Our “dad of the month” is a named Jim Ryan. The great thing about this is that Jim and I grew up together and have recently reconnected. Jim lives in North Carolina with his wife and daughter. Through our conversations we have laughed about the joys of parenting and have cringed at the hardships.

Read Jim’s story of his daughter and his insights of raising an only child. Please give us your insights on raising an only child if you find yourself in Jim’s shoes.

Thanks for being a part of this process Jim! I am so glad that we are back in touch.

As I sit here in my office staring at the picture of my little girl, Ava Grace, I sometimes cannot believe that something so beautiful could possibly have come from me (thank God for beautiful moms!). As a 43 year old father of a 7 year old only child, the challenges of raising an “Only” are plentiful. The most difficult to explain to a young child is why she has no brothers and sisters. This little question can dig up a lot of very difficult emotions for my wife and I, but I am truly blessed that the one child we have was gifted with intelligence, beauty, and a powerful stubbornness to get answers.

At times, I feel completely unequipped at the “parenting gig” as my mind sometimes works the same way as a 7 year old (being lazy, wanting to eat cookies instead of vegetables, and negotiating to get out of trouble with Mom), but the incredibly positive side of the equation, she gets ALL the attention a child could ever want or need.

She is at an age when the questions are nearly non-stop. Sometimes these questions are easy (Daddy, what is 25 + 47), but many of them are very “adult” and she is too smart to accept the typical parental brush off answer (the downside of having an only child whose parents are in their mid-40’s is that your little sponge absorbs all of your behaviors — the sarcasm, the concern over finances, and our petty insecurities to name a few). Hearing her commentary at times makes me think I am raising a 25 year old trapped in a 7 year olds body!

When we have our alone time and spend hours at the driving range hitting balls, I often fall into a bit of a daydream wondering what her life will look like it 10 years, 15 years, or 20 years. When I let my mind venture down that path, I have to put my faith in God’s hands that no matter how old I may be, he will give her (and us) all the tools necessary to have a beautiful life filled with joy, prosperity, and kindness. Though Daddy may be in Depends at her graduation ceremony, I will still be eyeballing those boys with the old Middle Linebacker looks to assure they know what is acceptable and what is unacceptable behavior towards my little girl (which she will always be).

Raising an only child with no family around can stress out even the most solid marital relationships. Guilt about only having one child, guilt over not living close to family, and guilt over the realization that when your child graduates from high-school, you will be near retirement. But, when you sit back and truly appreciate the gift of a healthy child, none of those insecurities truly matter; you just do and be the best possible father/husband you can possibly be. The quiet whisper of “Daddy I Love You” in her tired and falling asleep voice makes everything just about perfect.

I say “thank God” for Only children as some of us cannot even fathom how 2 or 3 could possibly be managed.

One of the very cool things that I have been experiencing since my book “American Daddy” has been published is the amazing people that I have met. One of those people is Jon Power! I don’t remember “how” it happened but Jon and I began emailing each other back and forth. I found out that Jon is a therapist so I thought it would be great to profile him in the “Counselors Corner” section. So, let me introduce you to Jon Power. He has written a powerful segment on Father’s & Son’s. I know that you will enjoy his work.

Jon is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in private practice. He holds a M.A. in Clinical Psychology from Antioch University, as well as, an B.A. in Literature and World Myth and Folk Literature. He lives in La Crescenta with his wife and son, Benjamin.

Father’s & Son’s

I wanted to start with a big thanks to Gabriel for the opportunity to use this medium to reach the Dads out there. I wanted to express my greater gratitude for his taking the time and initiative to create americandaddy.net and a place for fathers to come together in a type of fellowship.

When Gabriel asked me if I’d like to write something for the website, I brought the request to the Men’s Group I facilitate and asked them what they felt would be of greatest impact to the dads out there. Overwhelmingly, they felt something discussing the relationship between fathers and sons, especially when the sons have become fathers themselves, would be of value. Our group originally started as a place for individuals seeking support in adjusting to the different “speed bumps” of life. We quickly found that the force that unified us as a group was that the “individual” issues we were each facing were significantly related to our relationships with our fathers in the past, now, and as we faced the future. And consequently, the relationship we have with our children.

Many of the dads I work with have become distant or unable to relate with their fathers. In some case, it is more accurate to say that these “adult sons” have given up on having the relationship they desire with their fathers. This is important because as they face the blessings and challenges of their own fatherhood, these men are also struggling with their unresolved issues with their fathers.

I first became interested in exploring the relationships between “fathers and sons” when I read the same named short story by Ernest Hemingway as part of my undergraduate coursework. I didn’t have the volatile relationship with my father as the “son” did in the story, but it made me momentarily take an inventory of my relationship with my Dad, as well as, those of my friends. This inventory process started and stalled many times from that point, usually tucked away with a note or a highlighted passage in a book put up on a shelf. However, what lingered was a relationship with my father that lacked the passion I desired. Using the word “passion” may seem out of place, but I feel it best describes the loving heartfelt relationship I, and many of the men I have worked with, yearn to have with our fathers. Flash forward 20 years, 3 careers, a second marriage, and my first child. It wasn’t until the birth of my son that I really stopped and began, in earnest, the process of analyzing, make that living, the relationship with my Dad I desired.

Traditionally, fathers have taken one of two paths: engaged whereby they learn to nurture and support the uniqueness of there sons, or disengaged, where they fluctuate from an involved to a distant role where they are actively or passively guiding their son’s development towards becoming a man. I find that most of the current generation of dads had the latter type of father. In some cases, this disengaged father may have been abusive or completely out of their son’s life related to divorce or death. Now, I do not mean any disrespect to the majority of our fathers. Most fathers did the best they could considering the circumstances of the time and what they had learned from their fathers. I guess that really is the point; we dads need to begin to start thinking beyond what we consciously, and subconsciously, learned from our fathers.

The question came up in my group, “So what if a man has not had the benefit of an engaged father?” The simply answer is that with the fellowship of other dads and the development of a nurturing relationship with their own children, a man does not have to act upon the ill-effects of a “less-than” father. If men become more mindful of their relationship with their fathers, and more significantly, the ways in which they have unconsciously taken on behaviors they disliked in their fathers, they need not replicate this cycle. It is actually more “normal” to repeat the behaviors of our parents then not to. If you take a look back through the generations within your family, do you see a pattern in parenting style, or a way of reacting to situations? A big function of psychotherapy is to identify these “patterns of dysfunction” and create new “functional” patterns. This is important in terms of fathering because it allows dads to circumvent being unconsciously set-up to repeat with there sons what was done to them as sons. This is dually important because it will have a ripple effect on a man’s relationship with his partner/wife, daughter, if divorced, ex-wife, or any other cherished relationship.

We dads are on the threshold of a new understanding of the significance of being an active father. Socially and culturally, a new definition of being a father is being formed. I think of it as where in the past a man with children was considered a father parenting from over there, today a man with children is a dad, whole-heartedly involved in all aspects of their children’s lives. We have the opportunity to venture through life in step with our children and help each other through life’s momentous and minor transitions. I feel that when a dad and his son are able to influence each other in this way, both achieve a deep and lasting understanding of what it means to become a man. As William Shakespeare wrote in The Merchant of Venice, “It is a wise father that knows his own child.” I’d say it is a complete dad who knows his father as he knows his son.