Fatherhood and The Birmingham Jail

Bo tells me what’s on his mind and heart, when it’s just him and I remaining at the dinner table. It’s as if he’s waiting for us to be alone and for it to be quet, and then, right then in that instant he drops a dime on me.

“Today at school, Billy kicked me, Papa.”

This time, thank God, I met him where he was instead of trying to fix his problems.I asked if he was okay, which he was. I passed a deep breath, silently, as I remembered that this is the way of the world - there are good kids that still hit and kick, and there are bullies, and that on the schoolyard stuff does happen. This, I begrudgingly admit to myself, is normal - even though it’s not supposed to happen to my kid.

So I started to ask Bo questions, trying my best to keep my anger from surfacing and making him feel guilty for something he could not control.

Bo, has learned how we do things in our family, what we believe. And in our family, we have strong convictions around nonviolence. He was sad, but he told me that he didn’t hit back. He didn’t meet violence with violence. This is my son, I thought.

I told him how strong he was, and how much strength it takes to not meet a kick with a kick; how strong a person has to be to not retaliate. I said he should be proud of himself, and that I was proud too.

But as we continued, I realized just how much like me, unfortunately, he really is. It also takes strength, I added, to draw a boundary. It takes so much strength to say something like, “I want to be friends with you, but if you continue to kick me, I will not.” It takes so much strength to confront a bully, even an unintentional one.

I talked Bo through the idea of boundaries and how to draw them as best I could. It made him visibly nervous - his five year old cheeks admitting nervous laughter as he tried to change the subject with talk of monkeys and tushys. Boundaries are so hard for him. He really is my son, I thought.

Boundaries have always been hard for me. I haven’t been able to draw them, to say no. They still are. For so long, I couldn’t keep my work at work. I haven’t been able to advocate for my own growth in any job to date or to reject an undesirable project which was unfairly assigned. When a dominating person tries to take and take, I may not roll over, but I don’t challenge them either.

My instinct to please others is so instinctual, I hardly ever know I’m doing it. This inability to draw boundaries is my tragic flaw.

One of my core beliefs about fatherhood is on this idea of breaking the cycle. I think there’s one core sin within me, maybe two, that I can avoid passing on. For me this is the one. This inability to draw boundaries and please others is what I want to break from our linage for all future generations. This is the flaw that I want to disappear when I die. Even before our sons arrived, I promised myself, this ends with me.

As I searched for answers and wisdom in the days that followed, my mind went to Dr. King and the ideas of nonviolence articulated by him and his contemporaries, like Gandhi, who were the only heroes outside of my family that I ever truly had.

I remembered this passage, from his 1963 Letter from a Birmingham Jail (emphasis added is my own):

In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self purification; and direct action. We have gone through all these steps in Birmingham. There can be no gainsaying the fact that racial injustice engulfs this community. Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of brutality is widely known. Negroes have experienced grossly unjust treatment in the courts. There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any other city in the nation. These are the hard, brutal facts of the case. On the basis of these conditions, Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the latter consistently refused to engage in good faith negotiation.

Then, last September, came the opportunity to talk with leaders of Birmingham's economic community. In the course of the negotiations, certain promises were made by the merchants--for example, to remove the stores' humiliating racial signs. On the basis of these promises, the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and the leaders of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights agreed to a moratorium on all demonstrations. As the weeks and months went by, we realized that we were the victims of a broken promise. A few signs, briefly removed, returned; the others remained. As in so many past experiences, our hopes had been blasted, and the shadow of deep disappointment settled upon us. We had no alternative except to prepare for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and the national community. Mindful of the difficulties involved, we decided to undertake a process of self purification. We began a series of workshops on nonviolence, and we repeatedly asked ourselves: "Are you able to accept blows without retaliating?" "Are you able to endure the ordeal of jail?" We decided to schedule our direct action program for the Easter season, realizing that except for Christmas, this is the main shopping period of the year. Knowing that a strong economic-withdrawal program would be the by product of direct action, we felt that this would be the best time to bring pressure to bear on the merchants for the needed change.

This letter from Dr. King has always resonated with me. I believe deeply in its ideas of nonviolence and am so humbled by the way Dr. King was able to articulate the point of view so personally, simply, and persuasively.

But I had never before connected the ideas in the letter to my conception of fatherhood. The prose was so relateable and resonant with fatherhood, I found it almost damning.

I do not want my sons to bear the weight that I have borne. I want this flaw - the inability to draw boundaries - to end with me. Others, I’m sure, have others crosses that they bear that they do not want to pass on, whether it’s emotional vacancy, substance abuse, or the fear of failure. Everyone’s tragic flaw is surely different.

But what’s true for me is true for all: I need to lead by example. I will pass what I do not wish to my sons, unless I walk the walk. I need to do the self-purification that Dr. King talks about. I must make a deep change within, if I want to see the change in Bo, Myles, and Emmett.

I cannot simply say to Bo that he must draw boundaries, I must also learn to draw boundaries. I cannot simply coach Bo on how to stand his ground, I have to stand my ground. I cannot simply tell Bo that he has to say no, even when he’s intimidated, I must say no to those that intimidate me.

To break the cycle, I must engage in self-purification that results in direct action.

Dr. King’s conception of nonviolence seems to get at what the essence of fatherhood is for me. It’s a process of trying to be better, in hopes that if we are better they might be better. That they might have one less cross to bear, one less flaw to resolve.

The flaw my father sacrificed for me was that of self-expression. He found it so difficult in his life to articulate what he was thinking and feeling. And that’s what he pushed me to do.

He encouraged me to sing, act, and dance. Even though it was expensive and we didn’t have a ton of extra money growing up, he and my mother never said no to the performing arts. He always showed up, every recital and performance.

But more importantly, he worked to be better himself and I saw that, up close. He joined the local Toastmasters club for awhile. He took online courses in Marketing. Towards the end of his life, he even tried to open his heart to me.

What my father did, was the journey all fathers seem to take. When we are young, we are invincible and full of swag. Then, along the way, we realize and then accept that our fathers are not superheroes, but mere mortals. Then, whether voluntarily or by the hand of life’s misfortunes, we realize that we are flawed, too - before we have children if we’re lucky.

And then the rest of our life is the singularly focused story of overcoming that tragic flaw. The sin we must not pass on, for no reason, perhaps, other than that we must, because that’s what father’s do.

And then there’s our final act, if we are lucky enough to see it. Our children are grown, and are on the precipice of having children of their own. And we hope, with all our hearts, that we have conquered some sin, that we’ve overcome that tragic flaw enough to not pass it on.

Then we pray, with what energy we have left, that our children forgive us for what we could not manage to redeem.

Photo Credit: Unsplash @polarmermaid