're going to be talking about fathers but every guest on this month has been a father or we have talked about the role of a father. So this week we have Drew on the show.
Speaker 2:How you?
Speaker 1:doing. Hello, welcome to the show. And we're just going to get into it, y'all. We're just going to talk about the importance of a father. I get into it, y'all. We just gonna talk about the importance of a father. I'm trying to think do I have anything for y'all this week about my kids, what my kids do? Oh, it's been quiet on, they've been quiet, they've been very quiet, strange, even the one that touched my inner gangster y'all she's been real quiet. The only thing we working on is my daughter. You know she's going in the Marines. She's leaving in, uh, july. So we've just been working on getting her put together. You, you know, working out with her food prep and things like that and getting her mind together as she's going to Marines. One being a female going into one of the hardest boot camps there is right, 13 weeks boot camp.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, it's 13 weeks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so she's setting out to leave on July 22nd.
Speaker 2:And she's going during the hottest time. On top of that Paris Island is miserable during them months.
Speaker 1:Oh man, don't tell me that, because I'm already shot.
Speaker 2:It's good training, she's going to be. Alright, she's going to drink plenty of water. You see, I'm still here.
Speaker 1:I survived it. You did Paris Island.
Speaker 2:I sure did Yo. My God, I made it. I'm alive and well Still ticking.
Speaker 1:You're a dude. Now Still ticking. You're a dude now that don't matter, listen, she's been on the program, the police program, so she's been doing this for already a year. They've been having her do stuff ready, but I think the craziest thing, the worst thing I did, was the day of her I think it was the day of her graduation from high school, because she graduated from military academy I watched a YouTube of paris I boot camp. I was like I changed my mind never mind you're not doing that to my baby girl but listen, she's gonna learn a lot.
Speaker 1:She was crawling in the mud and people laying on her back. What's wrong? Yo, I was like at that point, I was like, never mind, I'll forget, I, I, I changed my mind, but she's so adamant and she's so strong.
Speaker 1:And you know this is the daughter where my sister and her husband passed away. So I adopted her and her sister from the situation. So I've been raising them for 10 years now. So she's already been through life and craziness without having two parents. So like she's like ready to go. A lot of people wanted her to go in the air force, or um I mean.
Speaker 2:So look the air force as far as quality of life, right, like if your goal is quality of life and just getting military under your belt and then using it as a stepping stool if that's your goal, then I mean I agree that the air force is a better deal, but nobody joins the air force. I mean nobody joins the Marine Corps, because, for the same reasons that you joined, like nobody's like, you know, I really want some good quality of life. Let me join the Marine Corps.
Speaker 1:Nah, that's not the way it works.
Speaker 2:Nah, that's what she said you join the Marine Corps for two things To prove something to yourself or to prove something to other people. And I really, really believe that both of them are intertwined for real.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right Because nobody looks at the Marine Corps and says like, look, this is the hardest one 13 weeks Right, First to fight, this is the best decision. Nobody looks at it like that and is like, oh nah. It's like oh, that's Mount Everest of military for the access of me, so can I climb it. It's more like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Can I do it? That's what it is. She's proving it to herself. She was like no offense to the other forces or whatever, but the Air Force, it's too bougie for me. She's just like I'm trying to get deep down in there. I'm like yo for real.
Speaker 2:But she already got the right attitude. Yeah Right, she won it and that's the real thing. Wise, she might even watch this right. Be wise, be prepared, be quick. They want speed, volume and intensity. Do everything fast, do everything loud and be intense, and then also just be prepared that it's going to be a transformation. You got to be prepared for that too mom.
Speaker 1:I know that's the part, that part right there, but you're going to be proud of her.
Speaker 2:I remember, I think, back looking at my mom watching me, she was proud. She, looking at my mom watching me, she was proud, right like she, like gleaming right, and nobody wanted me to go and I went, I joined the 06. So that was when the iraq world whoa, I was gonna say, that was so.
Speaker 2:People like nah and then also the other part of it, being a black man like I, had a lot of influence that was like nah, I don't do that but I so I needed two things I needed the structure right, and also the other part is I needed to know where I stood, whether I could do it or not. Yeah, I needed like it was more, like I needed to be able to benchmark myself amongst men, Like so, then it's going to be a good transition. So I grew up without my pops.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So, as a result of that being in the house growing up with my mom, my two sisters and I definitely had influences of of like, so I won. You know, my mom was married for like three years, so I had the influence on my step pops. I had a significant influence from my uncle, terry, okay, um and I also had a bunch of male cousins my brother, like I would go spend the summers with my brother. So I had, I had male influence, but not in house right so there was no real refuge for my, like, everyday life.
Speaker 2:I just had vacations right, okay, right, if that makes sense, yeah so my, my structure, my foundation was based on all of the teachings of my mom, so I didn't really know and I had no way of knowing where I fell amongst men. So the marine corps did something for me in particular that I really needed to do like. It helped me benchmark myself where I could see, like now. So now not only am I in the Marine Corps, but I'm excelling in this in this world.
Speaker 2:So, now I know I'm like, ok, so I could, I could do a little bit. So the Marine Corps helped me build my confidence as a man, right. The Marine Corps helped fill in the gaps where I lack structure Right. And I love my mom. So I love my mom, I adore my mother. I think she did a great job, but I also simultaneously understand that she did the best she could with what she had.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah. Fathers are very important and especially for boys.
Speaker 2:So the Marine Corps almost fathered me in a sense Wow yeah, and filled in those gaps where I had. So it was like it was a crash course in what I needed to do to be able to be a protector right, what I needed to do to be able to stand on honor and conduct myself in a manner where it's like all right, I got to be socially responsible, even though we really wasn't, because it's like being a college student you go to class, you follow the rules and you go home.
Speaker 2:But I also was still learning because I had a lot of examples, but fast forward, there's a lot of things I took from it. So, a lot of examples, but fast forward, there's a lot of things I took from it. So, when I tell you she's gonna be all right, she's gonna be all right, it's gonna be a transformation. It's gonna be intense. You're gonna see a different person right and then, depending on where her path takes her, she's gonna go through some emotional changes and and she's gonna have some some battles that she's gonna have to deal with. But it's all growth, right, and, in the end, the foundation that you gave her and then also, subsequently, the support that you need to give her, because that's what made the difference for me getting out Right, going through PTSD, and the transition of coming back to Drew from Staff Sergeant Olsen Right. That transition had to occur and it was based on my support system.
Speaker 1:So just support her, be there, love her Right.
Speaker 2:Whatever she needs, but she gonna be good.
Speaker 1:yeah, I keep telling myself that and the marine corps is gonna kind of dad her right, yeah, and that's okay. Yeah, it's gonna be intense and it's gonna stress you out and it's gonna stress her out too, right, but don't ain't that what dads do right kind of thing about it I never even looked at it as a as a dad point of view and I I knew she definitely wanted to go in to um to prove.
Speaker 1:I mean, she's already been through so many different things in life and challenges. You know, her dad died when she was six, her mom at eight, so she's already been through so much and she just felt like like she life hit her right so she's like I'm going in and this is what I want to do. And I'm like, oh, no, go to the air force girl. It's like no and um, so she's going in for, uh, engineering. She's able to go in for engineering, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:So she's gonna be at 13, she right now, she at 1300 and then, when she get it, get into the, the actual mct, and she finishes that, she'll get her specific where she gonna be, specifically at, and so she got an occupational field right now you know, as parents, like you, you try to figure out like the best path for your kids, like yeah.
Speaker 1:The path that they want, not your path.
Speaker 2:Okay, Because it ain't never going to be what you want In our mind as parents we're like this is what we want our kids to do.
Speaker 1:I'm a nurse. I'm like you got to get in the medical field or something like that, you got to be a lawyer, whatever. And she's just like nah, that's not for me. I'm like, okay, and earlier in my parenting, you know, with my 25-year-old, like I micromanaged her, I parent her to a point where I wanted her to do what I wanted her to do. But the other three younger ones like taught me very quickly like you got to let kids be who they want to be.
Speaker 1:Your job is to help them, to motivate them, instruction them and stuff Like not. Your job ain't for them to beat you and do exactly what you say you don't even own these kids, that's a fact.
Speaker 2:So they rentals, and not even a rental is more so like this is a bad word, but it's the first thing I could think of that applies. It's like a task. Right like you, your job is to prepare them. That's it. You can't live the life of them. You can't live it. You know you can't and you can't live your life vicariously through them no.
Speaker 1:So a lot, of, a lot of people, a lot of people try to do that and learn pretty quickly that you can't do that yeah I was one of them micromanaged moms like yo and then I was like this ain't working out, they ain't. You know, I'm getting frustrated because you ain't listening to me right, you know you ain't doing what I said, but, uh, the marine.
Speaker 1:I never looked at it as being a father for her, though, but that's pretty cool, because, um, you know even the whole time that her and her sister is at the military academy. They've been there, so she's staff sergeant right now, so when she goes in, she actually go in a different rank she's gonna be a contract pfc yeah so it's a little different, but I like that perspective.
Speaker 1:You, you just said that there's going to have father her too, cause that's what she desperately needs. Because, again, I'm not a father and I don't really have the male figures in her life that I would like to be able to. Kind of father her or I haven't, I'm not going to say I don't have a male. I just haven't allowed that, you know, to happen. I didn't like cultivate certain relationships so that she can have that male figure in her life. And that's why I tell moms like, first of all, being a single mom is not a flex. It is not a flex and it's so important for fathers to be in their children's life, or even that male figure to be in their children's life. So let's talk about the, the important role. Well, let's talk about the role of a father, right, and then the importance for it to be in the child's life, the family and community yeah, all right.
Speaker 2:So, um, I don't know. I got two analogies. The first one is going to be like a house, right, so I imagine a house like. The role of the father is the wood, right, the foundation, okay, yeah, and. And the structure, part of it. And then the mom brings in. When the mom come in in, now you got the walls, now the house is getting character. But I think that the fatherly role lies within the structure and the guidance, which comes to the next analogy where I want to talk about. So it's like when I started growing plants, I learned the value of wind to a plant.
Speaker 2:Okay, what happens is when it blows in the wind as it's blowing, it's breaking right yeah, the, the um, the base of the plant, whatever it is, it's moving and it's breaking and then it grows back more calloused and strong, right? The concept what don't kill you, make you stronger. It's applicable to people and plants, okay, right? So I think that a dad like our role is to, in addition to that structure, by preparing children for the real world, by giving them that like, like that smack of dose of reality, if you will right, like so, again referencing back to my mom, my, my sisters I love you.
Speaker 2:Y'all do an amazing job, right? But I also understand simultaneously, like because of how, like your delivery might come more. So it's like are you going to take into account a lot more of the emotional part? And I'm going to take into account, so, when your delivery is going to be, like based on, is this emotionally delivered in the right way and is it going to be perfected for my child, right?
Speaker 2:right, and that's amazing, right, but it's also not what the world is going to do for your child, right? So the dad is going to come with a perspective where there's going to be a smack of reality, right, and I'm not necessarily going to emotionally form it to be fit for you, but instead I'm going to give it to where it's going to make you fit for the world wow right.
Speaker 2:So I think that, in the role of parenting, you can consider a dad like the wind right, like I'm gonna put that pressure on you, right, because that's my job, and from that pressure, which the marine corps is gonna do from her, that child gonna learn confidence, right, they're gonna learn discipline, they're gonna be structured and they're gonna have a a more it provided that the mom is there and impactful, instead of like, if they're fighting, then now it's an average effect. But if y'all could work together in harmony, whether it be like you're in a two-parent household or you're in a co-parent relationship, both of them roles are essential, because if you just got the dad, then you got a house and it's there but ain't no walls and it ain't no character, right, and that's the real truth. Yeah, I don't know how to build out walls and all that. That's not my role. The most high ain't put me in that, right, but what I do know how to do is get that foundation going and get that structure going Right.
Speaker 2:And it comes intuitively to me. My children respond differently to me than they respond to their mom and I think the analysis is because of that, because you, because mothers, your role is to make sure that it's packaged in the manner that it's supposed to be delivered and tell her, for your child, sense of identity, sense of process and emotion, all of that is very important. It's imperative for a child. So y'all's role is is equally as important, right? But if you have all of this and you don't have the structure, then you really got like you ever seen them little joints where you roll by and they got the air in them and they just blow all around.
Speaker 2:Yeah, now you got a you got something there and it's good and it's whole and you can see it, but it don't got the structure it's blowing all over the place.
Speaker 1:It's trying, but it can't really produce what it doesn't, it don't have that it don't have that essential piece that it need so I joined the marine corps to get that essential piece.
Speaker 2:So I can now stand up like the structure I needed to be. I had all the right parts, I had all the the walls and everything was in there, nice and designed again.
Speaker 2:My mom did an excellent job, but what she couldn't do was she couldn't apply that life pressure to me right and she couldn't separate her love the way she loved from me in a manner that I needed it, so that way I could receive stuff in the way manner that I needed to survive in the world Right. And she just couldn't do it and that's okay. Everybody played their own essential role. Again, the most high knew what he was doing when he implemented that balance.
Speaker 1:So I think, that.
Speaker 2:That's the role of fathers.
Speaker 1:Yo, that is so true because I was telling Ceezy and other people I seen a TikTok right and it's like a complex. It was like all these TikToks on there and there was parents like the mom was telling the child, even down to a toddler right. The mom was like, lay down, do this and do that, and the kid is just laughing at her, like you know. The dad walking around, he had to raise his voice or not. He just walking and said what did your mother say?
Speaker 1:And the kids lay down from toddler all the way up to like 13. Whatever the situation was, it was them.
Speaker 2:I say yo like literally you straighten up when you know that there's a man there like the power and authority and not in a way that, oh, this person's gonna help hurt me, but you know that this person is here to love me, protect me and all that and in in return, your response is I want to be better, I want to, I want to function better, I want to like that, that, that presence, like you said, that authority, it, it keeps you like within, like boundaries, like do bounds, but but to be able to be upright, not to be confused with like boundaries of keeping you closed in because that's backwards, right and when. When I was young, drew skin, I didn't really understand, right, I was more of a. I need to keep you in in this right, like I need to keep you boxed in boundaries because I would. I had intuition but not understand it right right so now fast forward.
Speaker 2:Like you said, you've been through the ringer and I've been through a couple ringers, right, so now you get through the ringers and then you. Now I learn like now it's like my role is still there, like I'm supposed to be there as those margins of the boundaries, but it'd be. It needs to be more like guidance than than like a, a encasing where I can't box you in. I just got to guide you, guide you, yeah.
Speaker 1:I think that is so important, cause when you know, even when you talk to like um fathers, or even like, you have that father, right, that's that. That that's super disciplinary, but more of a military structure where there is no attachment, there's no like. Even the emotional piece is like not even there, um, it's more like this is what I said, do this is what you're going to do.
Speaker 2:There's no relationship there that was me when I was on active duty parenting. So my oldest baby she had. So she I mean now at this point I've been out nine years, she's 13, but her her initial experience of me was that that dictatorship?
Speaker 2:yeah, absolutely yeah, so at this, at this point, when amani was born, so I joined the marine corps in 06. Amani was born, so I joined the Marine Corps in 06. Imani was born in 2011. So at this point, I've been in five years. I'm a sergeant. I got people under me, okay.
Speaker 1:Right, Like I'm invested.
Speaker 2:I'm locked in Right and then boom, now I got a baby Right, and then by the time she's old enough to where she can respond. Now I'm a staff sergeant sergeants that work for me.
Speaker 1:I'm, I'm institutionalized, right gotcha.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah so you supposed to take off your uniform at the door of the house right and then go into your house as the man right? That's the philosophy that you're supposed to do tell that damn amygdala.
Speaker 2:That because they don't understand, right, because emotions and trauma maintains in there, right? So, even though I tried the best I could to shed the military part when I came home, it's kind of hard to be stashed on a notion from six in the morning until 5 pm and then get home at 530 and then yeah, now I'm just Drew, yeah, and I'm even in the military.
Speaker 2:Okay, right, right so. And then, because I didn't have the emotional skills, right because? So I grew up in trauma, unfortunately, right. So I didn't really get the scent through maslow's until I was able to to heal a little bit, right so I didn't learn how to have any emotions other than excited and anger.
Speaker 2:Wow, yeah, I can say yeah, yeah so I was a grown man figuring out this large scale of emotions like legitimately grown man, like in my 30s. Right, because you don't have the capacity to do that while you're on active duty either because your mission is different. Right, you're in the military.
Speaker 2:Your goal is not to be emotionally whole right now as a matter of fact it could be argued that an emotionally whole person on active duty is going to struggle a little bit. Yeah, right, because now you got all of your attention pulled in a whole bunch of different ways where you really need to be laser focused. Right, so it's competing interests. So not making excuses because you're still accountable for it, but yeah.
Speaker 1:I was that dictator, that I was. Yeah, and I think sometimes what we see is like a lot of times is um one either their father was a dictator, that like you say if a person didn't go to the military.
Speaker 1:But honestly, in this world it seemed like you're in the military, you're fighting a war out here, like a lot of our brothers are out here fighting a war, and the same way you just said that in the military right you staff sergeant, uh nelson, you had to come home and try to take the hat off.
Speaker 1:I feel like a lot of men, uh, from what I've seen and growing up in the state of chester, like they out fighting the war outside right and then try to come home and try to take that off, so that the way you just broke that down just gave me a little bit more understanding, a different perspective of why a lot of men aren't emotionally involved in their children or relationally more of a dictatorship.
Speaker 2:Because it's like I don't fought the world and it's hard for me to put, especially if I didn't know this and didn't see this before so let me add a little bit more clarity to that too, because now that you said that, that reminded me of a conversation I had with their mother. So so fast forward. In addition to me learning this range of emotions, now I gotta go backtrack and I'm like, damn bro, you was, you fucked that. Oh, I'm sorry you messed that up. You messed that up. So now I gotta go take accountability. So part of that process of taking accountability, um, one of the things I came to, the understanding was like trying to understand why. What was the issue with me? Why is it that I was such a dictator, right? Why? Because because you could. You could label it like oh, is this?
Speaker 1:right.
Speaker 2:But everything got a reason.
Speaker 1:Everything has a root.
Speaker 2:So what it came to was was that my life was so chaotic outside of the walls. I tried to create this peaceful, serene space in the home, but I was willing to do it by any means necessary, that's. That's a little backwards young boy thinking right, um, but so that ended up being a why bite? So, like our, our natural thing. We want to have our resolve, we want to have our calm we want to find balance, yeah right, and so my lifestyle depicts that I'm. I'm taking things by force, if you will right because it demarcates aggressive culture right like I don't.
Speaker 2:I didn't ask my marines to do stuff, it wasn't. Hey, do you guys mind if right it was? Like hey, go get that thing and get it over there quick. Right, it was very autocratic, so that's Right. And again, it's not easy to just turn it off, right? So that was the foundation of how I started. But then, like you said, you learn real quick that this don't work because our kids are humans Absolutely.
Speaker 2:So now you got to realize that, you got to figure out all right, how can I create this space that I need for balance, because this world is chaotic and I do need to understand that there's two different worlds, right? So what can I do as a father? What can I do as a man to get that space where it's like, all right, I can get into the mental space of being a parent and I can check it. But I also got to be aware of it to happen in order to do it. So I think what would help is, or what could help in general.
Speaker 2:That's why spouses are important too. Right, right, like you gotta have a solid spouse that can they know you and see you and say like, hey, listen, like you're not, you're not communicating well, or you're not progressing in this area where you should like this, where you lacking that, like call you on it, be that mirror. So now I can understand it's a problem. Because if you don't have somebody explain, that can explain it to you or show you like this problem is happening, then it's real easy to think that, oh, it ain't a problem, because if your results based because what's wrong with it?
Speaker 1:right, yeah, it's working it's doing it.
Speaker 2:So the way to get out of that, I think, is two things right. So one, we just need to be made aware of it, and then two, like what I learned is like take your time out, take that that time before you go in, to go somewhere, to decompress, and then refocus on what your goal is. So if your goal is create a peaceful, safe space, then put that in the front of your mind.
Speaker 2:Pray for that before you walk in the house. So that's what your focus is. But I didn't understand all of that before. But again, why dads are important? Because now I can walk this path and then now I can communicate that to my children as well.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Yeah, I think that that is that is so true. I had a gentleman on here, like I think, last year or whatever, and he was talking about really, um, decompressing before you go in the house you know how important it is because you know again, you, you have so much weight on you right yeah and you want to be able to parent effectively, like we don't.
Speaker 1:you know, I know I don't believe in parenting. Mother and father, just titles. These are lifestyles. This is what we live, right, right. So how do we do it effectively? Because, you know, a lot of times, what we see now is that, because we didn't heal our wounds, we're now bleeding over our children, right. So now we're having to go back to heal ourselves.
Speaker 1:So then, therefore, we don't have a transfer to our children and it becomes transgenerational now versus just, you know, not doing it just because my mama did it, my daddy did it, my sister did it, my aunt did it, and we don't even know why they all did it. They don't know why they did it and not just accepting, I think the world that we live in now with our children, though, they're not accepting stuff like we did back in the day.
Speaker 2:Right, they question everything Because they have more information available to them. Yeah Right, we grew up in silos, almost Like all of our environments was controlled all the way down to. Tv Right, like, if you remember in the 90s or what?
Speaker 2:early 90s, when Congress passed a law to where they no longer regulated what could be put in music and all of that right. That's when they changed, and that's the same time as the internet boom and start popping. So there was a shift. But you remember the early 90s and before, yeah, the sitcoms that was on it was so clean.
Speaker 1:It was like everybody you know the huxtables and stuff like that a lot.
Speaker 1:Even just even growing up they were just solid families, that that you could kind of look up to it, even though you knew this wasn't your family, but this is what you could hope your family could be. So what do I need to do to produce this type of family? Then the shift came and it's like free fall. Listen, you can live how you want to live, I live how I want. It's my business, right, and that's what kind of literally changed the trajectory of parenting. Really too, absolutely and then I was talking to my friend.
Speaker 1:He was talking about today about because we were talking about discipline, right and um, I was telling him what we're talking about the show tonight and we we were talking about um, because what happened was somebody. Somebody stole packages off his apartment on the step. Like you know, kids they go around not even just kids, though, adults, so they stealing packages. And um, and he was. He was just basically saying that that, um, the kids need to get butt kicking and it's these parents. And I was like listen, we had a conversation like this on bible study last night about parenting, because I believe that if we don't give our parents the tools to be able to parent properly, we're doing a disservice to our community.
Speaker 2:For sure.
Speaker 1:Because the first thing that happens to our kids is the parents' fault, right?
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Which I mean we're raising our kids Like we should, but at the same time, if the parents grew up, you don't know better. If you haven't seen better, you won't do better. If you don't know better, you can't do better, right? So if we don't get into, I was like, yeah, the parents you know those kids is probably is definitely a result of the parenting, but the parents is probably a result of their parenting and their parenting. So I understand that we gotta get on our parents. But can we help the parents? Can we show the parents how to actually parent properly? Because if you don't know, you don't know.
Speaker 2:You think it's normal for you to be smacking your son in the back of the head. That was me.
Speaker 1:Cursing your son out. That was me.
Speaker 2:Like spankings was very normal to me, right Like this was a decision I made where I'm like all right, let me get out of this spanking thing. My last time I got it, the last time my mother put her hands on me, right, I was 15. So, to put it in perspective, this, that's just normalizing all across my whole family.
Speaker 2:I have one cousin, one that I've, that I remember from when we was younger has always consistently like nah, spankers are trash. That's like slave mentality, and when I heard him saying that, I'm like yo, you crazy yeah right, nah, he's not crazy, no nah, he's not crazy at all. Nah, he's not crazy at all, because how are you going to teach your child not to be violent by using violence?
Speaker 1:By using violence. You know what, when I started doing like parenting, I didn't. It's two things to this situation I think about now that I've been in there for a minute. When I first started parenting, I never wanted to be like my parents because I was mishandled. I was mishandled, I was fumbled, so um, what abuse and things like that. So the way that I looked at it is that I wasn't going to hurt my children and I felt like physical was going to hurt them.
Speaker 1:So I figured out a way to parent where I didn't have to physically discipline them, like punishment and things like that. And that worked it really did. And so, uh, these last three right here, the first one it worked for, you know, and the other ones it worked for until they became teenagers, see, that's the thing.
Speaker 1:So then I start saying, well, there's such a thin line between what you should do and what you shouldn't do, because I felt like I did so much for them and their discipline was me, you know, maybe taking something away. And I felt like, when it was like 14 and 15, I'm like man, I should have whooped your tail, man. Because I feel like this stuff is coming back to me. But actually I'm still thinking about it, because now that the one she's 18, I didn't have to beat her. I didn't do any of those things, but she turned out to be a well-rounded child. What she did used to say to me though won't you just beat me? I was like what? Because her mom and her dad and my sister this is what we grew up as right. So when my sister was alive, her discipline was spanking her kids. So when I got her at eight, she did something wrong. She immediately thought I was supposed to whoop her. I was like, no, we don't do that around here, we don't do that. But it took a long time for her to even get that out of her mind. So sometimes we think that, um, so I was telling him. I was like there's a there's a line between abuse and discipline and I think the problem is because a lot of parents are emotionally unstable, that it goes over to the abuse side quick and then you're very quick and then when you're left, let held in a bag, like, well, now I'm in jail because I hurt my kid, just any other mistake taken away, but it's because you crossed that line. So I was telling him. I was like so one of the things that I tell parents when I coach parents, it's like don't do it while you're angry, while you're upset, don't don't even have the conversation while you're upset and angry. Because you know when you're angry, stuff come out, stuff say stuff. You be calling people. I said I was so angry with my kids one day Again, this is where I realized I don't own my kids.
Speaker 1:They teenagers, 16 to 18. And I kept telling them to clean the kitchen, don't leave this there, don't do this. I'm like that's all I ask you to do is just clean the bathroom yourself. They didn't clean up after themselves. And I came to the house.
Speaker 1:I was driving four hours from school one day and I was just so emotionally wrapped myself that when I came in and I saw them didn't do what I said. I was so upset. I started screaming and yelling at them, throwing pots and pans on the floor, like I had an adult temper tantrum at 43 years old. It was so much in me. But what I did was I caught myself because I start feeling like my mom. I start feeling like seeing things that I saw before.
Speaker 1:So, instead of because words have power, so, instead of telling my son you lazy, I was like, you got lazy tendencies and I don't like these lazy tendencies. Like, instead of telling him something that he's not like, you're not lazy, you just choose the wrong path. Right now, you, you, you making the wrong choice. So you have lazy tendencies. And I went upstairs in my room and I cried out to God because I never wanted to be that angry parent and everything. So I went upstairs, I cried to God and I came back down. I apologized to my kids. My kids told me there's no need for apology. You was upset, you had the right to be upset and I said I did have the right to be upset. However, how displayed that anger was wrong.
Speaker 2:That's right, because I don't want actions that you were apologizing for, not your emotion.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was like because if that's teaching you guys that you can behave that way, right, that's not appropriate.
Speaker 2:That's not acceptable.
Speaker 1:So we have to be able to control our emotions, be able to get our point across without showing that type of anger. So, although you guys forgave me for whatever you forgive me for, but I'm apologizing to you as a mom that that was out of order.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And a lot of parents. We don't take that responsibility. I said what I said. I did what I did Right.
Speaker 1:That's horrible and you better listen. So I think, as and also as a father in the house, like that whole structure would be different. And I'm not shortchanging single parenting again because, listen, I've been doing it, listen y'all my kids are doing well. However, I do understand the importance of the authority in the house, because if I got to tell my kids something five times and then you come in there and tell them one time, like I'd rather you come to them one time. But let me stick to the emotional portion of it how to do certain things, like you said, put these walls up, dress these curtains and stuff and you handle the tough stuff.
Speaker 2:Making it a house? Yeah Right, well-rounded.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that is so important. And we just, you know, in a community we see a lot of children quote unquote acting out of order and we wonder why they're acting out of order and the first thing they always say is what does a household look like?
Speaker 2:Right, because they want to find out if the father is present. That's the trick way.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So what do we do? What do we say? How do we get men to understand their importance, do we? How do we get men to understand their importance? This in spite of, in despite of, however their relationship is with the mother. Because I hear, when I coach men and I tell them listen, use the course the woman, use court system against you, use them. Because a lot of guys who I talked to said well, she won't let me do this or she won't let me.
Speaker 2:I always say that go get, go to the court, because no judge will deny you access to your child, which means that no woman can exactly right so, but a lot of men don't do that. I don't know why. It's messaging right. So, in the same way that the messaging is what was used against us to break us apart as families, right because that's what it came down to was messaging right this concept of an independent black woman. Right, that was created and it wasn't an internal.
Speaker 2:We didn't create that, we was taught that right, absolutely and the messaging there where it's like all right, I don't need a man and I don't need my father, right, because of the absence. Now this came as a result of the absence, right? Um, but just in the same manner that that messaging taught a generation of people that that they't matter in their role, we got to reverse the messaging and it's happening now Like I'm seeing it now, right, like I think you know, the pendulum is swinging. Now people are starting to see like all right, we've been on this no dad kick for like 20-something years and now they're like all right it's not working, it's not working so let's.
Speaker 2:I think it's the messaging we got to, how we communicate. So, like you're doing right now, like when we talking about the importance of dads right, we need to have that conversation on a larger scale. It's part of that. As a matter of fact, this Saturday it's happening at harris dr o oh yeah, so he approached me.
Speaker 2:I just met dr o um through a brother, tom, outlaw and um, they approached me about doing a parenting workshop and the concept is is amazing, right? So it's just a group of fathers who are active and involved, looking to create basically like a support group in the network of passing on information and then growing it by inviting people. So I think that a lot of men, especially black men, don't have the the social spaces like women have to, where y'all can communicate and ask questions and learn about asking the details right. Like you, I'm sure if you had your mom and your aunties around, you've been in that social setting, having them conversations and them communications from way back as a young age. And I can assure you that them social settings don't happen with dudes, and the very few times that they do happen and when I mean very few times that they do happen it's focused on very useless stuff, to put it right, like nothing, like there's not an exchange of valuable information, it's more like junk talking, which that's cool and it serves its purpose.
Speaker 2:right, if you're trying to toughen somebody up, and that's important for that part of it. But that part of where where we're sharing resources and communicating so that people his age can understand and learn that as a man, it's okay for you to be able to communicate as well as protect, right? You know what I mean. Both can be true. That can be changed through messaging, but then also through them, social groups.
Speaker 2:So I like what Dr O is doing building out social group because then that's gonna start teaching a group of people and then each one could teach one and we could change it, because we we've been Miseducated, right, and we've been shut out of resources and things to make us successful, and then, on top of that, our people have been systemically attacked to make us politically weak and economically weak, right. So, in spite of all of that, we still here and now. We got to do the best, and history has showed us that when we have been most successful is when we did it on our own within our own Right.
Speaker 2:So I think that this thing that Dr O is doing is dope, because now that this is where now we create solutions internally, but while also building out systems and structures that could be perpetual, because now every dude that comes and attends to that meeting now has a concept of what they need to do, and they can take that same concept and do it elsewhere absolutely, and then they can just grow exponentially I think that's awesome because, like you said, like there's not spaces like that right, it's not it really isn't the space that we talk about.
Speaker 1:Honestly, when we talk about black men, it's always aggressive, negative and um and it's sad, even even when it comes to parenting. We talk about the lack, of you know, instead of how do we right help, how do we bring them to understand that? What is creating a safe space for men? Because you know, I know, men don't want to be a pair of weak right right. But showing them that that's not even a weakness if you parenting properly, if you if you're taking care of your emotional needs, your physical needs.
Speaker 1:that's not a weakness, that's a strength.
Speaker 2:It's not. But we taught that showing emotion is weak. So again it goes back to the messaging Right, Because really the true understanding is that if you could show your emotion and manage it Right, that's the key. Managing your emotion takes far more strength than responding with aggression. I promise you from real life experience this is hard. It's easy to yell and fight.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's simple, it comes almost naturally right.
Speaker 2:But containing myself through that emotion is still thinking and still making conscious decisions that are impactful positively and that are constructive as opposed to destructive behavior. Because I'm angry right, maintaining that through my emotions, it's hard yeah, I just thought about something that's strength.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's strength, right there I just thought about something we, when we talked about um, like the emotion I think about because we we look back in slavery days, right, yeah and we look when you, when you. The way that slavery is depicted is that you know, the master tried to weaken the man right humiliating him in front of de-masculating in front of women and then had the women lose respect for that man because they weren't able to provide protect for that family right.
Speaker 1:So then that's when the woman began to have more of a voice because of that, and I just thought about like wow, and it's a significant shift in the balance. Yeah, right yeah, I just thought about that. I mean like how, like when we think about how, how did this happen? Where did it come from?
Speaker 2:because even when we look like way deep back in the days, like the men had like the powerful position in the family but then slavery came around, and then they got the message, you know so there was a book that started selling by a gentleman if you can call him that, by a damn demon by the name of Willie Lynch. Right, right, you familiar.
Speaker 2:Mm hmm, so that Willie Lynch went across the South selling his books and methods and techniques for profit on how to break a slave for generations? Right, and a lot of the practices that you just spoke of where they would demasculate the man in front of everybody, the biggest one, right, right, and the things that they did. They didn't even have boundaries, it was as bad they would rape him or do whatever right. But they fully understood that they would throw off the balance.
Speaker 2:Because it's like so, what God put together, let no man tear apart.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So the most high understood the importance of the balance of family.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2:So then now, during the 1800s, that time was wicked. It was like the wild, wild west for everything, right. So social scientists at the time time who was racist, white males? Started putting out media that they were calling science, right with these ideologies that were very racial, right so, but it was founded in science, right? So if you observe the human mind enough, then you can start seeing that individually we are very unpredictable, right, what you might do in this time, in this moment. Nobody would know what I might do. Observe the human mind enough, then you can start seeing that individually we are very unpredictable, right, what you might do in this time, in this moment. Nobody would know what I might do in this time, in this moment, nobody would ever know. But if you look at your life overall and you look at my life overall, in the collective of everybody else lives overall, we're very, very, very predictable right right.
Speaker 2:We're only unpredictable individually in the moment, but overall, overall as a mass, we're very predictable. And because we're very predictable, they studied it and they understood on how to hack our brains and, more specifically, how to throw off that balance that God created Right. So, like you say, if you can convince a person who was designed to be with two right to function together. Right, because humans are social.
Speaker 1:It's in our core.
Speaker 2:It's in our DNA right. That's why, to torture somebody, you put them in solitary, because what you're doing is you're going against your core structure.
Speaker 1:That's intentional, it's psychological. Yeah, it messes with your psyche.
Speaker 2:We're designed by God to be social right. That's why you hurt us. You harm us by keeping us apart, right, so convince a person who's designed to be with somebody that they don't need their partner Bingo.
Speaker 2:Right, so that's what happened. Right? They take that concept and then they do all kind of manipulative things that have that same foundational characteristic that it's going to all intend it to break them apart, right? So if I can make the man not a provider, then he loses value. If I can convince the woman that she don't need him, he further loses value absolutely.
Speaker 1:And then?
Speaker 2:so now you got a divided unit right and now I can control the kids, why they fighting, and I can raise them up in the way that I want them to be right right. And then because they never saw a foundation of what this, this unit, is supposed to look like. How do they even aspire to it?
Speaker 1:absolutely, yeah, right wow.
Speaker 2:So they took this science and manipulated it and taught it to slave owners and implemented it on us live in real time real time and the the expected effects of it are playing out right now, today. Right, but there was an unintended consequence. I believe our people were so influential across the globe, right, because of our influence on how we are in the united states, it is spilled over into the society that they didn't intend it. So now you're seeing the same things that was implemented to break us.
Speaker 2:It's now spreading like cancer and it's destroying the society Right. So now they started out intentionally break breaking black families for political gain.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And now American families are broken for political gain.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And economic gain.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's. That's interesting you said that how it's playing across the globe, because I've been watching. I'm a history buff so I watch a lot of documentaries and I watch, you know, about the Holocaust, right, I watched about the Holocaust, but I watch it more about the Holocaust versus Hitler, like not Hitler growing up, right. So I was watching it. And the series on Netflix, a new series like six episodes. My friend had started watching it and it talks about how he grew up and how he was able to dominate his power, right. But then it also talks about which I didn't know, which kind of got to me. Is that a lot of his stuff he took from Jim Crow, like like the way that.
Speaker 1:Americans were treating Americans, he stole it it. He stole it and then start treating everybody else the same. And then we uh, that's something people don't talk about, that they don't talk about the damage that how, what we, what was done in slavery, has went across the world and people began to treat everybody a certain way, right and um, I thought that was very intriguing because I I was like, well, jim, wait a minute, how Jim can hit, I didn't even know that, but it makes sense.
Speaker 2:I mean because so we America does a great job at messaging right. That's what it all comes down to. That was another one of Hitler's greatest successes yeah, that he was able to organize and unite via messaging right. He put everybody in a uniform with a united identity and, more specifically, he united them based off of what he knew, like they all collectively had issues with this one group of people.
Speaker 2:So now let me rally these folks behind it, right so now that's the social sciences behind it, but then also the genius of the marketing right let me put them in a uniform, because because when you wear a uniform, you feel a part of something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you feel a part of something.
Speaker 2:So because that goes back to that social order, because that's how we was designed. God made us that way.
Speaker 2:You can't change it yeah right now there are significant effects, events that happen in our life. That does change it right. Maslow's hierarchy of needs preferences that right. So people go through traumas and then now they're cut off from emotional connections. They're emotionally immature. That doesn't make them less social, you still know they social because you see how they like so emotionally immature people. Still they're not sitting here isolating, right. They're still going out. They're just doing emotional damage while they're doing it absolutely yeah so it's crazy how they manipulate it.
Speaker 2:But it's also, once you learn it, you realize like we are very simple, as people like. Like we're not complex like we thought.
Speaker 1:Right, right yeah.
Speaker 2:It's very easy to pull our levers.
Speaker 1:And you know, I think this is a very important conversation because we always talk about the father not being in the house, but we don't talk about what happened for that father not to be in the house. And then how do we fix that? Like I'm a solution problem. Like all right, we know the problem is here, like lack of active fathers, but in order to get the solution, you got to know the root of the problem.
Speaker 2:I think we need to fix it by figuring out a way for our society, our black society, right, because I'm talking about our problems. Right, we need to mirror the social structure of the 1960s back Right. So humans have existed throughout history, right, on large scales, with a concept of community.
Speaker 1:Absolutely the Indians, the.
Speaker 2:Iroquois, the concept that we have that the confederacy came from they stole it from the confederacy of indian tribes right right yeah, the, the constitution that we, that we have today. I forget the philosopher's name that talked about it, right, but that spoke about coming from the concept of a unity through rome and all of that.
Speaker 1:But it also still incorporated montesquieu I think his name was, I think so.
Speaker 2:Montesquieu, but anyway. So I think we need to mirror that right. So the 1960s is the best one, because we're talking about now we know what life looks like industrialized right. So we go back too far and we have farmland rule and then we can't do that right. But so in the 1960s we had booming cities. We had new york city was it was a a finance capital. We had infrastructure, we had subways, we had connectivity right. But what we still had was very and this is the key thing right.
Speaker 2:We had strong family units right so we need to work on building back towards fame, strong, strong family units. Let's stop dating and marrying just for emotions and love and let's start making real life, wise decisions.
Speaker 1:Right because let's stop dating and marrying just for emotions and love and let's start making real life wise decisions right, because let's stop dating just for emotions and love and let's start making real life wise decisions right, because partners right is this a good fit for me long term?
Speaker 2:are you going to compliment me? Are we going to be able to work together and build out a family structure? Right, that's the core unit, the foundational unit. But then also, once we start working on building that family structure and we got it, then it needs to grow so that family needs to go into, grow into a community right and in an organized community we got to unite, just like every other community does, behind some kind of common goal.
Speaker 2:Maybe it might be because I'm I'm a chinese individual, or maybe I'm a korean individual and I'm living in koreantown, or maybe maybe I'm a Korean individual and I'm living in Koreatown, or maybe I'm a Latina individual and I'm living in the area where everybody is Spanish speaking, or maybe I'm an East Indian individual. They all live amongst themselves because they share a common goal. They have clearly defined boundaries because they understand power brokering. You got to have your own clear, defined boundaries with people with a common goal. That's a foundation for organization and it's an extenuance of a family structure right.
Speaker 2:When we had that in the 1960s. That's how you see a king standing there, interlocked right Arm to arm, with a bunch of men in black suits, moving on one accord, thinking together. The Bible say when two or more gather, I'm in the presence. Absolutely, yeah, that's how you get a malcolm x where he can have a bunch of men in the community lined up, moving on one accord. And now you doing things like getting brothers out of prison during the jim crow era, right, pissing off the chief of police because he mad that one man got all that power how do we?
Speaker 2:achieve that building a family, a strong family structure, and then building that extension of that family structure back into the community structure. Because it was our unity, that was our strength and is our strength. Right, and that's the way that we've survived since the beginning of time. Right, the hunter gatherers began to make significant progress when they came together, as opposed to being scattered, yeah, Right, they came together.
Speaker 2:They started creating communities to live and survive, to be able to fight off the wildlife, to be able to tend to the young. And then now these villages started growing and that was the sort of game changer. Was fire, right? But in addition to experiencing and understanding fire, fast forward, realizing the power of your community and building together. Let's stop being scattered in these caves, onesies and twosies, and let's collectively unite together and build this up, because we we stronger together and that's gonna always be true, because that's that's coded in our dna right ain't nothing more powerful than a group of people thinking together.
Speaker 1:There's nothing more powerful than that, that thing right there. That is basically the blueprint right there, because I think about what's done when we're unified, even when we think about the whole Black Lives Matter, whatever was going on with that, but we were unified, right.
Speaker 2:Right and we were able to get something done, as superficial as it was, but I think that that was only as a result of cause. We just had the wrong goals on paper. Yeah Right, we just want to change instead of what change?
Speaker 1:What change? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Cause change brought.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And we got exactly what we asked for. Yeah Right, I haven't seen a. What is it? The Confederate? I ain't seen a Confederate statue since. Yeah, no, but the reality is I ain't give a damn about them. Confederate statues Change that operational statue that's affecting my real life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, change the system. Do that one Change the system.
Speaker 2:Pass an anti-hate law act that's going to protect people like me. Right, we got an asian hate bill, respect right right, we got a well, we don't got a bill, but but uh, european hate bills are already written in right, lgbt got protections right where the, where the black protections at right so I mean knocking down them, down them Confederate statues was cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, and it's a testament of what we could do when we work together.
Speaker 1:But let's be strategic too. Yeah, not just say I want to change, what kind of shit we got you got to. You know I'm a strong believer. Write the vision, make a plan so those who read it, and how can you run? Because now you're running like a renegade, you don't kind of know. You're just like I want to change, I want to change. But that's just so proven that when we stick together, how things can change and I like what you said about the concept of the way to get this where we need it to be is we back up and build the family structure, rebuild the family, build back.
Speaker 2:That's build back better right there, Build back better yeah.
Speaker 1:The family structure.
Speaker 2:And we do that Once we got a community, then we can start creating businesses that meets our community needs right. So now that's enterprising, that's keeping the dollar in the black community and that are defined boundaries, right, the blueprint already there. We just don't know it because we won't be reading and we're miseducated. This stuff I'm telling you right now. I promise you I ain't learned this at the high, I ain't learned this at the high either.
Speaker 1:Listen, when I went to college and I started taking African-American history, I was like wait a minute what they did, what how.
Speaker 2:I didn't even know for real. You know what the sad truth is. I was 14, 13, 14 before I. I actually connected that that black history dates back to the beginning of time and even then I didn't fully understand it. I didn't fully understand it with with tangible facts that I could spit at you to make sense. Right, I didn't get that until I was 30, right, but just the basic connection that our black history didn't start in in slavery.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that didn't come in, I was a teenager right. The epitome of miseducation is crazy, the craziest thing.
Speaker 1:I remember even going to school and it wasn't until I was in Alaska middle school Roots came out.
Speaker 2:I'm dating my son for 44.
Speaker 1:Roots came out. That's when I actually knew anything about black history. Right, but it was through Roots. It wasn't through everything else that happened before Roots, it was literally through Roots. And then what they tried to convince us is that, like, almost like, there was two ways that they were trying to teach us roots. One was that the white people European white people came and stole us from the land.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Right. And then the other. The other part was that we sold our own people, you know. So it was kind of like you mad at white people, but you mad at ourself too, like it was like so much miseducation and reward that and that it wasn't. I'm telling you, when I was in my 40s in college and I'm like reading African American history and I'm like, whoa, now I'm teaching my kids this and they're like well, I need to take African American studies because everything I've learned at school doesn't seem like it was right, but it was intentional.
Speaker 2:It was imagine if I understood the Mali Empire when I was a young boy, if I knew anything about Mansa Musa right. My dreams could have been so different, right, but I was intentionally put in the box right. But so now, as a father, I'm making my business to make sure that those boundaries and those hurdles that was thrown in my path.
Speaker 2:I'm blazing through it. I'm clearing it out, right, but also, at the same time, I'm not fit to give it to my children, right. I got a structure in place that they're learning all different kinds of things, and then testament to their mother Like I love our co-parenting relationship, like we work so well together.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So we balance because she's she an emotional guru.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:I don't have that Right. So now that we could communicate a lot better, like she's able to check me on that, offer sound advice on how my approach could be when I'm interacting with her and different things. Right. And then the same is true, like it's a real reciprocity. So even though we're not together, we are absolutely raising our children together right, that's the power of co-parenting.
Speaker 1:I think you said something important and I think I want to touch on that bit of how to co-parent effectively yeah like, because that's a challenge right now that is what's out there. You know, and that's what not only like the family is not together, but then we can't even communicate, for the sake of the child right like that. That's a lot of people that I talked to in coaching and I experienced it with my own self, but I was determined it's about the kids.
Speaker 2:I don't care about the attitude none of that I got a rule that's going to take care of probably about 70 percent of any co-parenting issues that most people have, and by the time I get to the second one, it's going to move it to like 90 of it. Right, rule number one stop having sex if y'all not together okay, that's right there, yeah all of the perpetual issues.
Speaker 2:I'm mad at you. All of that right. You ain't never going to be able to heal past that and refocus on your child if you're keeping yourself in this trauma cycle because you keep on reopening that wound of that relationship that you know ain't working right right. So you keep getting mad, and then now it's your anger driving the bus instead of your reality.
Speaker 1:Driving the bus right okay, so stop yeah, stop having okay, you're done.
Speaker 2:You're done like co-parent draw boundaries and respect it right second thing heal from your traumas that you caused each other. Communicate it right because there's gonna be an unspoken elephant that's gonna cause y'all hindering like it's gonna hinder you if you don't discuss and take accountability at least one part of why one person got to do it right got to clear that air. You got to be adults about it, right? Whatever occurred when y'all was in y'all's relationship can't carry on into the children rearing process and only way to make sure that it don't is if you set up them boundaries yeah right.
Speaker 2:Otherwise you're gonna keep on keeping yourself in that cycle where now the focus is going to be y'all's relationship and the parenting is going to be the backseat, because you can't tell yourself to separate from yourself emotionally when you trigger, you can't, it don't work. That's not the way. The amygdala works.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you trigger it. You, you trigger it.
Speaker 2:You in amygdala Override. It's running the bus now until you can come down, and I feel like a lot of people are living in a cycle like that. With them, relationships, absolutely, because you're going on this ebb and flow when y'all cool, everything good, and then y'all beefing, and then now your parenting drops and then you're doing this thing Right. You can be a lot more consistent if you control yourself first. More consistent if you control yourself first.
Speaker 1:So stop humping it's simple stop, stop doing it, yeah, and then address your traumas.
Speaker 2:Address, address, right, stop trying to act like it didn't happen, because you can't. It happened for real, for real yeah, it happens. So if y'all don't address it and be accountable, and you don't gotta ever agree on it, I'm not saying that I'm not saying agree on it. I'm not saying become perfected. I'm not saying become perfected. I'm not saying forget about it.
Speaker 2:I'm saying address it right because once you address it, the sting lessens, right? So now, if something goes wrong, I could think clear-headed instead of thinking from the lens of my anger and my trauma. Right, right, yeah, so I felt like that.
Speaker 2:That'll take care of the vast majority of the stuff we have because then from there, now that you got clear lines of communication, oh little drewski has such and such going on. Now you can give your opinion without it gonna be some backlash, because it's an emotional trigger. She can give her opinion without being some backlash and emotional trigger. And then, now that all of the information is on the page, y'all y'all gather together, focus on the same concept. Now y'all can make real-life collective decisions that's going to affect your children the proper way. Right yeah, instead of it just happening in between while y'all battling.
Speaker 2:The best way, you know how, from an individual perspective, because we're not designed like that.
Speaker 1:We're not designed like that. We're designed for community, right, right.
Speaker 2:So we need both powerful yeah, the decisions of the child need to come from a collective of the mother and the father. If the mother making all the decisions, it's going to be a problem. If the father making all the decisions, it's going to be a problem. Neither one of us individually can attain what we needed to attain, but when we work together, we make a whole child right. Frederick douglas said it's far better to build strong children than to repair broken men, and that's like the philosophy of how I take my approach and raising my children you know that's good.
Speaker 1:My bishop said something like we were on bible study. We were talking about that um, and that's pretty much what he quoted too like it really is. Um, I mean trying to repair a broken man. Like you guys get through so many letters, even in broken women, like try to repair a broken man. Like you guys get through so many letters, even in broken women, like try me repair a broken adult in general right, so I think that Douglas was referring to humanity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, and I tell people like, even though we're not responsible, how we were raised right, I can't control how I was raised. I was a kid right, but.
Speaker 1:I am. I was a kid, right, but I have control of how I raise myself again, how I train myself, how I build myself to be better than what I feel was me being fumbled right Like I can't, you know, have the excuse of this is all I know. This is where I came from, if I'm not even trying to pursue better, you know. So I think I'm loving this whole concept because now I have a different perspective about really what it takes to build the family, build the community and repair these homes. It's really bringing back the structure of family and even if you're not in the same household, we're still family, right, we're co-parenting, we're in there for our child, so it's still family. And family extends beyond just the household, right.
Speaker 2:It goes back to. It has to yeah, right, wow, and as that happens, we will align right. We got to unite behind our common value, right? Whatever that may be, right. What I think the low-hanging fruit is for most of us, our skin color, right. And then never mind the fact that we all come from a very much cultural background, right? So, just like everybody else, let's use that to our advantage and then let's start working together to make life better for people who come from our cultural background. Yeah, right, like everybody else right.
Speaker 1:And then I think, also value valuing each culture, though, like you know, because I think about like when, when, when somebody hears, oh, we need to do this for our people, they think that it's backwards, racism, right it's not, but it's not.
Speaker 2:My love of my people is not a hate of other people. Yeah, right, and I don't mistake that that's.
Speaker 1:That's, that's the common mistake, and but understanding the value that each culture brings to each other.
Speaker 2:Like I love going into Chinatown to get some stuff, I just was there with my kids a few weeks ago.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. I like because introducing our children to other cultures is so important because that's what makes the world go around Absolutely, but understanding that we have to build ourselves because other cultures want to come in and buy from us too we have trade Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And that's the way to grow trade. Yeah, but right now, what is our trade Right? What does our people do?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, and we got a lot of markets that we can own and control tomorrow. Really, if we got it together, if we all collectively start working together and said, all right, we're going to collectively own the black hair product industry, we will no longer support any other brands but a, b, c and d. And then now we move all of our preferred stock, like, we start beginning to invest in these companies, right, right. And then we put out messaging that we're going to use it. Right, we one of the largest consumers of our hair care products, right. Why is it that other ethnicities sell it to us? That's backwards, right, right, that's low-hanging fruit. You know how easy it is. Just be like all right, I'm gonna support growing flow now instead of uh, I don't know carol's daughter, right?
Speaker 2:I don't even know, carol, that might be black owned though that's a bad example. Sorry, carol, sorry but you get the concept, but we need to start learning and controlling the industry.
Speaker 1:There are some other things that are market as black people and it's really had nothing to do with black people. So I get what you're saying, because when you go into some of these hair products, hair stores then there's a lot of things with black faces on that has nothing to do with black Right. So educating yourself of what? Actually is ours and support who's ours, because sometimes we're supporting people that we think that it's ours, but it's not For sure. I learned that quickly.
Speaker 2:Right. And if we start doing that and thinking in terms of that on the community, now we can start making decisions like all right, we know Chester is zoned for industrial, so now we collectively work together because we want to begin to position ourselves to take over this hair care industry. And now we, together, we got a couple companies. We almost done. We got a couple companies. Now we support these companies. We done made some return on our investment. Right now we can start saying like all right, let's build a, a manufacturing warehouse here. So now we got six or seven different brands right, and now we want to vertically integrate.
Speaker 2:We don't, we don't just want to retail, we want to own the manufacturing of it as well, right and we already set up and if we already moving in the collective, how hard would it be to buy one of these low-cost properties just like everybody else right fit it for manufacturing to do specifically what we needed to do, right, and then now we vertically integrate that business. Now we on the next step right. And then what could we do for the next thing after that? And it all starts with just working together working together right extending the family so that we can start seeing what we have that can make our communities run and then control that, that production, that gross domestic product.
Speaker 2:That's the real economics of it and it ain't even hard, we just don't know it right and we just gotta support each other.
Speaker 1:Once we get the knowledge and understand that we just gotta be able to support each other.
Speaker 2:Right, wow, wow, I'm excited.
Speaker 1:This conversation was. This was hot. We're going to have a part two because this was really good, because it went beyond, like you know, when I think about focus on Father's Day and the month for fathers, the important role of it, but you literally just broke down the important role of a father and what it looks like and how it impacts the household, the community, society, a whole, because it's not just a one like, just just for me and mine. This is how do I raise children? That that we now go extend behind because we're all family, right. How do, how do we unite on one front for the better so we can better help each other? Right.
Speaker 1:And that that I didn't see that coming tonight. I didn't see that conversation tonight. I didn't see that conversation coming. I honestly did not. I really was wow. So again, I'm open to more conversations like that because I didn't think about it that day and again, I think part of it also is because I'm a woman, so I'm not thinking from the perspective of a man and your perspective of a man is to provide, protect and to make things happen, like the structural thing. So what you were talking tonight was structural and then, as as the women, our job is to you know, to dress it up, to make it together but the foundation yeah the foundation which you brought tonight was just amazing.
Speaker 1:So I thank you so much because I think that I know it opened my eyes and I know it opened other people's eyes and just giving a different perspective of the role of a father. That is just not no minute role no role it is such a powerful and authoritative role, um wow, so I'm open. So thank you so much for coming to the show.
Speaker 1:It's been a great conversation yeah, and we're definitely gonna have, uh, part two. Thank you for helping me and trying to release my daughter to the marines can be okay with that. Uh, thank you guys for joining parenting with a purpose. I am your host, donna janelle. Our guest here was drew andrew nelson and you. I know you guys got a lot out of this because I got a lot, so make sure you comment, share it with people and, um, just keep following parents of a purpose. We're up to some good things, all right, thanks for joining in.