When a Fatherless Man Becomes a Father
A few days after my second child was born, my mom told me she was proud of me. She said watching her fatherless son become a good husband and father to two boys gave her so much joy. She also did not say, but I sensed her relief that it reassured her that she hadn’t failed me as a single mother. Like so many of the young men ReWritten serves, our mother’s words mean the world to us. My mother is my hero, and her approval will always carry a heavy weight for me. However, this time, her words carried more weight than usual, and not just because they touched on my insecurities about fatherhood.
A few weeks before—just days before my second son’s birth—I was gripped by more anxiety and fear than I’d ever felt as a father. Since childhood, I’ve feared many things, but none more than becoming a disappointing husband and father like my absent father is. My anxieties stemmed from unexpected expenses and missed opportunities to earn more money for my wife and children. I was terrified that another financial hit would leave me unable to provide, and my family—including my soon-to-be born son—would suffer the consequences of my failure.
Worse than all of that, I realized that I was in a very similar situation that my father had been in when he chose to leave us. He was married to my mom, had one son already, and was expecting another (me) when fears of financial strain led him to choose to abandon his family. He left before I was born, and I’ve never even met him. There I was, a man haunted by the fear of becoming like his father, standing in the very position that made him a ghost. It felt like fate. Was I doomed to repeat the cycle?
No. By the grace of God, I am breaking the cycle.
This is the tension so many fatherless young men live with- the fear that the patterns they inherited will define the families they build. It’s also where ReWritten steps in: not just to interrupt destructive cycles, but to walk with young men as they face them in real time.
Though I’ve never met him, my father and I share the same fears, but I also inherited my mother’s faith. Like her, I faced the same uncertainties as a parent, yet her trust in God’s provision gave her strength to persevere. That is how she provided for us, and by God’s grace, that is how I am learning to provide for my family.
Finally, while preparing for my newborn, caring for my pregnant wife, and parenting our oldest son, I became too busy to dwell on fear. My attention shifted to my responsibilities, and my anxiety began to fade. Not because the pressure to provide went away but because I was learning to be intentional about providing. God has been faithful to us since then and always, and I trust He will continue to provide. I’m thankful for those difficult days before my son’s birth. They revealed something deeper than the fear I was feeling, they showed me the moment a cycle could have continued, but didn’t. They reminded me that although I am fatherless; I am not motherless. And because of her, I am not Godless and without guidance.
This is what we strive to show the young men at ReWritten, that their story does not end where it began. That even in the absence of a father there is a path forward marked by God’s fatherhood, and the quiet daily decision to stay.