Being A Sensitive Man, I Want to Raise a Son Sensitive to His Own Emotions.

When I come home after having the privilege of spending a day with my son. I usually break down into tears. Tears of no velocity or gauge. I cry out of frustration, for his well being, for the hope of our relationship finding the recognition it deserves. I cry because if I keep my emotions bottled up, I won't have another way to express myself. I have fought in court, I have stood my ground with anyone who has doubted my son's ability to speak for himself. I have nurtured and respected his mother and given her every chance I can think of to accept that he deserves the best of our ability to care for him. I have been faced with overcoming an impassible wall of deceit, manipulation and mistrust. I have been placed in a circumstance as a white man to fight for my mixed child against a woman of color who has had her own issues being abused, mislead and mistreated. My son is only six. He has very little opportunity to escape what oppresses him. He has no one, to my knowledge, besides myself capable of offering him the opportunity to vent, express and liberate from the turmoil that he is suppressed by. Yet, he strives and yearns to be a very well-mannered, respectful, and kind-hearted young man. He is incredible in this respect. Going above and beyond to meet people where they stand and to share something positive that catches his eye. Even when he has something more distressing to express, he will look to change the subject to something more positive, as if to cushion the blow for anyone else around. I love this about him. He is a lot like me, and I appreciate how he does what a lot of us do, he looks out for other people's needs before he thinks about himself. But, my son is only 6 years old. He deserves more space to express how he feels in the moment, he needs more attention to know that he is doing the right thing and above all else, he needs the opportunity to know that his needs are just as important as anyone elses. So who spoke and said he doesn't deserve these few inalienable rights? A decision was made that lacked certain precaution and made an assumption that I was the one who was a bad influence. I do not have the opportunity to easily blame anyone involved of knowing how much their participation has interfered with the security of my child. I am unable to condone any of the things that have perpetuated his misery and further confused my desire to be fully involved in his life. So, my son acts out...in school, being the only outlet he has, away from home. At home, he watches TV, which is his way of being somewhere else, and the household's way of giving him something to do. He plays computer games, he plays in his room with his toys, but he is almost always alone. When I grew up, I had a little sister, so very rarely, unless I was in my own room, did I have the opportunity to be alone. One thing that taught me was the importance of communicating. That and it instilled in me a great trust and respect for women for so many reasons. Mainly because being sensitive to ones feelings, and needs makes it easier to see where other people are coming from. To see their position allows us to understand what their influence over a given situation will be. I wish I could share with my son this sensitivity our family can share with others so easily. The stories of some of the women I still feel the influence of could shed light on the ways to optimistically find positive influences that he will keep the rest of his life. I have a child who is a public school student in West Philadelphia. He goes to a school with very little racial diversity. Mainly it's religious, over half of his class being Muslim. Something I think could lend to a certain dynamic that our differences could redeem our similarities. But it is still a cold and strict environment to be in. Public school is not yet the nurturing intellectual institution, with the right funding, it could be. But I have met my son's teacher and her demeanor and her sensitivity lend me to feel her influence is sound. My son still a boy, fights on the playground and likes to act tough and be dominant. All things I learned to do myself growing up. It's the nature of being a child in our country, where no one is given a fair chance to express themself, and suffering often goes unnoticed as indifference or disinterest. So, it is left to the home, the family and the world around a child to teach them that their feelings are valid. My father was a social worker till I was 5, so I always was taught to embrace how I felt. I was encouraged to be nurturing, as not to overpower my little sister, and I was grounded and given time outs when I was too mean to her, never beaten. I was not an easy kid to get along with, and as a brother, I was very demanding and overbearing, I would find easier to overpower her, rather make an agreement over television shows, music, and other things we would have to share growing up. I learned a lot as a kid. Especially, that I always felt better treating people nicely, and looking out for other people's needs. I always had somebody around me to remind me that how I influenced the situation ahead was going to effect how I was going to feel later. If it was made worse by my actions, I would always feel worse about it, if I was doing something bad. So, I learned to pay attention to what my actions were, compared to what I was saying. I somehow made it to being a father with a universal knowledge of how important it is for us to express ourselves, as individuals, and how important it is to be sensitive to each of our feelings. I used to sit with my friends at any age and pry into their walled up, pensive moments, and chew on their expressions to ease their strides into their personal vortexes of emotion. I always wanted to know how they were feeling. I would walk friends through what they were feeling, and get into trouble for missing class, just so they had somebody to talk to. I have always been this way and I have always gained more personally from sacrificing my moment, to listen to someone else's feelings. At the age of 19, I found it so interesting how most of our experiences parallel somebody else's and just by listening how easily it is to solve both issues just by figuring out the similarities. I found these skills I have cherished for so long essential to not over-reacting during my relationship with my son's mom, and after our relationship ended, intrinsic to fortifying the development that he needs and that his feelings do matter. That's something that he was able to absorb and assimilate for as long as I can tell. So back to his way of turning off the sobs to be sensitive to other people's feelings in the moment. As much of an effort it is for him to hold back the tears and I have seen him do it in quite a few doosies. I find those emotions come out anyway later in much more undefined and explosive ways that I just don't want to see my son have to go through. If he is given the opportunity to express himself more openly, I have seen him transform into a sensitive, caring and composed young man, who is able to develop and assimilate the most intimate abilities to include, nurture and support others around him. I have this confidence in his ability. So, I pray that soon, we are able to reach out to him and say Aviv, you deserve better and we think it's time you were allowed to lean on us, instead of having to deal with being told that no one cares. Without making our influences on him valid and fair, we leave him with nothing but empty demands and unfair value misleading a fine young man.