My concern first began when those alleged text messages between you and Marquise were released last summer. There seemed to be a lot of anger and frustration in those messages. While I hoped that it was just some sort of internet hoax, nothing ever materialized to prove that someone else other than you was behind the messages, or that Marquise was not the intended recipient of the texts. The language that you used in those messages wasn’t fit for a child’s eyes, especially not when they were coming from a parent. Teenagers are very fragile, and they absorb everything that happens around them. Those messages read like something that you would have sent to your Hip Hop counterparts Ja Rule or Fat Joe during the height of your beefs with them. So if no one has told you yet, allow me to be the first…you were wrong. Whether the messages were for Marquise, or for his mom, the things that you said were harmful and destructive. If you truly want to have a healthy and loving relationship with your son you have to know how to communicate with him without belittling him and speaking to him in a manner that is damaging to the ultimate goal of raising your child to be an upstanding and successful individual.
While our children may sometimes get under our skin and do things that we don’t agree with, we have to realize that our words can really hurt them. Just look at how some of your words have destroyed some people’s entire career. We can’t run our families the same way that we run our careers. In Hip Hop the culture is built on bravado and the spirit of using your words to get the best of your competitor. Conversely, calling our children names and patronizing them can actually be counter productive to what we really want to accomplish as parents. What you are doing is actually a form of abuse. By taunting your son in that manner, you are actually being emotionally abusive to him.
Most teens are going to rebel. That’s just life. As fathers it is our job to be there for them and love them despite the stupid teenage things that they do. We have to be there to catch them when they fall, not pick them up and slam them to the ground after they’ve already hit a low point. After all, at the time he was only 16-years-old. I don’t know about you, but I know that when I was 16 I thought I had it all figured out, but actually didn’t know squat! Being a parent is the hardest job that we will ever have, but it is also the most rewarding. Each moment that we have with our children presents opportunities to teach them and prepare them for their future. We have to lay the blueprint for them so they can get it right and hopefully not make the same mistakes as us.
