"We must never confuse dissent with disloyalty," Edward R. Murrow once said.
How are we going to save our boys? One dad at a time should
become our motto, as we make a concerted effort to help each
other. But we need a goal, something to aim at, and some grounds
for agreement. That provides the loyalty so many men crave...give
us a mission and we do, tell us to take a hill, we just need to know
which one, as we remain loyal to whatever goal we determine as the
saving grace for our sons.
For me, it's education, and I was told over and over, "Education is the
root to all success;" or "Once you have it, no one can take it away
from you." Dads are sparkplugs in the engine that will propel our
children into the future.
I can remember being told, "I have my education, your job is to get
yours." Some of those teachers were arrogant, avaricious, and
antagonistic. But beneath their veneer, I could see what I
wanted. It was so much I wanted what they had; I just want to be
successful. Some of them oozed success, and I wanted that.
Those are the ones who became my models, and some actually became
mentors. And today to turn the trend of boys with discipline
problems, poor grades, and dropouts, we need mentors. Fathers can
help do this. That's one of the things that some colleges like
St. Philip's, here in San Antonio are trying to do...turn boys into
successful men.
How can we do this? Start at the beginning. How many of you
have been to your son or daughter's school lately? I mean for a
visit, not a conference where you were summoned for something your son
or daughter obviously didn't do. Well...how many? I'm willing
to bet only a few of you have been to their schools, know the names of
their teachers, or even the classes they are taking. I'd even
guess you don't know the phone number to school. Now if you're
like me, not only do I know their number but they also know my
number. I know their number because I care about my sons.
They know mine, without looking it up, because they know me, and know I
care. They see me as a potential model trying to be a model like
the ones I grew up around.
When our kids see images close by, those are the images they generally
identify with. Our kids may not say the same things we say when
we're around, but like James Watts, former congressman from Oklahoma
said, "Character is doing the right thing when no one is looking."
Dads, we need to be models. Dads, we need to be seen. Our
kids' friends need to know we care not only about our children, but
that we care about their friends too. So visit your son or
daughter's school sometime.
Becoming a mentor is another important aspect of making sure our boys
see a future where they can succeed. Being prepared for the
future is best done if we've given them a vision of how we learned from
our past. And how do we do that? We get engaged. We get
involved. We encourage and challenge our learned institutions of
higher learning to take it upon themselves to adopt schools, provide
models, and conduct sessions where the kids we love are exposed to
mentors who can help them become loving mothers and fathers who can
provide for the next generation.
When is the last time a local professor from one of the many
institutions here in our city made a visit to one of your kids'
classroom? Find out. If it has not happened in the last
year, ask the principal why? We should want our kids to aspire to
become more than we were; therefore they need to see these images in
their classrooms and not on TV. We need to be sure they see
tangible evidence of what an education can do for them.
As parents, particularly dads, lobby local political figures,
particularly those of color to visit our schools more often so they are
just as real to the students who are aspiring teachers, scientists,
doctors and soldiers as the reality shows on TV. We dads need to
phone up college presidents and ask them to get a mentoring program
going that will plant a seed, nurture a mind, and create a desire for
someone to come to their college.
It starts now, and it starts with us. We owe our kids good
models, good mentoring; as we try to help our boys find a more
successful path in the educational arena. If we don't we are
going to continue to have fewer and fewer men accepting the roles
fathers were meant to take...loyalty to our family and to each other.
Archie Wortham lives with his wife, Suzan of 23 years, and their two
sons Myles (12), and Jeremy (16) in Universal City, Texas, a suburb of
San Antonio. Retired from the military in 1996, for nine years he wrote
a dad's column originally called "Jeremy's Dad," then called
"Jeremyles' Dad," named after both his sons. He now writes a column in
San Antonio called "Men 2 Fathers." Archie also maintains the Fatherhood site,
you may contact him by email at
