The importance of being a father, in supporting your children's mental health outcomes.

[madzielle@lemmy.dbzer0.com]

I cant get it off my mind.

My son has been in and out of an outpaitent youth mental health program, for a number of years now. I have a good report with the lead worker over there. Had a meeting with her yesterday.

In our talk, she very carefully mentioned, they had a tough, but important group recently. She obvioisly knows her kids, and asked the group to raise their hand if any of the kids had a father who had been to jail.

She said every child, (including mine) raised thier hand. Every single one. She teared up a bit when she was telling me. I did too.

Ive no idea where to post this.

Further into the conversation, my partner, who has been raising my son with me for most of his life, got a big compliment. He spends a lot of time with my son. He makes time for him, he talks with him, and my son adores and respects him. The worker in the meeting mentioned how my son recognizes he is lucky to have a "dad" in this role, and a good one too, while many children do not have any positive male (or sometimes any) role model.

Many children do not. :(

I was one of those kids too. Actually both my bio mom/dad fucking failed at raising their kids, and lost all of them. They both have mental health issues. Growing up this way, I could always objectively see "why" this happened for them, but I never understood not making course correction or you know, just not popping out four children each with multiple partners.

I had my son and I knew I had to do better. Ive done better. Making the choice to "do better" for my child was so bloody easy. Maybe the road there was hard, but the decsion to put the child as the first priority and walk this road was the easiest I ever made.

Ive lived a long life (it feels bloody long) and met many, many people. And I can tell you, specifically, people who have a supportive father, a good, present, morally upstanding (I dont mean this rigidly, but a person who is respectful, decent and honest) fathers, have such better outcomes in adult hood.

Short example: A man died as a drunk, getting hit by a car from the bar one night, leaving behind his two adolecent children. His adult son told me he wanted to die the same way, and was a severe alcoholic who found a hard life. He was not a peace with himself, and it was beyond clear how much of an impact his father had on him, without even being present really much of his life.

And more. Ive so many of these stories. I dont know, it was heartbreaking to know a room full of kids with mental health issues didnt have present or ..whatever, no dads. Correalation is not causation and all that, but seriously, this is pretty clear to me the correlation. Ive only seen it play out a 100 times meeting and learning people in my adult life. To just, see the next gen of fucked up kids, hurts.

I just wanna share this. If you have kids or dont, just be kind to kids. How many of us may have latched onto an adult in our life because that adult gave us positive attention we didnt get at home? I know I did.

I wish I was smarter, so I could like, make a point. Wont reach those who need it. But, all the kids in the world, just like the adults, you never know what someone is going through.

Its just sad man.

I think my depression is coming back.