So You Want To Be A Real Father One Day. Where Do You Start?

You start by making sure that first you are really ready which means more than being ready in heart and mind although those are equally as important. You must be financially stable and that means more than just having a job. I'm going to tell you what I was never told as there was no one around who knew better to tell me and you may probably have experienced the same issue as your parents can not tell you what they themselves do not know and were not taught.

1. If you are unmarried and have no children now nor any on the way, do not rush nor put yourself in a position for it to happen. Even if you have someone you think you really love hold your horses. Instead, prepare. What do I mean? What is being prepared? Usually you are told to just get a good job but is that really enough? NO!! It's not! Even if you think back before the economic hard times of now, (an understatement), it wasn't. What if you have children, bought a home, car, and then lose your job. What now? The bills don't go away and mouths have to be fed. Even if you don't lose your job, with both you and your spouse working, where is the time to properly raise the children? Traditionally, jobs have had consideration for women regarding children ranging from good to poor but for men it is so non-existent as to be rated as negative consideration, which is absolutely awful if you are a single father. That means whether you are a man or a woman, you must give consideration to children long before they are here. Once they are here it is too late as children are not commodities. They are neither toys nor pets. They need large quantities of love and care to become well-rounded positive contributors to society and to carry on your family legacy in a positive way. If they don't get that you may have just birthed a burden to society mildly or horrendously speaking. You see, you have to be at work at a certain time and you get off at a certain time. Children don't conform to your schedule though. As babies they come with ever changing schedules. Those schedules change again when they are tots. Then again when they are school age all the way up to high school. Someone has to be there for them through all of that. The time must come from somewhere and if you don't have the time there are others you may not like that will. That could be their peers whom don't know squat themselves or someone from the street whom you really don't want fooling with them and contrary to the media and popular belief, the street is the street whether you're in an undesirable neighborhood or suburbia. Negative characters that want to misguide and use your children may come in different forms but they are everywhere no matter where you are and they are waiting. So before you do any pollinating, this must be thought out and planned for no one else is going to care and do it for you.

2. So what do you need past just employment? You need to look at a job as a means to an end instead of a solution. What do I mean by that? You may have gone to college and got a great job but eventually all jobs come to an end and that doesn't necessarily mean retirement. So what you need to do with your job is live off only what you need and find a means to invest the rest, in mutual funds for instance and establish a retirement plan. Also, purchase some life insurance, preferably term life. You will get it at a low price while you are young and will have it paid up when you are old. Don't blow it on that hopped up car you always wanted. That can come later. Don't go out and prematurely buy your dream home. That too can come later when the time is right, besides, a 30-40 year home loan is more like financial herpes rather than buying a home free and clear, but I digress. By the way, buy a home in your name only before you get married and put it in a land trust. Doing this may save you some pain later. You will have to decide what to invest in, as there is no silver bullet and what works for one may not necessarily work for someone else. But, that investment must be something that will give you a stable return. In other words, something that will provide you with money in the event you lose your job. Something that maybe will ultimately make it so you don't need a job as like I said, you don't want to be in a position where losing your job means you lose everything. I found that lesson out the hard way. You have to understand, family may be there to help or they may not. In fact, even if they can they are not obligated to and may not. Don't put yourself in that position. As a nation we are littered with families now in that position and as a whole, we are suffering for it but once again, I digress. So to recap, before you get hitched and combine genes, save up your money to create a nest egg that you don't touch unless its an emergency, keep clean credit, make financial goals and put a committed plan into action for not just financial stability but also independence and have it bear fruit before you do anything else. After you get hitched and children are on the way it's too late. The demands and new responsibilities are going to slam into you. I'm not saying it's insurmountable but you may find it like mission impossible as you...