WHAT FATHERS ARE MADE OF

Loving and patience. Love, patience and little bit of more love. Yes, that was my Dad!

When I was growing up I use to doubt if my mom really loved me or my sisters. I remember clearly always questioning this. Why was she always so angry, so mad? Why is she screaming at me so much? Why did she need to be telling us all the time what to do, how to do it, and never letting us do the things we wanted? Why? 

My father on the other hand, was just joy and love. We would run to see him and never run from him. He would save us so many times from my mom’s harsh disciplinary methodology, (we use to run behind his legs from my mom’s big smacks or belts smacks)... My dad was a loving father, but not just because of that of course. But because he could never explode. I never saw him in my entire life being taken over his passions, or shouting or angry. He was always calm and constantly carrying a half smile in his face.

But don’t get me wrong here, I love my mom as much as my dad, but my memories about my mom are a little bit more about how she disciplined us every time, and not so much of how she loved us, unfortunately. But now, that I am a mother too I can completely understand where she was coming from. I can see myself many times doing exactly the same things, in the same way with my own kids, as my mom did with us. So do I too love them less? Absolutely not, nor did my mom love us less. 

Love and discipline: it is a hard combination, and if used in the wrong dose it can become indulgence and anger. Many times I need to police myself to not let my frustrations turn into anger and loud shouts. My ultimate goal as a mother is to be free from all passion. I read in a book where it says: “Never correct in anger. You should correct your children in love. Do not let them have their own way until you get angry, and then punish them”. ...“Children have sensitive, loving natures. They are easily pleased and easily made unhappy. By gentle discipline, in loving words and acts, mothers may bind their children to their hearts. To manifest severity and to be exacting with children are great mistakes. Uniform firmness and un-impassioned control are necessary to the discipline of every family. Say what you mean calmly, move with consideration and carry out what you say without deviation.”... Never should parents cause their children pain by harshness or unreasonable exactions. ... ”Some children will soon forget a wrong that is done to them by father and mother; but other children who are differently constituted cannot forget severe, unreasonable punishment which they did not deserve. Thus their souls are injured, and their minds bewildered.”

Well, thank you God that we always can learn in life and change. I just hope I can somehow  do right by my kids. I am trying to be like my father, but I fear that being a mother just makes us more likely to be doing all the disciplinary work that leads us too close to being angry and frustrated so many times. So at the end we are just like Moms.

My father is no longer around, at least active present, in my life. After his stroke, he was left so impaired that seems like it’s just a shell left in there. He is there but not there. He is lost inside his own body, unable to come out, locked by in his own dysfunctional brain. I miss my dad deeply and more and more I want to be like him. He was full of love and understanding, never judgmental toward others, always prompt to help, a person that could never say no. My father, instead of “No,” would say, “let’s see... Let’s wait and see what I can do.” He made us believe in the possibilities, when he said “let’s wait and see.” He feed my dreams this way. He taught me patience with that. He made me feel loved. He did something very special and not only him but all his other brothers have the very same attitude. They were able to separate the things that kids do for just being a kid, seeing more like a limitation of age and never imposing adult standards for kids. This is what makes really hard for a child to thrive, ask a child to act like an adult while she is still a child. My father made me feel loved. And that is the mother I want to be for my kids. A loving mother like my loving Father.