A father’s opinion and experience
Art by Snezhana Soosh. (https://www.boredpanda.com/father-daughter-love-illustrations-snezhana-soosh-vskafandre/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic)
It is Christmas night back in the late 90s, and Ray (whose name has been changed to protect his identity) is sleeping with his feet out the window into the freezing Wisconsin winter. He had worked all day until late at night. His shoes were cheap, and caused painful sores and blisters. He could not go to the doctor; it was expensive, and besides, still fresh from crossing the border, he would not risk it. “Necessary sacrifices...” he thinks to himself while lying in the darkness.
But sacrifices for what exactly?
He had come to the United States to help his family, as most immigrants do. And he killed himself every day and night working to get the money he needed, as most immigrants do. Yes, even holidays. He was all alone that Christmas – and he would be alone for many more – sleeping with his feet out the window. His family were all in Mexico, and the few friends he knew were also working. All alone, just a 20-year-old boy. He was used to working, though. He had started working at just 11 years old back in Mexico to help his family of six as a busboy at a taco stand, gaining 45 pesos (2 dollars) a week, which he proudly gave to his mother every pay day.
Laying in the darkness, still with his feet hanging out the window into the cold to alleviate some of the pain, he thinks to himself again, “My children will have it better.”
“I never want you to struggle as I did,” Ray always tells his two daughters, Sarah (whose name has ben changed to protect her identity), the youngest, and myself, Kayla, the oldest. He has kept that promise.
Besides giving us, his daughters, anything that we may ever need, Ray has also raised us to be independent and able in life. “Men are trash,” he often says. “I know it because I am one, and I know how our minds work. Never let a man touch you in a way you don’t like. Attack! Scream if you need to! Never let a man dictate what you do!” he often says with passion – at least every time he remembers that his daughters are grown enough to date now.
These are the ideologies with which he raised us since we were young: to know our worth in this world, to stand up for ourselves, and to always fight back the unfair and to be clever. “He made me very patient and kind even though I don’t seem like it. His love saved me from a lot of things. I know how to stand up for things because of him. He helps me reassure myself that I am more than what I think I am,” stated Sarah when asked how our father had influenced her life.
He is not a controlling father, however, and lets his daughters make their own mistakes. He advises, and he warns of dangers, but, if his daughters want to make their own choices, he won’t intervene, yet he will “always be there to help.”
“I was raised to always help take care of my own,” he said, while we were driving to the wings bowling alley like we do every Thursday night with our family. “My father always told me ‘You are the oldest, you have to take care of your sisters and mother,’ so I did. I always worked to protect them, and to protect themselves, so I raised my daughters to do the same.” In a house with two sisters and a younger brother, it was on him to always be the man in the situation, especially after his father, our grandfather, died. “I was always raised with that. That’s why I always hate when someone is abusive towards women or mistreats children.”
A man who mistreats a woman is a coward, he always tells us. “That is what I make sure to teach Angel (my 16-year-old stepbrother), to always take care of his sisters and to help his mother.”
He continued, “Since you and Sarah were small, I’ve always told you that I want you to be better than how I was. And to never let yourselves be abused or screamed at. If I, that I am your father, have never treated you guys wrongly, why would you allow yourselves to be abused by some other bastard? If you were my little princesses, why would I want some other man to abuse you?” he said to me as we stopped to pick up my little step-siblings from their house. “So, I’ve been telling you two since you were little: screw it, whoever comes and wants to mistreat you, take out of your lives. Do not let yourselves be screamed at twice, because then you will never be able to take that bastard out of your life. I know that because I am also a man,” he repeated. “And besides, you don’t need a man like that in your lives. If he gets in the way of your goals and is a good-for-nothing, take him out of your lives,” he said yet again. “There's plenty of men in the world.”
Why is this example of parenting important when it comes to today's women?
Dr. Linda Nielsen, a Professor of Education at Wake Forest University in Winston Salem, NC, and an internationally recognized expert on father-daughter relationships, states in the article “How dads affect their daughters into adulthood,” from the Institute for Family Studies, that fathers that have been a strong and supportive presence in their daughters’ lives help in their:
“Academic or athletic achievements and encouraging their self-reliance and assertiveness” making them “more likely to graduate from college and to enter the higher paying, more demanding jobs traditionally held by males.”
Romantic lives because “a girl who has a secure, supportive, communicative relationship with her father is less likely to get pregnant as a teenager and less likely to become sexually active in her early teens. This, in turn, leads to waiting longer to get married and to have children—largely because she is focused on achieving her educational goals first.”
On being “the most likely to have relationships with men that are emotionally intimate and fulfilling.” And to have “more satisfying, more long-lasting marriages.”
They are “are less likely to become clinically depressed or to develop eating disorders. They are also less dissatisfied with their appearance and their body weight. As a consequence of having better emotional and mental health, these young women are more apt to have the kinds of skills and attitudes that lead to more fulfilling relationships with men.”
A good father and daughter relationship may not be the only thing making women of the future stronger, independent, more self-reliant, and cleverer, but it is an important part. Our father has fulfilled most of these points. My sister and I have focused on our academic careers, especially as first-generation Hispanic college students and have been (mostly) wise on our decisions so far in life. With a lot of help from our father, of course.
His upbringing played an important part in how he raised his children, his main goal being that of most immigrants that come into this country: to give the next generation better opportunities and a brighter future – to have more easily what he lacked while growing up.
“I grew up in poverty,” he said to me before pulling up to the wing's restaurant. “When you say, ‘I’m hungry,’ today for you is just a word. But when you said ‘I am hungry’ in my house it was because you were hungry. There was no food. There was no food. No food,” he emphasized.
Then he explained, "When there was no food, we ate tortilla soup with tomatoes and salt. There were no more tomatoes: then tortilla soup with cooking oil and salt. There was no more cooking oil: tortilla soup with salt. There were no more tortillas, well, we couldn't just eat salt, could we? We never had much money. But I was really happy,” he said while smiling at me.
“I didn't really know we were that poor. I knew we were poor, but not that poor. We had a house; more people were worse than we were. My dad always said that he wanted us to succeed and do something with our lives. He couldn’t. He was gaining pesos in a country that would never advance. And I, thank God, am here, gaining dollars, and able to help you guys and my family, my mother. So here I am, and that is why you are able to study, to see if you will be able to succeed. And now I am older. I’m old.”
He’s only about to turn 47, but hard and laborious work and sacrifices age someone faster than another who has had it easier in life. Tomorrow, after getting home until 9 p.m. today, he is going to wake up at 4 a.m. in the morning to go to work and labor at least 14 hours again, and gain, and again.
About the Author
Kayla Vega
Kayla is an undergraduate History student at Mount Mary University and a writer for Milwaukee Women Today. She's passionate about art and history. In her free time, she enjoys reading and staying at home.
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