Once I became the father of an actual human being on February 11, 2005, I immediately felt like I was in over my head. I'd had no preparation beyond taking parenting classes and seeing friends with their children–. These were fantastic in their own way but didn't really help me with the biggest problem I faced as a father: scraping away the hidden legacy of parenting that I'd internalized from my dad.

Whether he'd intended to pass them on to me or not––and indeed, whether I'd picked them up them correctly or not––I carried specific burdens and limitations as a father than I had to either lay down or fight my way out of. This is where I wonder how things would have been for me as a father if I'd seen other Wingate men deal with it. Would I have acquiesced to the "Wingate way" and raised my sons more obviously in the way other sons in the family were raised? Or would I have taken one look at the self-destructive machismo and bigotry that ran underneath the family like a subterranean river and run even further away from it than I did?

It's hard to tell. Ultimately, the worst of the parenting proclivities available to me stuck to my skin, thanks to unresolved issues with my own parents. I won't say that I had "buyer's remorse" in the way some parents do, but I couldn't help feeling 

what have I gotten myself into? 

and 

what have I gotten this poor kid into?