NOTE: The except below is from a series of articles by Fathers published by the Maynard Institute for Journalism Eduction.

By Caleph B. Wilson

This Father’s Day will be my second as a new dad and, with it, my happiness has grown tremendously. Explaining the value and excitement of being a father is difficult. It requires that a man lay down his shield, take off his breastplate and expose his heart.

On the third Sunday of each June, family members make phone calls, send cards and gather to celebrate biological dads and the many men who serve as father figures. Each of us has unique experiences with our dads and the men who support us. Many commercial images we see will remind us of men who hold a special place in guiding our lives. As we view those images, men like me, a black father, feel explosions of happiness like all fathers. But something puts an asterisk on the joy.

The asterisk often refers to the many news reports and pundits offering statistics about how engaged black fathers are more rare than a leap year. My many experiences tell me otherwise. Yet the counter messages fight very hard to settle in our minds. So let me offer a perspective on how reality should lead the way we view black fathers and how those fathers should view themselves.

Let’s start with a report last December demonstrating that black fathers that are in their children’s lives are more involved than fathers of all other ethnic backgrounds. (Yes, read that sentence a few more times.) As I reflect on my life and the men in it, I do not need a scientific study to inform me of how loving and engaged black fathers, biological or not, are.

Without guidance by my dad, uncles, cousins and mentors, my life would not have been as happy.

Each man in my life has given a bit of himself to shape the man that I am. That is a debt that I cannot repay. At every turn of my life, a community of fathers has been there for me. That perspective can be found throughout the vast majority of families and communities nationwide.

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