Cornelius Bullock, Father of eight
Father as provider is a title that is commonly associated with financial stability. Long days and missed moments, however, create a void that no dollar can fill. FATHER Cornelius Bullock discovered that the man who came home every night and worked so hard to make sure he had what he needed was a relative stranger when it came to their level of personal connection. As a father himself, Bullock prioritized those intimate special times between a father and his children.
Dad was an arduous worker. He worked hard. He was a truck driver and on the side he did a little bootleg cabbin. Our mother as I recall as a youngster, she was the disciplinarian and was the one I say cultivated us as a human being and taught us how to say thank you, morality and virtue. Dad just brought home the bacon, practically strictly provider. He also did landscaping. There was a few times he took me with him on landscaping jobs so he taught me a little bit of that and I was able to earn my own little money as a teenager. We had a really good childhood. Our parents wasn't real strict. They gave the boys more latitude to do things. As a child I remember we was able to camp outside in the backyard and at Douglass Park. We got to do things and wasn't really what you might call economically enhanced or rich but we had the bare necessities of life. Back in those days, everybody was poor so to speak so you really didn't feel poor because you felt like you had everything you needed. We just had fun and enjoyed life and so I enjoyed my childhood. I got to learn how to skate at five-years-old. Matter of fact, that's where I met my wife - at the skating rink.
From my father, the message I got is that you had to be hard-working and industrious. Our parents didn't have a lot of education and I don't know how much my father had. Maybe fourth or fifth grade? But, they had good common sense, mother's wit sense, life sense. Not book sense but you couldn't fool em. They were smart in other ways.
With my father working so much, I didn't feel like I didn’t know him on a personal level until I was an adult. Growing up, I wasn’t thinking like that. “I really don't know him?” We were just engaged in fun, pitching horseshoes, all kinds of kid stuff. You kind of begin to reflect on that and think, he was a great provider but I don’t think he once sat me down to talk about the birds and the bees or perhaps never once said let's have a father and son conversation. I want to be able to have those dialogues I didn't have, with my children and be able to communicate and do things with them. I remember when our kids were coming up young, I played basketball with them in the backyard and we took trips and vacations together. I don't remember one time us taking a vacation together as a family or went to dinner as a family. I didn't want our children to miss out on those things with me and my wife that I missed out on with my dad. To this day, we still do things together. On Easter Sunday, guess where they came? To mom’s house. For the holidays and things in between they come over. It gives us time to build memories. We play games, talk laugh and enjoy each other's company. I missed out on that with him because he was always working.
With my first child, to put it bluntly, I was young and dumb and didn't understand life. We were teenagers and not married. I was in love but I wasn't thinking maturely. That’s like what Paul says in the Bible, ‘When I was a child, I did as a child but when I became a man, I put away childish things.’ But, it was too soon. If I had it all to do again, I’d wait and get the finances in order do a little more planning but back then you didnt think like that.
You realize you have a responsibility greater than yourself and the responsibility is to take care of that child train that child. The Bible says train up a child in the way they should go. At that time, my wife and I weren’t really in church. We wasn't really saved. My mother took us to church growing up and the whole time growing up, the only time I remember my father going to church is when I got married. My mother was God-fearing but when we got on our own and began to seek things on our own, then we was able to find the right path. I was 23 and my wife was 21 when we got on the good, God-fearing path. Ain't been perfect but it’s been good.
When you’re coming up, you really need the Lord and the word of God to cultivate you to become who you're supposed to be as a father. There's a lot of people that can bring children into the world but to be able to be in those children's lives to spend time with them to where when they come home they have a mother and father to come home to. Fortunately, all my children are whole brothers and sisters, no blended family so we were blessed in that regard.
I think you learn more as a parent when you become a grandparent. As a parent you're more about discipline, seeing that these kids do their work. The most challenging experience I had as a father was with my boys. At about age 13-14, they move from young boys to young adults so you had to know how to deal with them on another level. They’re growing to be bout as tall as you are, voice is getting deeper and they're growing mustaches...they’re going out on dates and liking girls so you gotta know how to deal with them on that level. We kept them in sports and most of them wrestled so when they got home they was too tired to do anything. Just eat and go to bed.
The most rewarding experience as a father is to see your prosperity in your offspring grow up, go to school, get good jobs, get married, love their families and their children. I admire my sons because they are really good with their children. I love seeing my children love their children and raise their children up in a nice way. That's to me one of the most rewarding things as a father. Seeing them grow up and do something with their lives. Another rewarding thing is to see your children grow up have morals, pride and dignity, be a good citizen and good person and to live beyond themselves, not just for themselves but to help others along the way.
If I were to put my own spin on the word fatherhood, it would mean providing, but along with that providing would be loving. Love your children. Caring and teaching them and showing them. It can't be capsulized in one word but there are many things fatherhood is about. It's a whole host of things that encapsulate that one word. I don't think one word could say it all.
