Tag: legacy

“My Legacy”

Rob Says2 Comments
man talking picture while smiling
Legacy Porn for Power Dads.

I’ve been seeing “My Legacy” tweets and posts a lot lately. If you are on Twitter and are part of the same circles that I run around in, I’m sure you are seeing it too.

Guys showing off their kids and what they are doing with them. Guys talking about their families and posting pictures of them.

On the surface, there is nothing wrong with this, as far as I’m concerned. It’s a guy who is trying to be a positive role model for other guys who either have families of their own, or for guys who are interested in starting a family of their own one day.

But let’s dig a little deeper…

Let’s start off with the guys who talk about “my legacy.” Notice the first word in the quotes. “My.” It’s not about his family or his kid’s. It’s not about their well-being or what they want, or even about how they are being raised. It’s about him. It’s about getting digital high-fives and back slaps. It’s about “atta boys” and recognition. In short, it’s about validation seeking. The “my legacy” types are more worried about their “legacies” than how their kids feel about it.

I may not be a father, but I am a son and I was once a teenager. What happened when I was a teenager and even a young man? I rebelled. I rebelled against my family because they too, were more concerned about their “legacy” than they were with what I wanted out of life and how I felt about it. Many of the father’s and even some of the mother’s that I see talking about their “legacy” have young children. Most of these children haven’t become teenagers yet. They are still at that young, fun, impressionable age where Mom and Dad are gods and good guys. It’s going to be interesting to see how that dynamic plays out in the next few years or the next decade.

Worrying about your “legacy” is self-centered in my opinion. I think a lot of the father’s writing about their families are missing the point. It’s not about you. It’s about your kid’s. They are autonomous human beings with feelings and wishes of their own. Growing up being brainwashed by religion and family is a great way to create rebels and black sheep.

I was raised and grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah. It’s pretty much the LDS capital of the world. On the surface, it looks idyllic. Nuclear families where the father is the patriarch, mom stays at home and raises the kids. Kids are happy, healthy, so on and so forth, etc., etc. The truth is, many of the families are not nuclear anymore. No-fault divorce is just as accepted and legal in Utah as it is anywhere else in the United States. Drug use, prescription drug use, is high here in Utah. Everybody is on anti-depressants. I’m not making this up. Google the statistics for yourself.

Most of the kids that I grew up with rebelled. Drug use, drinking, pre-marital sex, unplanned pregnancies, all of that was a thing during my youth and still is today. One thing that has changed is young people committing suicide. That has gone up since when I was younger. If life is so grand, why are they killing themselves? Boredom? They’ve peaked out and therefore life can’t get any better, so might as well end it now?

No. That’s not it.

I don’t have all the answers to that question because it’s a complex question, but I can say with certainty because I have lived in it and experienced it firsthand, a big part of it is about perfection. Being perfect, having the perfect little life and family. At least on first glance and on paper.

The truth is, Mom and Dad are popping pills and drinking heavily. The kids are doing the same. Mom and Dad are having affairs and the kids are out screwing like the human animals that they are, but nobody wants to talk about it or address it. Everybody shows up to church on Sunday and it’s business as usual. Teenage pregnancy is high because nobody wants to talk about sex except abstinence. “Sex is something that is between a husband and a wife. You don’t do it until you are married.”

I hate to throw around the term narcissistic fantasy, but the “my legacy” crowd is indeed doing that very thing. It’s not about their kids really. It’s about them. The only difference that I’m seeing now is that they are doing it online instead of in the pews on Sunday. Mother’s and Father’s bragging about how great and wonderful their kids are, while their son is out stealing cars. Talking about how their son is going to go on a mission when he is old enough to do so, and that same son is out drinking and smoking weed, saying he will never go on a mission to his friends. The bishop of the ward talking about the sins of premarital sex, and his son is busy knocking up his “one true love.”

I’m not exaggerating when I say this stuff, I witnessed all of this with my own eyes and heard it with my own ears. I grew up with it, and nothing has changed.

I think it’s going to be interesting when the “legacy” crowd has their sons and daughters hit their teenage years and many of them rebel. These young families think they have it hard now, they haven’t gone through the crucible of the teenage and early twenty-something years. What I can’t wrap my head around is, they were teenagers once themselves, and not too long ago. They are closer to their teenage years than I am. Have they already forgotten? Did they not rebel? Did they follow their parents’ blueprint to having a “great family?” Or are they going to “do it different” than dear old Mom and Dad did?

Your “legacy” shouldn’t be about your kids in all honesty. Raising children is something that almost everybody does at some point. Ejaculating in a woman and her getting pregnant isn’t a feat. You aren’t special because you had kids. Your kids aren’t your legacy.

Every time I see or hear someone spout off about their “legacy,” I can think of several people who decided that hanging around and taking care of their parents in their old age wasn’t in the plans. I’ve seen people disown their families, walk out the door, and never look back, and with no regrets. My ex-wife’s oldest daughter has two children of her own as I’m writing this, and my ex-wife, the grandmother of these two children, has never seen those children in person and never will. Her oldest daughter will talk to me, but she won’t talk to her own mother. There’s a legacy for you.

I’ve seen “legacies” end up behind bars. I’ve seen them drink themselves to death or overdose on heroin. I’ve seen them join gangs. Your legacy can’t be your family as far as I’m concerned because they don’t owe you anything and they aren’t obligated to you. They can walk out of your life legally the moment they hit the age of majority and never look back. They are autonomous beings with thoughts, feelings, and desires of their own. Give them the space to explore that without the pressure of trying to live up to your legacy.

You want to be a Dad and raise kids? Fine, do that. I don’t have a problem with that. I hope your kids turn out okay and that they are happy and healthy. But don’t make it about you. You chose to have kids, they didn’t choose you. If you want to leave a legacy behind, make it about something else. Otherwise you’ll probably fuck your kids up. That, and all families have kids right? That’s the very definition of a family. Raising kids isn’t an achievement, it’s what everybody does.

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Kiss A Little Longer..Stay Close A Little Longer..Hold Tight A Little Longer..

Rob SaysLeave a comment

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“I don’t know how you guys get time to write. Takes me forever to write shit down.” – A Friend of mine talking to me on Twitter.

The thing is, once writing makes you her bitch, it’ll flow. You won’t be able to type fast enough to keep up with it. So you’ll get a voice recorder app, or an actual voice recorder to snag those ideas out of the ether. You’ll start carrying a notebook around with you and a couple of pens or pencils. Write that shit down man. If you really become hardcore about it, you’ll get a program or an app or something that will teach you how to type if you don’t know how. Or it’ll help you get really fast if you do. Gotta keep up with that shit in your head. You think faster than you type, always have and always will, but you’ll try and keep up, and you’ll fail. But you’ll keep at it anyway. Because that mistress, she’s such a ball-busting, slave driver of a bitch, she’ll keep cracking that whip. And the more she does, the more you will love her. Your thoughts get sharper, cleaner, more refined. The mental orgasms you have, and you’ll have them, when you complete a piece. That’s the shit baby. That’s the money shot.

And the tension that you create inside yourself when you’ve started something, but you haven’t worked on it, or finished it? That is a sweet suffering, a beautiful agony of your own creation. Sometimes I sit on something just to stew in it and suffer, but to get back to it is like drinking a glass of iced water when you’ve been wandering the desert for weeks on end. It’s like getting a woman aroused and seeing her panties getting wet.

You don’t get the time to write. You make the time to write. Because eventually you have to. It becomes a release. A catharsis. It is its own orgasm.

Reading is and has always been enjoyable to me. Now though, now there’s another element to it. I not only read to be entertained and to educate myself, but I read to sample nuances of other writers. It’s like wine tasting. You take a sip, swish it around in your mouth, and usually you’re supposed to spit it back out. Reading has become like that for me these days. I sample a writer, especially for their humor and I take it in and savor it. Only instead of spitting it back out, I swallow it down. Just like how I do wine tasting now that I think about it. I didn’t realize that you weren’t supposed to drink all the wine that you tasted, to me, wine tasting is a fun way to get really fucked up if that is your goal. Reading and then writing is kind of like that too, minus the hangover.

Lot of guys in the Twitterverse yammering on about procreation so that you have your “legacy.” Apparently in their world, that’s their mission. Wife a woman up, bang out a bunch of kids, save western civ, and boom! There’s your legacy.

Here’s a question for you though, some food for thought if you will:

What if your kids turn out to be pieces of shit? What if they don’t like you and want nothing to do with you in your old age? They don’t owe you an obligation just because you brought them into the world. What if in your declining years, your kids shuttle you off to a rest home, never to be seen again until your funeral? And then it’s off to the attorneys to fight over the pickings left behind, like vultures circling carrion. Didn’t think that could be your legacy did you?

You spent your life creating your legacy only to find out that your legacy doesn’t give a fuck about you. And two generations later, you’re forgotten anyways. Your great grandchildren, if there are any, barely remember you. And your great great grandchildren? You’ll be lucky that they even knew you, let alone of you. I’m not trying to be cynical here, it’s just the truth. It’s just reality.

If your mission is to leave a legacy behind, what better way than to write it down. Hell, half of the Bible is nothing but a recording of births. Why not do the same thing? You want to leave a legacy behind for future generations to enjoy, why not write a book or a blog? Why not put your thoughts down, even if you think they are boring and insignificant. Those thoughts and feelings might be insignificant to you, but what about to whoever ends up reading them? What is insignificant to you is profound to another. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure and all of that.

This is my legacy. This is what I leave behind. Sometimes boring, run of the mill, and yes even insignificant. At least for me, it’s my way of saying, “I am. I’m here. I was here.” I still get traction on posts that I wrote over a year ago when I decided to get serious about this. God knows why, but they do. I still get comments and e-mails about them, thanking me for writing them. They helped somebody out there, out. Good enough for me.

And if I ever have kids, this will be something that I’ll leave behind for them to remember me by. Warts and all. Maybe I’ll compile these posts into a book and put it on my shelf with the others that I hold near and dear. It could make an interesting conversation piece at least. “You wrote a book?” “Why yes, yes I did.”

If I end up with kids, and those kids have kids, and I give them this blog, or some form of book from it, and those kids read it, at the minimum they’ll probably say, “Grandpa was a weird fucker.” Yes, my 5 year old grandkids and great grandkids will swear.

And if I don’t have kids, so the whole grand and great grandkid thing will be a moot point? Somebody somewhere will find this and read it, eventually. And they will say the same thing, because they swear too.

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Father’s and Son’s

Rob SaysLeave a comment

sunset person love people

It’s Monday October 15th. It’s been a month since my Mother died. It’s really strange how time goes by. On one end, it feels like it was just yesterday that she died. On the other hand, it’s amazing how fast time has gone by. It’s been a whole month.

Most of this last month has been for the better. Most days are better than I thought they would be.

Part of that is that I’m getting to know my Dad. Not just on a Father and Son level, but from the perspective of one Man to another. I’m learning who he is as a Man, not just a Father.

It has been really good getting to know my Father the Man. It helps me understand myself better and maybe why I do some of the things that I do and have done. The apple truly doesn’t fall far from the tree.

I can see now where I get some of my behaviors and ways of being. I get it from him. A lot of the ways that I view and interact with the world have come from him. Now maybe you may be sitting wherever you are, reading this, and think, “Well duh Rob.” But understand this for a moment:

My parent’s got divorced when I was eight years old. I only saw my Father on the weekends in the beginning. That was maybe for a year. After that, I didn’t see much of my Father, and by the time I became a teenager, I only saw him occasionally when he came over to the house to work on one of his cars. Even then I didn’t see much of him as I was busy with school and friends. So we would see each other for a few moments at best.

We were distant and estranged as far as I was concerned. I have to admit, during my teens and into my twenties, I didn’t think much of my Father. I didn’t like how he handled things and I didn’t want to be like him. Saying something like, “You’re just like your Dad,” was fighting words to me back then. I wanted to be nothing like him.

I thought that my Mother got the raw deal in the divorce even though she was the one that wanted it.

I know better now. I heard my Mom’s side of the story many times growing up, and over the last few years, I’ve been getting my Dad’s side of it in bits and pieces. Now that my Mom is gone, I’ve been getting even more of my Dad’s side of things, and I have to admit, they make sense. They are the missing puzzle pieces that I didn’t know were there.

I’m glad for the time that I have with my Dad. It’s important to me. I’m glad that I’m getting to know him not only as a Father, but as a Man. He’s been honest with me when I ask him questions, he holds nothing back. He’s also answered every question that I’ve had so far.

I understand myself better now than at any other point in my life. I understand that many things I do and have done are “nurture.” They are the things I’ve learned from my friends, my society, and my culture. I’ve also noticed things that I would call “nature.” Maybe I’ve actually learned them without being aware of it, it’s totally possible. But I kind of doubt that. These are the things that have just sort of “come naturally.” Much of it I see and hear from my Father when I ask the questions that I’ve asked.

I highly recommend to all you Men in particular, and to everyone out there reading this, talk to your Dad if you are able to. Talk to him about being a Man. Don’t just ask him what it’s like being a Father, ask him about stuff that relates to being a Man.

Hopefully you have that option in your life still. If you do, if your Father is still alive and you are able to contact him, do it.

Talk to him and do stuff with him. I’m going over to his house later today and we are having steak. We’ll probably watch NHRA drag racing too.

Get to know your Father, not only as a Father, but as a Man. You may get answers to questions that you didn’t know you had. You may get some understanding into yourself that you didn’t know you wanted or that you needed.

 

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