Father & Son

Honestly, I genuinely do not understand paternity. Not to say I do not have a reasoned knowledge of what it is or of its existence. Rather, I simply cannot apprehend it in a visceral sense. This can be really troubling at times as I cannot be certain of my ability to compartmentalize my interactions; to keep that relationship separate from every other association I keep. It seems to me that friendship was substituted for that relationship in my life, and as such I often find myself questioning my capability to clearly discern which is which. It isn’t that I think of every friend so closely, but more so that paternity has become meaningless, common and insincere. When I see characterizations of such strict gender roles, nuclear families, it really doesn’t make sense to me. I wonder if that outlook is common among those in my generation. It must be the case that stereotypical families are comically inaccurate for nearly everyone, but I wonder how many of my peers are so terminally detached from the paradigm that when they see depictions of what the relationship should look like they cannot intuitively grasp it. I really doubt my sense of apartness is in any way uncommon or even severe by the standards of most, so I wonder how such archetypes can even possibly continue to exist in a world where so few can truly understand them.