two types of parents

first college essay, parenting, God's helpers", a woman - my mother, angelic spirits, God's sovereign and sure word and will; in other words, His faithfulness fulfillied to me: grace-given

Kenneth Williams kenneth 1

Dolores F. Young

Eng- 091

06-18-10

TWO TYPES OF PARENTS(final draft)

Instead of comparing or contrasting two parent types in order to set in opposition mother versus father, by a grievance list of their individual attitudes of right and wrong ways to parent a child, what I will compare and contrast concerns the parenting of two fathers and their similar and different irresponsible attitudes and behaviors. (I would like to note here that I am not with absolute certainty sure which of these two men is my biological father - yet).

Though both Eugene and Henry demonstrate an attitude of irresponsible behavior toward parenting duties, Eugene did marry my mother. He chose to be a husband. Many years later - when I was an adult - Henry was introduced into my life as my father. After he moved in and lived with my mother and me, Henry did exhibit an attitude of obligation toward me in that he assumed a degree of concern for my welfare. But the circumstances and the condition of Henry’s life, at the time he moved in with my mother betrayed him of any title of a responsible man.

So Eugene as compared to Henry ("June") contributed, though very minutely and briefly, to my early childhood. And Henry versus Eugene added his minute and brief contribution into my adult life, starting at the age of thirty-three.

While Eugene was a part of my life as a young child and Henry a part of it as an adult, a similarity in their roles as unreliable and uncaring parents can still be noted. Eugene never helped me with homework, never bandaged my scrapes, never hugged me or spanked me when I was a child. Likewise, Henry never helped me in any of these same aspects of life - which show to be somewhat synonymous in effect upon my adult life. Henry never proffered any parental assistance which parents of an adult son might care to give. In fact, he never counseled me about my business affairs or problem relationships either with women or any other, what’s more he did not come to visit me in the hospital or jail, and he did not succor any of my physical or emotional wounds. Not one of these men ever showed explicitly what might be deemed responsible or perhaps conscientious parental concern that I would consider parental love and support.

The one thing that both Eugene and Henry as parents inadvertently taught me is that a man must take responsibility for his own life. Their inconsiderate parental behavior, the callousness of their affections, and their insensitivity and abandonment of the needs of their child, speak similarly of their inaptitude and downright blatant disregard for their role as a parent. Eugene and Henry both continued in their alcohol and drug use. The two of them were both womanizers which point out their lack of integrity both to their wife and child.

Eugene and Henry as examples of different men with similar non-parenting skills is not an excuse for what might be considered my own unproductive and unfruitful life. That is the result of my own irresponsible and foolish attitudes, behaviors, and the choices that I made in life. And just like Eugene and Henry, I as an adult and in the light of being a parent to myself, I similarly chose to be unthoughtful, imprudent, and unloving to myself, to my inner-child. I believe that Eugene and Henry, men who are perhaps good in their heart, yet undisciplined, if afforded the opportunity of hindsight, would probably have tried harder to be better parents. And, in the same thought, I too, if afforded grace to become a father ought to remember well the failings of these two men.

So having said all this it should be plain for any to see - that nothing about Eugene and Henry would qualify them to be called a caring and concerned parent, a person whose duty it is to pass on values of love, responsibility, and integrity. In my estimate of these two, neither comes anywhere close to the labeled "daddy" - a deeper, more intimate, and childlike, or spiritual sense of the term "father". Truly, by that word, they definitely cannot be categorized.