You are not alone. I know how it feels. Too many others I know do. I wrote about my experience here on Blogcritics. A couple of people e-mailed me after that essay saying that I should just “pray” about it. Don’tcha just love it when people say that?

If you know someone who is fatherless I implore you to be a mentor. There is a serious lack of mentorship opportunities for those of us on the lowest economic rung.

Yes, us. For some reason people think I have a lot of money. I don’t. I write about “struggle” oriented issues, not because it’s some romantic fantasy I want to live through my youth only to dispose of when it’s time to inherit my trust fund (like some heads I know). I write this shit because I live it, and my writing is my way of trying to connect with others I perceive as being in this same struggle.

If you know someone who you can take under your wing, in order to expose them to different types of art, different ways of being and thinking, different economic opportunities, etc., do it. Even for just ten minutes a week, to call them and see how they’re doing or what’s on their mind. That’s a start.

Try that instead of complaining about how Black youth are “lazy” and just “hang out on the corner”. How can we navigate the road of life without a map? And worse, with people already ahead throwing rocks at those walking behind them.

If you need a mentor, think of someone who lives the kind of life you aspire to and ask them to mentor you. The worst they could say is “No”, at which point you could think of that person as a snooty ass turncoat sellout and proceed to put their ass on blast for not having “the folks” best interest at heart. Or you could just ask somebody else. Sometimes it takes a few tries. People get busy, have their “own problems”, blah blah. For business specific mentoring, you could also try Score.

Read this article on the fatherless and mentoring. It’s inspiring. The statistics below aren’t new but I bet the numbers haven’t changed much. Here’s a clip:

As of 1994, 38% of children, 48% in Afro American homes, had no biological father in the home. The largest demographic factor for incarcerated folks by far was the absence of a biological father in the home. If poverty was included in the picture, then incarceration was almost guaranteed. We need fathers.

And we all have father wounds. We want to be seen by him and to have our gifts identified and honored, but our fathers by and large can’t do that. It is the job of the mentor to do that.

del.icio.us: absent fathers, mentors, mentoring