What About Our Children?

I wrote this essay in 2002 so it is a bit dated but it's still relevant today.

Living in the City--- What about our youth?

When was the last time you visited Crown Heights or any of the once predominantly black communities of New York City? Have you seen our new neighbors? Maybe you’re wondering what happened to the old ones. What happened to those happy little girls who played double-dutch on the street and the little boys who always opened the fire hydrant on a hot summer day? What about the old man with the pipe who sat puffing tobacco all day on the stoop with his buddies, or the women who used to bring their lawn chairs out in front of the building to deliberate over the latest news in the community? Who are these strange people taking over Harlem and Crown Heights and Bedford Stuyvesant? Last time I checked, white folks didn’t go past Eastern Parkway/Brooklyn Museum on the Brooklyn bound #1 and #2 trains or 96th street on the Manhattan side. Now why have they decided to sit all the way to the end of the train line?


We wonder why our youth are so angry and so defensive nowadays. We wonder why their faces are so grim and why they all seem to have attitudes. Some blame it on the rap lyrics, but that’s for the ignorant, uninformed bunch, who write books and novels that define a race they have no part in. Our youth are angry because they are tired of fighting. They fight for territory, they fight to eat, and they fight for mental and physical survival. Look at the environment in which we are living. Some of our youths have never inhaled a breath of fresh country air. But who will take them to the great outdoors if we are all stuck in our offices in our sophisticated suits? Why is it that our inner city schools have no technology when you, my friend, sit and mingle with IBM and Microsoft all day long surfing the internet that schools are too poor to offer to our own children. There’s a wealth of information out there and they can’t get it, simply because they’re poor. Yet we live in the city with one of the greatest skylines of all time, boasting the statue of liberty as its backdrop. Our city is one of the most segregated in the country we just don’t acknowledge it. If you ride the subways long enough, I’m sure you’ll see segregation at its worst. At least in the south you know they don’t like us, and vice versa. Here, they are in power and they suppress us, subtly. A professor of mine once posed the question “why would the colonizer educate the children of the colonized the same way he does his own children?” I ask of you, what are you doing to educate our children?


We think that children don’t notice when things happen around them. “Why isn’t so and so living next door anymore?” “Why can’t I go to such and such a school like those other kids?” These are their thoughts, but who gets to hear them when everyone is so busy trying to earn enough for a condo or a new Range Rover? Where are those young Black men and women who have climbed out of these communities into institutions of higher learning? What have they come back to do? We criticize white America for taking over our homes and our culture, yet we as young educated adults, sit back and allow them to do so. What have you done for a teenager in your community lately? When did you take time out to speak to one of the young men or women on the corner? Do you judge them as you walked by, or do you stop to change a life by inspiring them with some positive words? You went to college, got a fly degree, but what have you done to change the future of our race? How are you helping?


I don’t know about you, but I’m sick and tired of hearing Martin Luther King’s name every Black History Month. Dr. King didn’t dream that one day our youth would outnumber white boys in jail. Dr. King didn’t dream that one day we would educate ourselves and leave the future to perish because we’re too busy making a dime. Dr. King didn’t dream that Black girls would be getting pregnant at age 13 with no baby fathers. That wasn’t Dr. King’s dream. We pass our children on the streets everyday on our way to work in the white man’s world. Again, I ask you, what have you done for a child lately? Our children are fighting daily for survival in a world that doesn’t belong to them. “That rap music is poisonous to the mind,” they say, but what other role models are we giving our children? How easy it is for little boys all across America to wear bandaids on their faces because Nelly is wearing them, or to sport Jerseys all summer long because it’s that rehab they call ‘Fabolous’ style. How about the good old Alicia Keys braids that guys and girls are rocking nowadays. Why has everything become such an easy trend to follow? They have nothing else to look at. They have teachers who couldn’t care less about their education, people moving into their communities and causing them to become displaced, and a society of educated young Black adults who don’t give a damn about them. What, I ask you, is the future of our children, and when will you stop in the midst of the hustle and bustle of the city to hear what stories they have to tell? In the words of the great Mahatma Ghandi, “the future depends on what we do in the present.” $.02

The Biggest Taboo

The Biggest Taboo: Absentee Mothers

There is a new epidemic facing our community. No one sees this
epidemic, no one talks about this epidemic, and nobody seems to want
a cure for this epidemic. There is an unfair stigma that latches
itself to Black fathers and I'm about to help you put a stop to it.
There is a new generation of mothers who are walking away from their
responsibilities, leaving young fathers to tend, mend, and defend
their children alone, and for this, men have gotten no credit.

Mama! Mama! Where are you, Mama? What the hell is up with women walking out
on their kids nowadays? I see you over there reading this all
perturbed because you think I made a typo and should've said "Daddy"
where I said Mama but I guess you, like half of the population, have
not gotten the memo either. Mothers, yes, MOTHERS are walking out on
their kids nowadays, leaving fathers all by themselves. Yeah, I know
some of you are saying "good, it's about time" but what's up with
that? I mean, really, why is it that 15% of the 11 million single
family households are headed by single fathers? I know that a good
number of that percentage are those men who have lost their wives or
partners to death's sting. I'm not talking about those. I'm talking
about the new epidemic: Dead Beat Mothers. You know the type. The
ones who get with a man, fall in love, think he's everything to her
so she puts on this front to get the ring. She gets the ring, she
stops doing her thing, and he picks up the slack where she falls
short. Things are going well, they're happy as hell, then comes the
bad news: she's pregnant before she can get what she thinks she
really wants out of life. Then he's no good anymore. Then all of a
sudden chaos reigns. Then she makes his life a living hell and when
the baby comes she says "the bastard is yours" and walks the hell
out. You think I'm joking? You think this is a farce? Well pause for
a moment while I give you a dose of reality.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are an estimated 2.3
billion single fathers in the United States of America today. Gone
are the days when men who raised children alone were widowers. Today,
only 5% of single fathers are widowers, 42% of which have been
divorced, while 38% have never been married. So where the hell are
the mothers? Why have mothers decided to walk out cold on their sons
and daughters, leaving little or no support for the fathers who are
left in this situation? Then let's talk about the justice system that
is more willing to give the children to their dead beat mothers than
to a hard-working man who wants to do what's right by his child?
I've seen it over and over again; women having children just
to "please" their men then as soon as something goes wrong, they
bail, forgetting the importance of their roles in the lives of their
young soldiers. What is up with that?

Then let me not fail to attack those who dump their children on the
grandmothers of today. I know ya'll saw that pathetic episode of 60
minutes where those poor grandmothers were raising the children of
their irresponsible children while their backs and knees buckled for
lack of relaxation in their old age. Why has parenting become a
burden that everyone wants someone else to bear? But I digress so let
me refocus.

Women, our role is to uphold, instill, teach, nurture, and educate
our children. So what is this new trend proving? I know fathers have
been doing it for years, leaving mothers to tend to the future but
what is the future if there are no mothers? Don't get me wrong, this
article is meant to commend and support and congratulate those young
men who have declared that they won't be another statistic. I commend
you and I respect you for taking on the responsibility for which
society gives you no credit. But I also have to call out women who
walk away and forget that they have a huge role to play in the lives
of their sons and daughters. Ideally, a family is supposed to consist
of mother, father, and child. That idealism has died since the
beginning of the last century but is it necessary that we continue to
build negative trends and ideas for future generations?

Absentee mothers leave their children feeling unloved and uncared
for. A mother's touch, kiss, embrace are essential elements in a
growing child's life. Think about it…when you cried, your mother was
more likely to comfort you than your father. Who knew better how to
solve some of life's hardest problems than your mother? While your
father was busy providing, wasn't it your mother that you were able
to sit and converse with about the silly little things you did at
school? And when you needed to write something, wasn't it your mother
that held your hand to form those letters? So why have mothers
decided to walk away from the glorious task of raising better men and
women for tomorrow? A father's heart is warm but a mother's chest is
soft and soothing for a crying baby. So why have mothers begun to
turn away and who will pick up the slack for them?

Maybe you're one of those women that snubs men who have children even
before you know the situation. We all have done it because we have
no time for the "baby mama drama". I was one too until I sat and
reflected on my own ignorance. It was not until I heard the cry of a
baby boy whose father picked him up and hushed him with the soothing
sound of a song, that I realized how stupid I was for not
acknowledging and applauding young men with children. It is not
often that you hear fathers standing up and doing what's right by
their children. Fathers, even mine, have often been dead beats and
missing and don't get me wrong those fathers get no love or credit.
But who rides for the fathers who have stepped up to the plate when
the mothers have walked away from the most beautiful gift life can
offer?

Women, let's celebrate and support those men who have the task of
raising their children all alone. Dating them doesn't mean you
automatically become a mother; however, it makes you a mentor that
this child can lean on or look up to as a mother-figure. Remember, a
mother is not necessarily one whose womb has been occupied. If we
don't support them, then the trend will worsen. Walking away from a
man because he has a child is as bad as walking away from your own
child. Remember the old axiom, "it takes a village to raise a
child"? Well, what role are you playing in the village?

If we must stop the trend of children growing up with low self-esteem
and no values then we must join in and support the single fathers
that we know by encouraging them to continue to do their best to be
the best "daddy" in the world. We must also teach and encourage
mothers to stick by their children as we build a better future in our
communities. Children with strict, caring mothers grow up with
values and standards. Boys who are raised by good mothers grow up to
respect women as they would their own mothers. Girls with good
mothers grow up to be strong women who respect themselves and
others. The foundation of the future is melting away. Mothers are
going astray, leaving others to raise their children. If the trend
doesn't stop here, there will be no future and the vicious cycle will
continue like a plague throughout our community.
For those who are interested, here are some resources that help to
support single fathers:
National Center for Fathering http://www.fathers.com
Parents Place.com Fathering Reading Room
http://www.parentsplace.com/readroom/
Fathering Magazine http://www.fathermag.com
Single & Custodial Father's Network http://single-fathers.org/
The Single Fathers Lighthouse
http://www.av.qnet.com/~rlewis3/index.html
Eggebeen, D, Snyder, A, & Manning, W. (1996). Children in single
father families in demographic perspective. Journal of Family Issues,
17(4), 441-465.
Greif, G. (1995). Single fathers with custody following separation
and divorce. Marriage & Family Review, 20, 213-231.
Parke, R., (1996). Fatherhood. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press.
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/cb96-195.html
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/cb96-200.html

Statistics and resources provided by
The Population Resource Center,
http://www.prcdc.org/holiday/fathersday.html
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/06/18/single.dads/
The Ohio State University Extension FactSheet:
http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/5000/5310.html

$.02

Motivation

Einstein marveled in the mysteries that others found mundane. -- Isaacson

Einstein loved and encouraged individuality. He found the most pleasure in thinking differently. We should never reduce what we know or want to know to all others want us to know. If we do so, we lock ourselves away in a box for which nobody has a key! We are everything our minds allow us to be and more. Our minds guide us to reason about the unreasonable and marvel in the mundane, as Einstein did. So when people doubt us, we should take it as a compliment about our willingness to appreciate the things they cannot see. I am, you are, we are the developers of the mundane impossibilities of life