I recently paid for my daughter to go to a very cool summer camp and I suppose I should feel good about it but I don’t. I mean I do feel good about it. I feel great about her going to summer camp and having the opportunity to swim, hike, fish, and sing goofy songs but I’m not the least bit excited about the part where I pay for it. I know that being a good parent is all about sacrificing but sometimes it’s painful.
In my 9th year of parenting I’ve learned that wanting the best for my child and wanting the best for myself are almost always two opposing ideas. I would like to be able to go to the bar during happy hour and buy a group of beautiful black professional women a bottle of champagne, I would like to go on a shopping spree and tear the mall up, I would like to stunt for just once in my life.
But stunt for what? And stunt for whom? Alas, I realize that for the first 22 years of my life my main goal was to impress females. To dress in a manner that begged them to pay attention to me. To put myself in the places that I knew they were going to be, to convince them that I wasn’t as insecure as I always felt. But now, in my 31st year on this Earth, I understand that the only female’s opinion that truly matters is that of the one that was born unto me. When I am stressed I always keep her happy. I aim to liberate her consciousness on days that I feel as trapped as my brothers in the penitentiary. I love that little smart mouthed girl and I hope that when she is an adult she will be able to appreciate all of the daily sacrifices that are being made in order for her to have an amazing childhood.
-YB
Sometimes thoughts explode in my head like firecrackers packed with blinding light and other times they wash over me very slowly. This one took about three years to finally reach the shores of my conscious mind but in order for you to fully understand its significance then you must know a little bit about me. I’ve been a parent nearly my whole adult life, and for most of those years I have been single. Therefore I have been on several dates with a car seat in the back, and I’ve invited a few women over the house on Saturday nights after my daughter has gone to sleep. Over the years I’ve hung out with women and gave them a lot of my time but almost none of them have ever met my little girl. I’ve kept the two entities separate for multiple reasons. The most important by far being that I never feel like the woman that I am dating is worthy enough to meet my daughter. I don’t look at her and see the lady that I want my daughter to be. And this is what brings me to my point.