- She's gonna reach a point
where no matter what you say,
her 16-year old eyes
have seen more than you'll ever know
and she's gonna tell you
she has the world figured out.
(organ music)
Hello, I'm Varno Harris.
I've been a father for approximately 30 years.
Five children.
It has ups, it has its downs.
I wouldn't trade it in for the world.
Ask A Black Dad was started
so that when you have a question
that no one particular voice dominates that main stream
or that conversation.
Access to different fathers
and the way that they believe
that their children should be brought up,
may be another tool that you can place in your toolbox,
that can help you along the way.
Today, I'll be taking questions from three young fathers,
and giving them some advice from an old father like myself.
And like they say in Fat Albert,
if you're not careful,
you might just learn something before this is all over with.
- Hey, what's up, my name is Kier.
I have been a father for 2 1/2 years now.
My daughter Emery will be three soon.
She's a superstar, she don't even know it man.
You know, after this conversation I really hope
to get an idea of how
a man who was once my age, and in my predicament
kind of navigated through that difficult situation,
and he came out in one piece
'Cause I don't know how I'ma do that.
- I'm Ify, and I'm the father of Naomi, a 4-year old.
I have a dad, and he's side coaching me already,
but it's always good to, for me I believe,
to get some advice and information
from someone who really doesn't know you,
who doesn't have all this bias that's coming from you.
- All right, getting ready for this call with Mr. Harris.
I'm excited, man, 'cause I got so many questions.
I'm a father of 9-year old.
Y'all know Lin.
We did a couple videos together, but, amen,
she's about to be a preteen
so I know it's about to get real.
So I'm really looking forward to talking to him
seeing what insights he could give me.
(bright music)
- So, you have kids that are all different ages.
Infancy, toddler-hood, adolescence, teenage years,
adulthood, like, which stage was your favorite?
Like why did you love that stage?
- Adolescence.
I think that's the time that I love the most,
because now you're letting them go.
They're going to school now, they're just starting school
and they're just,
their water's starting to open up a little more,
and they're telling you their friends they're meeting,
and now they're, you know,
you gotta let them go sleep over somebody's house--
- No, you killin' me.
You say something that's good
and then you just let it get back down.
- That's the best part.
And I think that's my favorite part
is because now I'll be 55 in August
and when I dream now,
and my kids are in my dreams, they're that age.
They're 7, 8, 9, you know so--
- I've heard about that before.
If they're frozen in their time in your dream.
- Yeah, they are.
They're actually there.
That state is what they're in
and I think that's because that's the state
that I really thought was the most amazing.
- So what you're basically saying
is my best days are yet to come.
- [Andrew] Me and my daughter's mom,
we're not together at the moment.
So I'm thinking about like,
I'm getting older now,
starting that kind of traditional family
where my new person will be in the house,
and I'll have five kids running around
or something like that.
With you having a household full of kids,
'cause, it's what, seven of y'all total?
Y'all could do like a pickup basketball game,
like y'all got subs and everything, so--
- That's a relief guys.
(laughter)
- So just, how did you kind of handle a household full?
- My oldest son, is from my first marriage.
When I was in the Marine Corps.
Then I got married again,
and when me and my wife started having my other,
my first daughter, the first thing we did was
when my son came into the house,
sometimes some people in your family, you know,
cousins and all that. "Oh that's your step--"
I said no he's not a step brother, he's your brother.
Don't put nothing between you and your brother.
And from there about how do we keep
the household together without losing your head, your mind?
Everybody has responsibilities,
everybody has a chore, and everybody has to see love.
They have to see discipline,
they have to see that they are expected to read books,
but they expect to see you read a book.
And give yourself some time.
Every now and then, have grandma watch 'em.
(laughter)
Have auntie watch 'em,
but make sure grandma's a good grandma
and auntie's a good auntie.
You know what I'm saying?
Don't let no, don't send your children,
don't send your gems to houses that are gonna ruin 'em.
- So I was wondering,
what was a moment in your daughters youth
that you wish you cherished more?
Something that you think that, you know,
you're like watch out for that 'cause this is gonna be,
you know, that moment.
(laughs)
- For my oldest daughter I would say,
when we first put her in T-Ball.
And I was one of the coaches, and I watched her.
She was 4 or 5 something like that.
And these herd of kids were sitting in the ground,
picking daisies and throwing dirt on each other's hair.
And I'm like, "No, no you gotta stay here you gotta--"
And if you just let,
what we did was, and I didn't know it till later on,
what we did as parents was we got in the middle
of just kids being kids.
There were at a place where they were there to play
and they were playing how kids play.
But we were gonna tell 'em,
"No, you're gonna play this way,
"this is how you're gonna play."
If I would have just relaxed,
and not been so, you know,
every time she got back on the dirt
I'd pick her back up and you know,
and I shouldn't have did that.
You know so if I could go back over things
I would cherish more while I had a chance to.
- The whole dating thing, like, I'm crazy.
I'm crazy, at least I think I'm crazy.
Because in my head I'm like,
"No, nobody is good enough for my daughter,
"nobody's gonna date my kid,
"y'all are just gonna be in this house forever
"one big happy family."
Right?
I know that's not realistic but let me cook.
In terms of dating, how do you set
realistic expectations, for yourself.
- She's gonna grow into a beautiful young woman,
and on her way getting there,
she's gonna be a beautiful girl.
And guys are gonna be attracted to her.
What me and my wife did was we made a plan.
Okay, what do we think is the appropriate age
for her to interact as far as you know,
talking to boys, you know, when that level comes.
When our daughters were old enough
and mature enough, we had conversations with 'em.
We didn't just allow the school to have
the birds and the bees conversation with 'em.
And we didn't wait for somebody in the street
or their friends to tell 'em
the birds and the bees conversation.
You wait for little Paul to tell 'em the birds and the bees,
you don't know exactly what he's telling them,
and why he's telling them exactly.
You know what I'm saying.
And then, the way she watches you interact with mom.
- Yeah!
- That's gonna be key.
She's gonna see how a man's supposed to act.
A child should see mom and dad disagree.
A child needs to see an argument
just like they need to see love,
they need to know how to argue.
Because if they don't know how to argue,
when I say argue, that means constructively disagree.
And be able to disagree and go to the fact of,
"Okay let's go to bed, we ain't getting over this one.
"But we going to bed and we still together."
If she can't see that, or he can't see that
what happens is, somebody's going to show 'em how to argue.
They'll go, "Oh this is how it's supposed to be.
"I saw it on TV somebody said that this is how,"
especially blacks, "this is how we supposed to do this."
That's not how it happens,
so they need to see us be loving they need to see us,
you know the whole thing.
- I'm seeing a lot of constant just
attack, attack, attack,
especially on like the black man.
So a little bit about me I'm originally from New Jersey,
so I'm kind of moving to LA, chasing the dream,
I'm raising a daughter,
and then it's like I also have to lead my house
and deal with just America on their (beep) again
for lack of a better term.
And it's kind of frustrating sometimes
when I see that I have to fight
all these individual battles,
so a lot of times it gets overwhelming.
So when I think of, you know, five kids
and coming home, I'm like, I would love that,
if I lived in a sitcom, but with the America that I know,
I don't even know if I want that.
You know what I mean?
And I kinda start getting into my head about it.
- Remember this,
you're not gonna change the fact you're black.
We're trying to change the fact of how America sees us,
but you're not gonna change the fact your black.
You're not gonna change the fact you have black kids,
and we are unapologetic that they're gonna be beautiful
and they're gonna be rock stars.
They're gonna show up and they're gonna show out,
because we gonna put the work in.
But we also have to remember
that we have to give 'em hope, because right now a child
is watching what's happening on TV.
See my children are a little older,
but still I have to give 'em hope.
I have to tell them I remember what I started from.
I remember the incidents that happened to me.
And I remembered to not take all that with me.
The scars, my ancestor carried the scars for me
just told me, "remember that I took the scar for you."
'Cause the minute we let somebody defeat us,
it's over, this is just the way it's gonna always be.
Then we lost.
- [Kier] You said you grew up with your dad right?
- My dad was in the household,
he wasn't married to my mom but he was in the house.
- Right and I'm, like I always try to separate it like,
when you got your father in the house and he's active,
father in the house but he's not active at all.
Which I recently learned,
is almost as bad if not worse in some cases
as not having a father at all.
And then you have not having a dad at all.
So you got these men that come from these
three different family structures.
Like for the guys who either had a kinda not there dad,
or no dad at all.
What advice would you give them,
just to keep their head on straight?
You know what I'm saying?
Trying to persevere through learning how to be a dad,
learning how to be a man, learning how to be a partner,
like what advice would you give them?
Like a quick endurance.
- Quick endurance here you go.
Number one, don't lie to yourself, and be truthful.
- Man.
- That means that if you had a dad in the house,
and you gotta know the difference.
I had a dad, you know,
okay what was dad in the house doing?
What did he do?
Like, I was diagnosed with Child of Adult Alcoholic.
There was trauma in the house.
You understand?
But to get past that you have
to admit there was trauma in the house.
You have to admit that that changed some
of the way you think, you thought.
So before you can even do that,
you gotta understand that maybe there's a sickness.
You don't have a father in the house.
Your father not being there caused you
to have some kind of sickness.
You know what I'm saying?
So now you got a kid.
If you look around and you got a kid,
and you on YouTube, you on Xbox,
you on the PlayStation, and your kid is miles away
and you ain't seen that kid in six months,
you got a problem.
But if you don't admit you got a problem you can't fix it.
Number two, you have to find some way to love yourself.
Because I don't care who you are,
if you don't love you,
you're not gonna love that child
the way that child needs to be loved.
And you definitely ain't gonna love no woman
or no man the way they wanna be loved.
- Yeah.
- You can't if you don't love yourself.
Then number three, you have to break that cycle.
If you find yourself in a cycle
where you're doing the same things that grandad did,
the same things that daddy did.
You're sitting there and you're doing it
and you know it's wrong.
- Yeah
- You have to stop.
So that's why I'm saying you have to learn to fix yourself
and sometimes fixing yourself means don't be looking
for somebody to love, because you gotta fix this.
It's broke and it's hurt.
You have to find a way.
If it means opening a Bible, or Quran, a Torah,
maybe just looking up at the stars,
doing something, you have to fix that inside yourself.
You got to.
You got to know the difference and you have to be honest.
You know what I'm saying, be truthful.
Sometimes the truth hurts, the truth is ugly.
- Man the truth always hurts.
The truth, you know what hurts?
The truth and growth.
- What's something that you think that I should know,
as a father?
- That's a good question.
What you should know, you'll be fathering
your child, your daughter, for the rest of your life.
That means that when she gets 50, you're gonna be daddy.
But you also have to understand that,
as she's young now,
she's gonna grow into who she's gonna be.
Enjoy a moment.
Every moment that you have with a child, enjoy.
You know what I'm saying?
Because, I promise you one day you're gonna sit back
and say, "I remember when"
and it's gonna be those moments that you cherish.
Another thing you have to do,
is you have to remember that you are raising,
no matter what, black children.
And being a black male, you have to understand that
there's strikes already gonna be thrown at her.
And she has to know that,
and you have to be there to protect her.
Protecting her is meaning make sure she has this,
make sure she has this.
You know, because anybody can run around and throw hands.
But who has this to think and this.
You're doing good young man don't worry about it.
- All right.
- Give your daughter a hug and a kiss for me.
- All right will do, thank you so much sir.
- No, thank you for asking.
- I'm gonna be real Mr. Harris,
man you gave me some gems today man
I'm taking notes over here like I feel a lot better.
- Man I wanna know, you got all of this wisdom
and you got this real calm aura about you.
Like the young folk, we used to say unbothered.
You look like you don't trip off too much.
I'm just trying to get the way you act,
that place you at, enjoy that,
us young dudes are working to be right there.
- You're gonna get there, you're gonna get there.
Trust me.
This has been a very heartwarming
and joyful experience to see the future.
I think it's beautiful, I think this is the start
of tearing down some of the stereotypes.
And I hope nothing but the best for all of them.
If you enjoyed watching the conversations
I had with these young fathers,
and you wanna learn a little bit more about me,
please visit my channel Ask A Black Dad.
Everybody's welcome.
You know and don't let the work black scare you,
because ask a father and ask a dad was taken.
And to all you fathers out there,
and all you expecting fathers,
from Ask A Black Dad, Happy Father's Day.
(peppy music)