June 2019
How has being a father enriched your life?
Rich Jewitt
The basic impact on me was I had to grow up a whole lot faster than I was. Like a lot of folks, I was that kind of guy going around with a head full of metaphysics and that didn't matter one diddly bit when it came to being a father! So I had to make a major change in lifestyle. And I’m actually the one who delivered the baby - the midwife didn't make it - so that was huge to me. I was right there, and the first one who saw her face. So, yeah it was very big. Beyond that, learning how to raise a kid and then becoming a granddad years later, it just fleshed out my life in ways I never would have guessed.
If I’d never had kids, my life would be nowhere near as fulfilled. I would’ve just gone on feeling satisfied with myself to some extent but not knowing what I was missing. It's hard to put into words because there's a whole depth of experience that comes into our lives when we're a parent. And of course it's different for a mother, but it's a huge impact for a father, too.
Mark Elliott
Oh, it's changed it and enriched it enormously! You just see this little being, this little baby come into your life, and you take a look at it and your life as you know it is over. With David, we have an unusually close relationship because his mom got sick when he was little and so we moved to Crestone and that's one of the main reasons I moved to Crestone, because we needed a place for him to grow up. So it's a great blessing that it was through his presence we moved to Crestone to begin with. We're on a journey together. He's 35 now and it still continues. It's not easy, especially being a single parent. But yeah, it's a wonderful journey.
If I hadn't had a child, I wouldn't be here! I'd probably be in New York or California. It's very challenging to have children because ego comes into it a lot and we have to be very careful about that. We see our children as a reflection of ourselves, which can be kind of tricky, particularly when they don't necessarily meet the expectations we might have of them and we have to slowly realize they're their own people and there's help and guidance that you could give, but you can't try and mold them or put them in some kind of frame, which a lot of parents naturally tend to do! (laughing)
Garrett Hilts
Some of the better things I've enjoyed about fatherhood are getting to share all those extra smiles, creativity, and outside thought I probably wouldn't have created myself. And sometimes we get caught up in our own goals or mindset and we're pushing our directive and having that outside influence is really amazing and it pulls me away from my blinder view and all of a sudden I see this whole other potential I might have missed. I think that's amazing. I know without my children, I go crazy. I miss them immensely every second they're not pulling me away from what I want to do because that is what I want to do is be a father and revolve around them and see the world through their eyes. I get to share all these crazy adventures and we get through the weird science experiments, the creative stuff, the bumps and bruises; but we all learn together, sit and share together, laugh and cry together, and we’ve built a really amazing bond. And I know that's helped me grow, focus and reflect on things, seeing the world in a whole as bigger than myself. And the incredible crazy fun stuff we get to do, to be a child and get away with all these other things that, oh as a responsible adult I'm not allowed to go to the park and be a silly monkey or whatever we think is entertaining at that point. The best part is bringing back that childlike view of the world you can still grow up and we can still be responsible and we can still enjoy that fun. And that's been the best thing that's ever happened to me.
Lonny Roth
Well, the first most important thing is, before I was a father, I was pretty depressed. When I had Molly, I suddenly had this reason to live and my life just got renewed in every way to where I was able to do something with a greater purpose. Besides that, for me, being a father has to do with traveling: my relationship in Cambodia, my wife who's six months pregnant, an expanded world with in-laws in different countries. It's an amazing thing – very expansive.
How do you think your life might be different if you'd never had kids?
I might be dead! (laughing) I don't know that I would have any sense of what I'm really doing in life. For me, being paternal gave me the greater sense of things to do, how to work relationships of all sorts. When I had children, my relationships with other people became more grounded, more tied into the world. Making a living became something I understood. I built a house in the Grants and just everything rotated around having children, building a home and looking at ways to associate with many other people. So, it was very, very tied in to being a father.
Friend Darr
The whole experience of a child coming into this world that I loved and cared for started with my first-born, Soren. We were living in this remote holler 18 miles outside of Cameron, West Virginia. I came home from work and her water broke, and it was a mile and a quarter walk to the car because the road was so rough we couldn't drive down to the house to get her. So she walked to the car and then it was 55 miles to the hospital and then 23 hours in labor. The next morning, about an hour before delivery when she was starting to crown, she said, "IF YOU EVER DO THIS TO ME AGAIN, I’M GONNA KILL YOU!” Soon after that, Soren was born and we counted all his fingers and toes and they were all there, and I went into tears and they cleaned him up and I held my son for the first time and it was probably the deepest spiritual experience I've ever had in my life. And now he's 43 years old! Fatherhood has been an ongoing, growing love. Three other children and seven grandchildren later, they're spread out all across the country. I don't get to visit most of them. My closest is in Denver and I make it down there pretty often but it's hard getting to California, North Carolina and Houston!
Benny Roman
It’s enriched my life by having a new perspective on looking at things, as far as seeing the world through their eyes. It's been like a reboot as well, having to change from being a single young guy and what the future looked like there, and then as soon as I became a father, it changed everything. But I remember intentionally trying not to have it completely change my life, remembering it's important to be a parent, but also important to not forget myself in the process. It reminded me to find a good balance, which has helped me not lose myself in the process. Now that I'm still a father, again and again, I feel I'm getting better at remembering it's important to remember who I am and what I do, and not panic and go get a job that I don't love just to raise my kids when kids don't really require so much as people think; they just need you and they need you to be happy. That's what fatherhood has done for me. Otherwise, it might not have happened. I might have panicked for my own reasons of needing to support myself, going, "Oh I need to go get that job even though I don't really want it," forgetting myself. For my kids to be happy, I need to be happy. I can deal with myself not being happy for a bit, but a kid can't! (laughing)