Commentary

COMMENTARY: Fathers Being Present, Keeping Word Most Important to Children

WASHINGTON INFORMER — While it is often noted that no guidebook is available to women on how best to be mothers, the same holds true for men who enter into fatherhood. In addition to providing nurturing support for offspring, traditional roles dictate that men also financially support, provide protection, instill mental and emotional anchoring for their children. However, many young adults in the District found the lessons their fathers instilled through example far more powerful than words they imparted.

Published

6 years ago

June 18, 2019

Sharon Washington Tedarius Abrams and Elae Hill

By Sharon Washington, Tedarius Abrams and Elae Hill

While it is often noted that no guidebook is available to women on how best to be mothers, the same holds true for men who enter into fatherhood. In addition to providing nurturing support for offspring, traditional roles dictate that men also financially support, provide protection, instill mental and emotional anchoring for their children. However, many young adults in the District found the lessons their fathers instilled through example far more powerful than words they imparted.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2015 report on the role of American fathers in family life, which noted the critical roles fathers played in the health and development of their children, defied stereotypes about Black fatherhood by documenting both their traditional and non-traditional involvement in daily childrearing — even when the fathers were not living in the same home.

“There is an astounding amount of mythology loaded into [the] stereotype [of Black men as derelict fathers], one that echoes a history of efforts to rob Black masculinity of honor and fidelity,” New York Times commentator Charles M. Blow said in a 2015 piece. “Now to the mythology of the Black male dereliction as dads: While it is true that Black parents are less likely to marry before a child is born, it is not true that Black fathers suffer a pathology of neglect.”

The Pew Institute estimates roughly 67 percent of African-American fathers who don’t live with their children see them at least once a month, compared to 59 percent of white fathers and just 32 percent of Hispanic fathers.

“My job is to ensure that my children grow into healthy, productive, God-centered men and women,” said Vaughn Willis, a 27-year-old mechanic. “That cannot happen with me acting like a man-child, hanging with friends instead of with my kids.”

Willis that while he may have been short on financial support for his two children on occasion, he provided them with the tangible things they needed.

“My sons didn’t want to hear that business was slow and I couldn’t pay for new clothes or shoes, they just wanted their dad to be there to read to them or to walk them to school,” he said. “They need to know that they matter to the man who gave them life.”

Sharon Washington, Tedarius Abrams and Elae Hill are interns for The Washington Informer as part of Chevrolet’s Discover the Unexpected (DTU) Journalism Fellowship program.

This article originally appeared in the Washington Informer .

Sharon Washington Tedarius Abrams and Elae Hill

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Activism

Oakland Post: Week of June 4 – 10, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of June 4-10, 2025

Published

5 days ago

June 7, 2025

Oakland Post

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Activism

Remembering George Floyd

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — Minnesota State Attorney General Keith Ellison acknowledges that the Floyd case five years ago involved a situation in which due process was denied, and five years later, the president is currently dismissing “due process. “The Minnesota Atty General also says, “Trump is trying to attack constitutional rule, attacking congressional authority and judicial decision-making.” George Floyd was an African American man killed by police who knocked on his neck and on his back, preventing him from breathing.

Published

2 weeks ago

June 2, 2025

Oakland Post

Mural showing the portrait of George Floyd in Mauerpark in Berlin. To the left of the portrait the lettering "I can't Breathe" was added, on the right side the three hashtags #GeorgeFloyd, #Icantbreathe and #Sayhisname. The mural was completed by Eme Street Art (facebook name) / Eme Free Thinker (signature) on 29 May 2020. (Wikimedia Commons)

By April Ryan
BlackPressUSA Newswire

“The president’s been very clear he has no intentions of pardoning Derek Chauvin, and it’s not a request that we’re looking at,” confirms a senior staffer at the Trump White House. That White House response results from public hope, including from a close Trump ally, Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. The timing of Greene’s hopes coincides with the Justice Department’s recent decision to end oversight of local police accused of abuse. It also falls on the fifth anniversary of the police-involved death of George Floyd on May 25th. The death sparked national and worldwide outrage and became a transitional moment politically and culturally, although the outcry for laws on police accountability failed.

The death forced then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden to focus on deadly police force and accountability. His efforts while president to pass the George Floyd Justice in policing act failed. The death of George Floyd also put a spotlight on the Black community, forcing then-candidate Biden to choose a Black woman running mate. Kamala Harris ultimately became vice president of the United States alongside Joe Biden. Minnesota State Attorney General Keith Ellison prosecuted the cases against the officers involved in the death of Floyd. He remembers,” Trump was in office when George Floyd was killed, and I would blame Trump for creating a negative environment for police-community relations. Remember, it was him who said when the looting starts, the shooting starts, it was him who got rid of all the consent decrees that were in place by the Obama administration.”

In 2025, Police-involved civilian deaths are up by “about 100 to about 11 hundred,” according to Ellison. Ellison acknowledges that the Floyd case five years ago involved a situation in which due process was denied, and five years later, the president is currently dismissing “due process. “The Minnesota Atty General also says, “Trump is trying to attack constitutional rule, attacking congressional authority and judicial decision-making.” George Floyd was an African-American man killed by police who knocked on his neck and on his back, preventing him from breathing. During those minutes on the ground, Floyd cried out for his late mother several times. Police subdued Floyd for an alleged counterfeit $20 bill.