There may come a time for some of you, including myself, in life where you need to bow down and admit that you need help and by no mean feat, it can be quite daunting a task to take on in your new adventure into fatherhood. I do have a completely different idea on what it should entail though.

A few guidelines that I have mustered over a lifetime of trials tribulations within a exuberant family.

1. Respect is not just given it is earned.

I learnt this one from my mother myself. When you are holding your hand out asking for help or asking for lending ear you should not expect to leap through hoops to get such things. To hear under handed comments or to be made to feel belittled based on your journey in life is not generally what you’d expect from asking for ‘help’ but it does happen. I grew up in a family with a very focal military ideology through my grandfathers time in the forces of the British Army. The idea that one should just desire or expect respect based on stature is nothing more than tyranny and oppression at its core. I guess this may not be the norm for many families but growing up it was all I knew. A bit of a lone wolf movement but still in a pack. Why should I respect someone for helping family? It’s a vague question with so many subsidiaries connected that it just can’t be answered without answering the rest. I think there’s a blur in the lines of what people believe respect is and most often misjudge it for appreciation or being thankful. I don’t know.. Just a thought.

2. Paths are different for everyone. don’t bow out of what makes you happy.

I’m not your every day 9-5 drone that longs for retirement at the ripe age of 70. Watching there’s pennies and dreaming of that 2 week break away in the sun every year. I have dreams and aspirations, truth be told it’s taken me a long time to figure them out but I have them. I started a few of my own ventures to coincide with being at home with my family in these hard times and it’s taking its time to work out but I’m happy. I’m not working for some corporate money eater or working in the public sector awaiting the galleon but I’m working for me. This, for me, is something I want to pass down to my daughter. I will still teach the lessons of hard work and achievement but with the ideology that she can grow to be her own person, own rules and own demands.

Always stick to your guns and don’t let ANYONE tell you that you are doing is wrong. What is wrong for one may be perfection for another.

3. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.. Rip it apart quietly.

Generally society has stagnated to the point where it believes in the Victorian view of hierarchy based on status and fortitude but there’s a glimpse of something new evolving for mans future. A raw Neanderthal clouting of your chest to get what you want. An ideology so bare and fruitful it inspires even the uninspirable. The idea that man does not need to bare down to rules and trials just to get what they want but can attack it at will to have it. What I’m trying to say is, views on what is expected have been turned on its head in this new generation. What was fine in the 1960’s, for example, is just not right for now. Culture changes like the wind, but almost always for the good of the future for you, your family and children but you have to be smart and be the bigger man and concede defeat.

Things are tough and may get tougher before you even see the good times in that horizon far, far away. Sometimes you have to concede to the fact that your whole life may be defined by another, if only for a short time, but if you have the have the chance to quietly evolve alongside something you don’t believe in, THEN evolve.

Sorry for the rant.. Sometimes we just need to vent.. Don’t we dads?