Becoming a man without the help of one
It was around 7 p.m. I walked around the two-bedroom apartment complex looking for my father. I kept yelling out, “Dada, dada, I can’t find you.” With tears running down my face toward my puffy cheeks, I could not find my father anywhere. I was 4 years old when he walked out on my mom and me. Both of our hearts were broken and shattered into tiny pieces like a puzzle. Today I stand as a grown man without the guidance from my father but a mother who stepped up to the plate to raise me, and she did her best.
I know I am not the only one with an absentee father, but this part of my life is empty like a vase. My mother took it upon herself to play both roles as father and mother. She knew it was going to be a challenge to raise a son without my dad’s guidance. Highlight that my mother is an excellent person; for example, if I earned good grades throughout school, she would award me with anything I would like.
Not having my father around during my childhood was not supposed to be this way. I always pictured him picking me up from school and taking me to the park to play catch, getting ice cream together. I would always imagine him as an idol and a role model because I wanted to be like him growing up, but unfortunately, that did not happen because he was not there when I needed him most. But luckily, I had my mother fill in that void as a father; she did her best to be that role model I needed growing up and did an excellent job at it. My mother taught me how to drive, iron my clothes, cook my meals, and showed me how to wash my clothes.
When I saw other kids with their dads, my heart just dropped into my stomach and made me feel unwanted by my dad. I knew I would not be able to experience those kinds of moments with him because that part of my life has been absent. My mother did her best to fill that void, but she knew it would be a difficult task for her to fill in.
On a Saturday morning, I was about 15 years old watching “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” where Will’s father visited him. Seeing will not know how to react to his father because he showed up unannounced, and the father had abandoned him as my dad did to me. I started to cry because they go to a carnival and start bonding during the episode, and eventually, Will asks his father why he left. The response was, “I was scared being a father.” Toward the end of the episode, Will was supposed to go on a road trip with his dad, but he did not because Will’s pops had to leave him again. Even though it is only a show, viewing things like this paints a picture for many people. Some men try to do their best to make amends with their children truly, and some want to do it for themselves to make it seem they are doing the right thing, which is selfish.
My childhood was very fulfilling. I had my mother and grandmother raise me both without the help of my dad. They both did whatever it took to guide me and rewarded me with clothes and video games, and I got good grades in middle school throughout high school. Both did an exceptional job being the role models I needed. My mother would advise me when I grow up; I become a better person and man than my old man. She would always tell me that I am a smart man and to keep being optimistic about life.
On the other hand, my grandma would always say that she’s proud of me and advise me about living the things I should and shouldn’t do. I will not lie; it was hard for me because as a boy eventually going through my years from a small kid to an early teen, I could not come to them about my growth, which meant I needed someone to talk to about growing into a man. Which was puberty, and I was utterly uncomfortable talking to anyone about that until this part of my life. I would eventually learn these things on my own.
Luckily going into high school, I met a couple of teachers who became mentors. During my teen years, I needed my old man in my corner more than a flower that needs water or the sun to continue to live. I had to learn how to shave on my own and look at YouTube videos because I did not want to cut myself. One YouTuber that guided me was Alpha M, who has nearly 4 million subscribers. He was the person who taught me how to save, be a man, the best way to dress, and grooming advice. Days I would get into fights at school, I needed to learn how to fight because no one ever taught me how to fight back. I needed advice when it came to girls in high school because I was nervous to talk to them, and my father was not there to give me the proper guidance on how to be friendly and treat them with respect. My mother gave me advice and guided me on how to talk to them. Still to this day, I consider this part of my life the most impactful part because this is when a teenage boy needs his papa more than anything.
Going into puberty, the only person who can cope with you and understand is your dad because he went through this when he was a teenage kid. Talking about this part in my early teens is painful, and I wish I could have changed it and tell him how I felt because that is something I still hold, and I hope this shows him I don’t need him because I have two fantastic people. According to the Pew Research Center from 2018, about one-in-five children live with a solo mom; the single mothers are 21% raise a single child without the help of a father.
Being the man I am today, I’m grateful for everything my mother did as a dad and a mom. My grandma is there for me, giving me advice about life because she has lived longer than I have. Now that I attend California State University Northridge, I was able to keep my studies and grades up without the help of my estranged dad. He left me. I do not have the answer to that, but I know that I can achieve anything without his moral support. Now I have almost a year until I graduate from CSUN with a bachelor’s degree in journalism.
A professor once gave me advice that there is a cycle that fathers leave their children within the Hispanic community, and it is a continuing thread. But I know I will not do that because I will break that cycle and be there for my kids and give them the love I never got from my old man. I promise myself to be a better father than mine could have been. It is life, and we all don’t know what could happen and why these things happen.
