My daughter is not unlike other teens, she's fighting hard to establish her identity. I didn't always realize how much of a role I played in this. Culture at home, at school, at church, are the battlefields.
I only control the home front.
The implications can be daunting for the following:
- Business doesn't really care how my daughter deals with the fight my daughter faces. Business wants to be my daughter, if not my master. You get me, it wants to be the center of everything. I'm thankful that I had a tough conversation with business letting it know who was master. It's still not easy.
- American society is so full of it. On one hand it wants a good citizen, and on the other, it celebrates the very things that will lead to the opposite.
- The school system is in denial. It believes that a world that no longer exists, still does. Ignoring all facts in-order to protect a status quo.
- The American government is content with leaving my family and my daughter's future in financial ruin. Again, another form of denial in-order to protect a status quo.
- I fight my own ghosts from so many years ago, but I am fighting. Maybe that leaves her inspired and assured.
As I parent, it occurred to me how much she needs me to be REAL. Not some guy who believes that words are not needed or touch is for a baby only. My daughter needs an example of what a REAL man is and is not. She needs my love, my attention and my touch.
BTW, this is so foreign to my history. Change is a great thing.