My four year old precocious, bright, funny, gorgeous son… is a pimp.
Ok maybe not in the 1970s Blaxploitation sense.. but he definitely brings all the girls to the yard. I recently escorted him on a school trip (he struggles with anxiety issues still) and I watched as the little girls clamored to be his line partner. A line partner holds your hand when you walk two-by-two down the street. When we got to the theatre, there was beef over who would sit next to him. One girl started crying. Then, on Valentine's Day, he comes home with this:
I think he got the most Valentines of all the boys in class.
Why the title of this blog? He's just like his father, already lol All the women trying to achieve that number one spot. I joke about it, of course, because he is only 4. But it does make my mind run wild.
I came to a point where I began to question if I wanted his father, as the man he is/was, to be the one influencing and shaping his idea of manhood. I have not, and do not, consider his father a good role model in terms of how he should treat women or carry himself as a man. I'm not interested in bashing him, but essentially, our marriage fell apart because he is a liar and a cheater. He is also raising my son with one of the many women he cheated on me with.
How do I explain that to my son as he gets older? How does his father do that with a straight face? How do you teach your son to be a man when the man he should be modeling himself after doesn't even know how to be one? How do I teach my son to do opposite of everything his father has done with women?
I'm scared… I guess. I'm scared my son will end up just like his father in that regard. That he'll become a man who lies, cheats, and is abusive. That he will come to accept that mistreating women is ok so long as his own selfish needs are taken care of. How does his father teach him to be the opposite of him? Isn't that hypocritical? What lies will he be told when he starts asking questions about why we aren't together and how he ended up with the new woman? Will that lead to my son resenting his father? I don't want that to happen.
Boys are rather protective of their mothers. My ex even had issues with his own father for the way he treated his mother and other women in his life. It is helpful to note, my ex is just like HIS father (with regard to the whole womanizing, lying, cheating, thing). Hell, my own dad was a womanizer who lied and cheated and was abusive. It is not far-fetched to believe my son has a good chance of ending up the same way; it's in his DNA.
And yet, I am letting him have primary care-giving responsibility. Am I over-thinking this or am I justified in having this concern?
Black men and women are struggling when it comes to relationships. Every statistic out there reinforces this idea. The key is to raise our children better, provide them with better examples of how to be. How can we do that when we're not doing the best ourselves? Black children need more positive examples of loving, successful relationships, not based on deception and lies, but on truth, love, respect, honor. Too many baby mamas and daddies caught up in vicious cycles of hate and antagonism. Not enough strong, solid foundations from which they can learn how to be strong Black men and women.
Your thoughts?
