Being a father is a tough job in the best of times. From the moment you are handed a blanket swaddled bundle of screaming joy, you realize just how profoundly your life changes. Here is a human being that is completely dependent on you. Once that initial bolt of fear passes and you can feel your fingers and toes again, you understand that your level of responsibility just ratcheted up about 100 levels. For me, that was when I understood that 'career' was more important than 'job'. I needed a long term plan to provide for these little guys. Trying to keep to that plan in this economic chaos is what gets you out of bed at three in the morning.
The company I work for, an award winning, locally owned organization that provides the
Mahoning Valley with an innovative success story has been tossed about on these troubled waters just as thousands of other companies have. There have been lay-
offs and pay cuts, just as there have been at other companies but people get rattled when the grim spectre of unemployment reaches for them and those they work with closely. This uncertainty is what drives fathers to strive harder and pray that they can
come out of the other side of this recession with their job intact.
As the uncertainty of continued employment begins to creep into our life we hope that the bulwarks we've built will be enough to sustain us should the worst happen. Savings, 401k plans, 529 college plans and mutual fund investments are the tools we use to provide for our families. We begin to cut back on the little things that make life fun, canceling HBO, skipping trips to Chuck E. Cheese's and cutting back on gifts for special
occasions. You start to count how many mortgage payments are in the bank and how many payments are left on the car.
But there is only so much worrying you can do. Trips to the park are free and playing catch in the backyard costs nothing but time. Keeping up on the little things (and bigger things) that need work around the house become teaching moments and bonding memories. Cook outs,
board games and watching WALL-E are all opportunities to remember that being a dad is about much more than providing for a child's financial well being. It's
important, to be sure, but it's only one aspect of a much larger process.
A wise woman once wrote "Don't worry about the future.
Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind,the kind that blindside you at 4 pm on some idle Tuesday." Well, she has a point. Fretting about the loss of a job is useless. Either you are needed or not and if you suddenly find yourself without a place to go on Monday morning it simply means that you've been given an opportunity to change your life. Take a deep breath and think about how you will
remember this in twenty years. Think about how you'll
reminisce about how things were so bad in 2009 that even
you lost your job. And remember that how you deal with
adversity on this level is something else you'll be teaching your children.
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