June 10th, 2006

For many of us fathers fathering begins when our children are born. But, perhaps influenced by many Derridean readings of beginnings and ends, I believe that the beginning of my fathering is infinitesimally removed. My fathering began, well, long before I ever saw the light of this world. It began as my fathers' fathering--it began as a man's primal and instinctual desire to nurture and protect his children. It began as a subversion of the inside/outside binary that often divides fathers and mothers (fathers being outside of the pregnancy dynamic and mothers being on the inside of it). This subversion made inside and outside the polar ends of one single continuum and put fathers on the
inside of the pregnancy experience.

I father because I was connected with my sons before they were conceived.
I father because it is an expression of a primal connection with men in my ancestral line.
I father because my connection with my sons and with the men who came before me gives me presence.
Presence as a man, is achieved at the intersection of fathering and being fathered.
To be a man it is not enough to be male. We have to be fathers to be men.