Fathers

A friend of mine is having problems at home. Generally, I'm pretty good about putting things into perspective for people. But in her case I didn't really know what to say. Her father is giving her troubles, they're in the same vocation, and his legacy in his trade is being caught up to by his daughter. Maybe he feels emasculated. Maybe he's realizing that he won't be her father in the traditional sens.
These issues are typical for boys. All men live in their father's shadows. Sometimes they feel like they are entitled to have their children live in their shadows with such grandiose maxims as "well son, I gave you my name, what else do you expect from me?"
How more patronizing, infantalizing, and divorced from your offspring can you get. Doesn't mean there isn't truth to it.
Our family names generally precede us.

Am I digressing? I thought I had a point...

oh yeah,

The name they give you, is something that they have spent literally a lifetime building. And, with children, they pass it on to them. They then live their name through their progeny. Vicariously projecting their success into their youth. Though at the same time coming to the realization that their family name was in the family before them. They are just another first name in a long chain of existence.

You push your children to succeed, but impotently try to keep them from ever replacing you as the ambassdor of family tradition.

I've been lucky, I'm the younger of two brothers, I'm free to watch from a distance. Even so, my brother is lucky enough to be the son of my father -- Just writing that, I wanted to erase it once i'd finished writing it because I realized that him and I are a part of the same cycle as well. Oh well...

Anyways, too many tangents, too many random side tracked thought processes. Totally dislocated from the original dilemma.

To tie it back in:
Fathers, let your children grow in their own way. Its hard enough that they grow in your shadow, but when they grow in to themselves and begin to carry your name as their own, consider the torch passed on. Step down silently without a fight, if its not today, its tomorrow, youth will always surpass age, maybe not in experience, but as those that define a generation. Let them shine, it doesn't mean that you won't keep shining into old age.

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Mp3 Post- Expect more Mp3s Tonight or Tomorrow, my internet at home broke. Again.

Willoughby - intentions