Define: Father
By: Chris Salazar-Mangrum, Vice President of USAV
Father’s Day was always an interesting celebration for me because my young mother raised me without a father for the first nine years of my life. After she married my stepfather, he quickly moved to adopt me and raise me as his own blood, hence my hyphenated last name. My stepfather taught me two main themes about fatherhood: what it takes to be a father and how to raise the next generation of fathers. My stepfather was involved in my activities as my karate instructor and coach of my youth baseball team. These moments grew my appreciation for the importance of being involved in my own children’s lives at the ground level to continue to foster the next generation of fathers.
One addition to the list would be “He Teaches How to Overcome Adversity.” Life is tough and life is unfair, often rooted in what can be perceived as failures.
We can all relate to times where the world seemed to turn against us, we lost someone special, we found ourselves in a mentally dark place, or we felt mistreated. Right, wrong, or indifferent, my father taught me to not feel sorry for myself. Call it tough love or just the realities of the world, but my many eye-opening failures ended up being the most opportunistic and life-changing events. Perhaps it was the constant reminder to not become the victim of the circumstance, but to take the issue in stride, process it and move on. Feeling the emotions is ok and do not be too macho and hold in the frustration or tears. It imperative to teach and learn how to let go of the past, reset, and focus on the future.
For daughters, being a father is the opportunity to be a role model and setting the standard for how daughters will view other men. A father who shows love, respect, and care for the women in his life and is nurturing and compassionate can help his daughter avoid unhealthy relationships and friendships with men as she ages.
As fathers, we are role models whether we like or not. I understand and value the responsibility of being a father and hold the magnitude of that responsibility close to my heart. I know how my actions influence and impact my own children and I live with the responsibility of fatherhood as a core value of everyday life.
