Welcome to A Father’s Voice for November 2006. This month’s column is called, Blazing A New Parental Trail. I’ve always believed it is hard to NOT be something, to make your own path instead of following the blueprint laid out for you. But sometimes – especially when your role models as parents were not good ones – parents find themselves blazing their own trail with no real way to tell whether what they are doing is the best for their children.

It has been another exciting month in the world of JGS. Ruth, my PR consultant, and I have put together a database of all of my articles – quickly approaching 100 – all organized by category or subject matter. This week we hope to have my press kit done. I will post it on JGS.net when it is completed so you can check it out. We also have been pitching writers in response to requests for “expert quotes.” South Florida Parenting is the first of those to publish, though it is not yet available online. They are quoting me in reference to helping children develop a sense of volunteerism early on in life. Two Okapis was also recently voted as one of the Top 50 blogs by the Bloggy Awards, called the BloggyList.

A Father’s Voice is my chance to share my voice with you about the challenges and rewards I experience trying to be a very involved father while overcoming my childhood and having to work full-time away from our home. I write during the only disposable time of my day – my train ride to and from home.

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Blazing A New Parental Trail

By Jeremy G. Schneider, MFT

Without the possibility of turning to my parental role-models as a guide for what I want to give my children, I found that I looked externally for help in blazing a new parental trail. What I didn’t realize was that the answers were always inside me, revealing themselves only after my twins were born.

Most people learn much of what they know about parenting from their own parents. This provides people with role models and blueprints for the kind of parents they want to be. For those of us with parents who didn’t do such a good job or who weren’t around, there are no role models, no blueprints, no way to know if we’re doing okay or not. This is why I turned to external sources. It is why I always hoped there was a Parenting Handbook that would be given to me upon the birth of my children. Alas, when my children were born the only books I received were the kind with lots of pictures and pages that don’t rip (though they could still be chewed, I learned).

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