By Marc W. Polite
Greetings my readers. This week on Polite On Society, we hear from Monte Cowing. Monte is the author of My Boy From Mars: It Was a Gift To Witness. In this interview, he shares some thoughts on fatherhood.
Polite On Society: Who is Monte Cowing? Could you let readers know a little bit about yourself.
Monte Cowing: I am a native Phoenician and then my mother divorced and remarried and we moved to Long Beach. I moved back to Arizona to go to college and then met my wife and had 3 beautiful children. I worked corrections, then sports coordinator and I am now a Honeywell mechanic and author.
POS: What motivated you to write the book, “My Boy From Mars?”
MC: The marvelous gift I recognized my boy had for athletics. I felt I couldn’t be blasé or dismissive of the things he was doing on the field and court. Also I wanted to help people understand the mind set I was in and what I feel parents should be to ensure their kids success in anything they choose to do.
POS: Parenting can be difficult at times. What encouraged you to write about the challenges of fatherhood?
MC: I had an extremely difficult childhood with my father. Despite me making my best attempts to be his opposite by being patient, attentive, loving and supportive. Things still don’t always go as you hope with not only parent to child relationships but others as well. (That will be a subject for my second book) plus I feel we good fathers get a bad rap and are overlooked by our contribution to raising our children.
POS: How did you strike a balance between motivating your son but not applying too much pressure?
MC: As a sports coordinator along with seeing too many personal examples of parents pushing their children to do something the child has no real interest in and then making the child implode due to too much pressure. The activity has to be the child’s own choice, with that comes balance.
POS: If there was one takeaway that you want readers to get from “My Boy From Mars”, what would it be?
MC: If your child has a gift help them cultivate it and be supportive. Don’t be destructive to their gift and the relationship. When operating out of true love and support you can’t go wrong and have no regrets.