The Future Is Now

An article by Brad    No Comments

Two blogs on fatherhood in one night.  I must be drunk.  Or extremely tired. 

Anyway, as you all know, its a scary world out there.  And as parents, all you can do is… well, the best you can do.  And at some point, you have to accept that what your children do is out of your hands.

I spent some time with my brother tonight.  He’s 19 years old, just finished his Freshman year at Pitt.  And the stories I hear… the drinking, the drug use, the promiscuity… he doesn’t do much because he was never into that stuff, but that’s besides the point.  I went to college in New Orleans and did a lot of stuff, but I never over did it.  I was never one of those kids who got drunk until I puked every weekend.  But I had my moments.  And quite honestly, I never considered my actions from my parent’s point of view, how my actions would make them feel as parents.  Part oft that was because I never overdid it.  Hell, in high  school a geek- yeah, a geek.  I played Dungeons and Dragons and went to a nursing home with a group from school every Friday.  I never drank, never smoked, never did drugs in high school.  And even when I went to school, I think my parents knew me well enough that I would never get myself in trouble.

But every changes when you have children.  And I know that those days are a long way off.  More than a decade for my son, longer for my daughter.  But I look at Nathan and wonder what he will be like when he is older.  I wonder if my feelings and lessons will be more important to him than the peer pressure from his friends.  Will he have enough self-respect and self-control to keep him on the straight and narrow during those formative and possibly dangerous college years.  Will he be one of those kids who supposedly was raised by loving, giving parents but still ended up a bad apple.

Will he, god forbid, turn into a thief or rapist or murderer?

Will he disappoint me?

it’s a heavy burden to lay on a two year old, and heavy thoughts, but with the world the way it is these days, with high school kids and college kids seemingly devoid of any morals or inhibitions, it is a scary time to be a parent.

Its tougher with my daughter.  Yes, she’s not even three weeks old yet.  And when she looks at me, she doesn’t even smile.  She isn’t a person yet, not in the way my son is.  But the worry sets in immediately these days.  I was watching a show about women who went through an entire pregnancy but didn’t know it.  And the last story was about a nineteen year old freshman girl who freely admitted she got trashed on a regular basis, and oftentimes didn’t use protection while having sex.  She claims to have had a steady boyfriend at the very beginning, but he was neither mentioned, nor shown, over the course of the episode.  So who knows,s he may have been a tramp who slept around.  And she may not even know (or remember) who the father is.

I may seem like I am going off on a tangent, but there is a point here.  it’s easier to have a son come home and say he got a girl pregnant than to have a daughter come home and say she ispregnant.  For all we know, the mother of this girl on the show may have been a wonderful mother.  she may have explained the dangers of drinking and unprotected sex.  And the girl may have tossed the lessons out, choosing to do what she wanted how she wanted. 

I look at my daughter and wonder if she will heed my warnings, or if she will take her desire to be her own person too far, as too many kids do these day, both boys and girls.  Disregarding sage advise, living hard and fast without a single thought about the ramifications.

I look at commercials for Girls Gone Wild.  I am aware with the advent of the internet, there is a lot more amateur pornography being created.  And now that I have a daughter, i can;t help but wonder what is going through these girl’s minds.  Whether or not they think about what their actions are doing to their parents.  Whether or not they even care.  Whether or not they will live to regret it when they grow up and try to have a family and real job.

I wonder where these parents went wrong.  Or if they even did go wrong. 

I wonder how much control and influence I actually have at the end of the day over what kind of people my children become.

And I’ll admit, it scares the hell out of me.  Because at some point, children must be allowed to fly the coop and begin making their own decisions, and I don’t know io my words will be as influential as the words of their friends who may have grown up with crappy parents.

In the end, all I can do is do my best.  And enjoy my kids now, because who knows what the future will bring.