Good Men Step In To Become Dads

By  Peter Ehrlich
Special to Single Dad Life

My single mother collected bottles on Miami Beach for money. I know because she told me.

I was on Google Earth recently to learn more about that “beach-bottle” time. I had a frayed document with the Miami address. After I punched it in, I was beamed down to float right above our Miami apartment.

I hovered over the laneway that my mother had to have walked down to find her bottles. I stared at a great swath of sand at the end of the laneway, sharing the pain, shame and poverty that my mother must have felt. Read more

When Did I Become the Senior Dad?

A Dad’s Point-of-View

By Bruce Sallan

While walking with a friend the day after Thanksgiving, we shared our respective holiday experiences and noted that we were both now the senior dads–the main paternal figure in our respective families. We laughed together, but it was a moment of melancholy and reflection, both of which were feelings I had this Thanksgiving.

My father died four years ago and my mother died just a year ago, so this was our first Thanksgiving in which neither of my parents was with us. Yes, the aging of my parents effectively made me the “man in charge” for many of their later years, but I still viewed them as the senior generation and offered them the respect and deference that they continued to deserve during those difficult years. But now, other than an older 3rd cousin that I adore, it’s now me representing that older figure in our small family.

What does that mean? How do I view my role differently now? What are my obligations in this role? What deference, if any, should I expect now that I’m the senior male adult in our family? These are the questions that I was thinking about at our wonderful turkey meal this year. My wife is an extraordinary cook so we had a terrific feast, but a quiet one with just the four of us because of last minute cancelled travel plans. That boosted my awareness of the changes that have taken place in the hierarchy of my family.

As we’re all adjusting to our newly blended family, it’s natural that my wife and I are struggling to figure out our respective functions in the family. We both believe there is inherent value and I might even add sanctity in the mother and father roles. We also believe they are different and we like to celebrate those differences. Consequently, she does look to me to be the man while I absolutely look to her to be the woman of the family.

The difference, however, is her parents are still very much alive, healthy, and an active, though a geographically distant presence in her life. For me, the realization that I’m now “the old guy” is sort of daunting. I feel it is my responsibility to make sure that certain rituals are observed and that my sons are taught to treat their elders respectfully. That now means me. I thought no yuppie ever became an elder? Didn’t our generation say to “never trust anyone over 30?” Is Mick Jagger really over 60? Am I now over a decade older than JFK when he died, two decades older than when George Gershwin died, and three decades older than when James Dean crashed his Porsche? Tell me I’m wrong, please?

It’s a sobering reality as, of course, we all age but my generation was convinced we’d do it better than our predecessors. No, we’re just getting more plastic surgery and realizing the same changes that happen to everyone who gets older. We are more forgetful, absent-minded, our bodies aren’t as responsive as they once were, and like in Bruce Springsteen’s song, “Glory Days,” we tend to tell stories from our past and relive those memories repeatedly. I’m no exception as my family and wife are tired of many of those stories.

Still, becoming the patriarch of my family carries weight with me. It forces me to think more deeply about my choices and how they affect my family. Dr. Bruce Powell, a brilliant educator, said that our children see, watch, and remember almost everything we do. So, we model for them and our good and bad behavior is completely absorbed by them. I remind myself of this every time I drink more than two glasses of wine in their presence, when I swear, and especially if my wife and I quarrel in front of them.

I never said I was perfect, though I strive for an ideal that now seems even more important, so I hope to be the best model I can be. At this year’s Thanksgiving dinner, I didn’t say much and I now realize I missed an opportunity. We have a wonderful ritual that we do every Friday, when we celebrate Shabbat–the Jewish Sabbath–that I believe is a great fully established tradition in our family.

We go around the table and each person present, whether it’s just our family and/or guests, takes turns telling the best and worst things that happened to them in the previous week. The only rule is that only one worst is allowed. The result is we each get to reflect on our lives with extra emphasis on the things that are good, the things to be grateful for, and it allows us to learn what each person feels is most important to him or her.

My boys have no memory of not performing this ritual. Now that I am the senior dad in the family, I will look to reinforce this tradition, establish others, try and be the best patriarchal figure I can be, and also work to better model a loving marriage for my sons with my lovely bride of just one year (we married December 27, 2008).

Please visit www.brucesallan.com to contact Bruce and to enjoy the various features his new Web site offers, including contact info for advice and coaching, an archive of his columns, general contact info, links to his published work, photo galleries, and reader comments, plus much more. Bruce Sallan was an award-winning television executive and producer for 25 years. Google him if you really want to know more (e.g. his credits). When his boys were quite young, Bruce left show biz to become a full-time Dad. Shortly thereafter his marriage ended and his wife abandoned their children, leaving the State. Bruce found himself a full-time single Dad, in his late forties, as well as a returning single man to the changed world of cyber-dating. It became a classic “sandwich” situation when he also began to care for his ailing parents. He began writing various blogs on the dating sites he used as well as articles for local publications. The goal of his column, A Dad’s Point-of-View, is to primarily focus on parenting and

Best Friend or Best Parent?

A Dad’s Point-of-View

by Bruce Sallan

We just returned from a boys trip to Vegas. By “boys,” I mean my two boys, who are almost 16 and 13 and me, the oldest of the “boys” (according to my wife). I had to consider, yet again, the dilemma we confront as parents today, with the constant assault on our values and the non-stop sexual and violent imagery our kids face. We can’t fully shelter our kids, but what should be the limits?

When my boys were very young, their mom (my ex-wife) showed them the R-rated movie, “Pretty Woman” on our VCR, because she thought it was okay for them to see it, as it was her favorite movie. She felt they wouldn’t understand that the Julia Roberts character was a prostitute. I didn’t object and I think that was the first R-rated movie either of them saw.

Now, on this trip to Vegas, I took David, my younger son, to see “The Hangover,” as Will had already seen it with friends (which begs the question, how did he get into an R-rated movie without an adult?). He had my permission, so that isn’t the issue. I thought seeing “The Hangover” in Vegas would be fun and sort of appropriate. And, truthfully, we laughed loud and hard throughout much of the silliness. I found it more heartfelt than many of the other raunchy R-rated movies of late, but it still left me with a nagging feeling of innocence being lost too quickly. I’m still trying my best to preserve what little innocence I have left, as it’s clearly a lost cause with my boys.

Seriously, how often do I contribute to the problem because it’s easy or convenient to rationalize a situation? I suspect way too much. When Will was in first grade, we began watching the non R-rated James Bond movies-the older ones with Sean Connery, which really seem tame by today’s standards. Shortly afterward, his teacher requested a parent conference and related that Will had begun a regular routine of acting out shooting other kids, mimicking James Bond from the movies we watched together. I was stunned at my own naïve contribution to this minor, but not healthy, behavior. Stopping the movies quickly stopped the bloodshed. It was that easy.

I attended a parenting lecture by Dennis Prager, when I first became a dad, and there was substantial wisdom handed out at that event on these issues. He compared and contrasted raising our kids today vs. when his parents raised him in the fifties. In a nutshell, he said that his parents did not have to worry about what he was taught at school, what he’d see in movie theaters, listen to on radio or records, or be concerned about pretty much anything he read. They knew their religious values would not be challenged at his public school. Their pride in America would be honored by not only the Pledge of Allegiance but history textbooks, as well as the values taught and encouraged by the majority of his teachers and the school board.

He went on to say that his parents also didn’t worry about him walking to and from school, riding his bike around the neighborhood, or even be concerned when he’d go out all day to hang out with his friends, during the summer. What a contrast from what our children now face vs. what our parents did, just a few short decades ago. The list, today, is truly endless of the challenges to our values in the public and school spheres, let alone the over-protectiveness that has crept into our everyday parenting choices out of fear that something might happen to our kids if left on their own. The technology, as Mr. Prager pointed out, makes our vigilance and the job of parenting much more complicated and requires much more attention to the details.

So, now I’m back in Vegas and we’re walking the streets, where every place we go is a vendor handing out cards with naked girls, while wearing t-shirts supporting their “escort” service. The buses pass by with similar billboards and all the digital screens and sounds in sight blast the same sexual message. It’s so much that it’s literally numbing.

If we, as parents, are too vigilant or strict, we risk alienating our kids as so many of their friends are allowed even more than we might allow. Obviously, this requires a level of strength, confidence, and a willingness to face the derision of our own kids. If we value our values, we have to risk not being our kids’ best friend and choose, instead, to be their best parent. It isn’t as easy as it once was and I certainly haven’t helped my efforts by choosing Vegas for our boys trip. Maybe I should switch to a river rafting or other outdoor adventure trip next year. But, those buffets in Vegas…

Please visit www.brucesallan.com to contact Bruce and to enjoy the various features his new Web site offers, including contact info for advice and coaching, an archive of his columns, general contact info, links to his published work, photo galleries, and reader comments, plus much more. Bruce Sallan was an award-winning television executive and producer for 25 years. Google him if you really want to know more (e.g. his credits). When his boys were quite young, Bruce left show biz to become a full-time Dad. Shortly thereafter his marriage ended and his wife abandoned their children, leaving the State. Bruce found himself a full-time single Dad, in his late forties, as well as a returning single man to the changed world of cyber-dating. It became a classic “sandwich” situation when he also began to care for his ailing parents. He began writing various blogs on the dating sites he used as well as articles for local publications. The goal of his column, A Dad’s Point-of-View, is to primarily focus on parenting and occasionally other issues from the male perspective. Presently, his column is available in over 50 newspapers and Web sites in the U.S. and internationally. Bruce lives in Agoura, California with his second (and last) wife and two boys, who are 15 and 12. Find Bruce on Facebook and add him as your friend. Just be sure to tell him you saw him here.

Summertime and the Livin’ Is Easy

A Dad’s Point-of-View

by Bruce Sallan

I love that song. Who can’t help but love it? It’s nearing summertime by this dad’s astute intuition and the school calendar, and that tells me it’s summer once again and what are we going to do with the kids? A stay-at-home parent’s life is dictated by driving. Driving his or her kids to and from school, to their various extra-curricular activities, to doctor’s appointments, etc. We live in the car, so summer is actually my break, too. Read more