Living the Fatherless life

I had an interesting encounter last night while working at the children's boutique. I was sitting in here, minding my business like always, when a young man came in to the store. He asked me how my night was going, I said my usual response of "fine, how about you" and he responded, "GREAT- I got a job!". I inquired further, half bothered because he was stealing precious moments of Pinterest away from me, but the other half was intrigued. I found out this young man found his first ever job, on his own, working for a call center making $11.50 an hour. He asked me how old he thought he was, doing this weird prance/not-staying-still motion the whole time. I replied, "18" in which he responded, "yes, but I feel 35". Within moments I had his whole life story. In the midst of the autobiography he verbally vomited at me, he had an excuse for living a difficult life filled with drug deals gone bad and transient adventures. His excuse was simply... "I didn't have a father".

I haven't been able to stop thinking about this young man. And our conversation raised an interesting thought in my mind.

My husband never got the opportunity to meet his father. He has two daughters, from seperate moms, and is not there every single day to live out all of their adventures with them. The oldest daughter's mother is extremely proactive in including my husband in everything that is the least bit important. On the other side of the spectrum, our second oldest daughter's mother doesn't communicate during the week (which is "her" time), even if she's lost her first tooth or done great in school; we're still wondering what she was for Halloween. 

The difference in the two girls is nothing to go unnoticed. While the first daughter is excelling in school, reading almost 2 grade levels ahead, and a pleasure to be around, the second daughter has been in two fights in the first few months of kindergarten. I'm not a psychologist, and I know there are probably other factors that could affect that, but I feel like it has a lot to do with the involvement of my husband in their lives. Through all of this, I'm seeing just how important a father is. I also believe there are two ways to deal with it (which may be easier said then done)... rise up or let it break you. Rise up, like my husband has done... being one of the greatest, most loving fathers anyone could ask for. Or let it break you, like this young man did - using it as an excuse for living the life he knew was sub-par.

My prayers are with this guy, and I encouraged him to come back in a visit me whenever he was in the mall. Hopefully he will be one to rise up.