Like a lot of kids, I grew up with an absentee father. Looking back, I realized that I’ve never known the experience of buying my Dad a card or gift for the day, giving him a hug and wishing him a happy Father’s Day…<\/p>\n
There’s this common misconception that the absence of a father is equivalent to the absence of fathering in a child’s life. As I look back on my life this Father’s Day, I come to the realization that, throughout my life, I have had many fathers. From the neighbor’s dads who lectured me then ratted me out to my Mom when they saw me roaming the neighborhood when I should have been in school, others who included me in outings and activities with their own sons, to the neighborhood men who pulled me aside as a teen reminding me of my potential and how easily it could be squandered by running with the wrong crowd. The older boys who taught me how to drive, how to shave, how to stand up for myself, and perhaps a few things that I really didn’t need to know at that age… Cops, teachers, Uncles… As I got serious about music, I was truly blessed to have had many mentors and positive role models come into my life, all of whom played a huge part in shaping me, not just as an artist, but as a man. <\/p>\n
I spent a lot of years being angry with my Dad for abandoning me, for not being there for me during all those times when I needed a father the most, but most of all for leaving my Mom to hold it down single-handedly. Over the years I came to a place of forgiveness and peace vowing that if I was ever blessed with becoming a father myself I would do my best to break the cycle by being everything that my own father was not…<\/p>\n
That day eventually came, and I was blessed with a son of my own in 2006. I’ve made a lot of mistakes over the years, as most parents do, but I am committed to being there for my son in all the ways that my dad wasn’t there for me. It’s funny but as I watch my pre-teen son grow into a young man, and reflect back on all of the moments, first day of school, learning to swim, learning piano, karate lessons, coping with social situations, first facial hairs, all of the teaching and learning moments, I of course, wish my dad had lived to see them. Even more so, I feel a great sense of pity for my dad as he missed out on so many special moments in my life and, in his life, never got to experience the type of bond that can exist only between a father and son…<\/p>\n
So as a fatherless man of many fathers, I want to take just a moment to thank each and every one of the men that chose to be a part of the village it took to raise me; happy Father’s Day!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Like a lot of kids, I grew up with an absentee father. Looking back, I realized that I’ve never known the experience of buying my Dad a card or gift for the day, giving him a hug and wishing him a happy Father’s Day… There’s this common misconception that the absence of a father is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":5607,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[182],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vinceagwada.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5604"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vinceagwada.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vinceagwada.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vinceagwada.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vinceagwada.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5604"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.vinceagwada.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5604\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5618,"href":"https:\/\/www.vinceagwada.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5604\/revisions\/5618"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vinceagwada.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vinceagwada.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vinceagwada.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vinceagwada.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}