A Beautiful Cycle

by Eric Payne

As we head into Father’s Day 2009, I look back on my life before kids and can hardly remember it. I don’t remember what I used to do with my weekends and I’m amazed at how fast the time flies doing little things around the house with my kids. I barely remember sleeping late, getting up only because a friend called to go out somewhere. Had my kids not come along I’m not sure where or who I’d be. I’m not being cliché when I state they are the best things that ever happened to me. I’m not suggesting that my son’s eventual embracement of me or holding my daughter for the first time overshadowed all the other great accomplishments in my life, including my marriage. But no one nor has anything required more and better of me than my kids.

My wife demands and deserves the best from me, but my kids require it. It’s my job to lay the foundations for their lives. If they are going to stand on their own then they need to first learn at home — how to succeed and how to fail, in finances, in learning, in love and all the other myriad of things that make up life. Giving my children my best and my all — my A-game, even when all I have or want to put out is a C-effort, doesn’t guarantee their success in life. But I can rest easy most nights knowing that they know they are loved, that they belong to a family that has a lineage that goes back hundreds of years and fans out across multiple countries, and that they will always have my support, even during times when they won’t agree with or like my brand of “support”.

My life before kids and wife is gone forever. It wasn’t the most spectacular life, but it was mine and belonged to me and me alone. Before my children there weren’t too many people who cared enough to demand the best from me, and there were even fewer I chose to listen to when asked for more. My kids don’t play that. Unknowingly, but divinely designed, they are the iron that keeps me sharp.

The beautiful thing about all of this is that I can’t take sole credit for my father ethic. I’m simply following in footsteps already put down by my own father, his father before him and my mother’s father. Each of us has contributed our own individual flavor and style to the tapestry of our family, but at the end of the day it’s all the same walk. My hope for my children, especially my son, is that they will do the same. I don’t worry too much about it not happening. Similar to a vicious cycle that repeats itself, I’m on a beautiful one. And God willing, it will stay that way.

For all of you who are able and/or willing, have a Happy Father’s Day this weekend.

Check Eric out at MakesMeWannaHoller.com where he discusses family, fatherhood and everything in between. He is also the author of I See Through Eyes, a book of poetry and short stories

About the author

Lamar and Ronnie Tyler are the creators of the award-winning blog BlackandMarriedWithKids.com . They also are behind the Amazon.com bestselling DVDs Happily Ever After: A Positive Image of Black Marriage, You Saved Me and Men Ain’t Boys that explores manhood in the African American community. The Tylers are also the proud parents of four children.

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