Meet Dr. Michael T. McRae, WeParent.com’s newest Fatherhood Freestyle columnist! Dr. Mike is a clinical psychologist and single father of a nine-year-old daughter. Mike has done extensive research on the impact of family processes on youth socio-emotional development. Clinically, he has worked extensively with children, adolescent, and families. His current clinical interests include program development with an emphasis on working with men to explore and define their manhood, as well as helping men learn how to parent and build healthy relationships despite their incarceration status.
Here’s an excerpt from Dr. Mike’s debut column in which he talks candidly about “the good, the bad, and, yes, the ugly” that he’s learned about himself since becoming “not your average baby daddy”:
Imagine a 20-year-old black male studying abroad in the Dominican Republic with one more year of college. Now imagine this guy in what was supposed to be a fling with an American woman. That woman becomes pregnant, and now this man is less than a year away from becoming a “baby daddy”. That wasn’t me, only because I refused to be the average “baby daddy.” The rest is definitely me. However, my plan to avoid being labeled had one huge snag — I wasn’t in love with her. I told myself I would do anything short of marrying her in order to keep my promise to myself, even if it meant being in what I knew would be an unsatisfying relationship that was destined to deteriorate over time. So, she graduated a semester early, moved to the South where I was working on my Bachelors degree, and we shacked up while I took classes. A few months later, our baby was born, a beautiful little girl with an instant bond with her daddy…
Click here to read the rest and to welcome Dr. Mike to the co-parenting cyber-fam!
