Welcome back to the Let Him See That Child podcast! In today's episode, we kick off our new series, "Father Chronicles," with a special guest, David Manuel, the director of Fulton County Arts and Culture and founder of the I Am A Father 5K.
David shares the inspiring story behind the I Am A Father 5K, a walk and run event celebrating its 10-year anniversary, aimed at strengthening families and promoting organ donor awareness. He opens up about his passion for children, education, and art, drawing from his experiences as an educator and community leader.
Listen as David discusses his personal journey as a father of three, his approach to fatherhood, and the impact of growing up in a single-parent household. He also shares poignant moments from his life, including his near-death experience and the life-saving gift of a liver transplant that renewed his purpose and dedication to his community.
David's story is a testament to resilience, accountability, and the profound impact of organ donation. Join us for this heartfelt conversation that underscores the importance of family, health, and community support.
Don't miss out on this powerful episode, and learn how you can get involved with the I Am A Father 5K and make a difference.
Don't miss out on this insightful and heartfelt conversation. Tune in now!
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We're doing Father Chronicles and I'm so excited to have a new guest here with
us today. Why don't you introduce yourself?
So first of all, it's a pleasure to be here with you. Of course. I'm David Manuel.
I'm the director of Fulton County Arts and Culture and I'm also the founder of the I Am A Father 5K.
(00:39):
Awesome. Why don't you tell us a little bit about I Am Father 5K?
So I Am A Father 5K is getting ready to celebrate its 10-year anniversary.
It's a walk and run designed to strengthen
families and promote organ donor awareness
so the health and wellness part is very
very important but also the fatherhood part as
(01:00):
well and why don't you tell us how you got involved with with this and you know
what your passion is so my passion has always been children and education and
art and so about 15 years ago I was part of Atlanta public school system. I was an educator.
(01:20):
I taught second grade and I taught at a school that was located down the street
from the federal pen, not the state pen, but the federal pen.
And during that process of teaching young people, I realized that some of the
students in my classrooms, fathers and uncles were isolated in that in that facility.
And so it shared with me an up-close-and-personal approach to what it looks
(01:44):
like when a father's not in the household.
And from there, I ended up writing a book called I'm a Father.
And then later, I ended up creating the I'm a Father 5K nonprofit,
which, again, strengthened families.
Nice. OK, well, let's get into it. I can't wait to hear some of your ideas and
(02:05):
what you've learned and what philosophies you've built around your experience.
So it's my understanding you're a father as well. Yes, I'm a father of three,
Brandon, Blake and Caitlin.
And so the more I teach them, the more I learn. Oh, yeah.
That's usually how it works. How old are your children? So Brandon is 30.
Blake is 26 and Caitlin is 28. So you've raised yours and you're done.
(02:31):
I'm done. I'm done. I think I'm done. I think I'm done.
I don't want to be in kindergarten with a Walker fan. That's my girl. That's my girl.
So, you know, only a man, because at my my young age, I'm already saying it's
enough and it's not going to happen again. get. Oh, come on, come on.
No way. There's no greater role than being a parent.
(02:53):
I agree. You go through the thick of things, the craziness, the late night,
the colds, but when you see them and you see them aspiring for greatness,
you know you had a huge hand in it. It's very rewarding.
So tell me about your relationship with your children. Were you married when
you had your kids? How did that work?
(03:14):
Yeah. So I was married for 18 years and we had two sons, Brandon and Blake,
and I was a major part of every aspect of their life.
I coached them in soccer, lily, baseball, football, all the way up till they got to high school.
And when I wasn't coaching them, you would find me at the park playing with
(03:34):
them or supporting them in band or whatever else they want to get into.
So I was, I couldn't wait to be a father. And when that opportunity came for
me coming from a single family household, a single parent household.
It was almost like me playing double dutch. I couldn't wait to jump into fatherhood.
Nice. And you know what? Sometimes it goes the other way. So that's encouraging
(03:58):
because it can go either way.
Sometimes people mimic what they've seen, which might not be much.
And sometimes people want to be greater than what they've been through.
Right. So when I was growing up, you know, with a single mom raising,
you know, two sons, actually three sons.
And one of my brothers passed away with leukemia at a very early age.
Without a father in the household, I end up learning about fatherhood through TV shows.
(04:24):
Are you kidding me? Yeah. So I watched Good Times and I saw James Evan be that
strong, powerful father.
He didn't have money. He was the man. But he was an authority.
Yeah, he was the man. And then I saw Heathcliff Huxtable become that father
that the kids could relate to. Notice I say Heathcliff Huxtable.
I just said the actual person. Okay. But it was those characters that I learned
(04:46):
from, you know, and with Heathcliff, I learned you could be a parent,
but you got to be approachable to your kids. So they share everything.
And I think I took a combination of both those examples and then being without
a father and anxious to really become one.
I just combined them all together into my own personality and became the father that I am today.
(05:08):
Day and you know i think that speaks toward just how
important art is to you because
right most people wouldn't even admit that hey i learned some
of this stuff from tv shows you know and i
i think we uh minimize just how important media is in our lives how influential
it is on us on our children how it's fake you know our views and things of that
(05:28):
nature and the people that are in control of media you know how that could be
a problem you know it goes kind of far yeah but that is It's exciting to hear.
This third baby. So wait a minute. So there was another child.
Let me get the ages again because I think I picked up on something here. Okay. So Brandon is 30.
Blake is soon to be 27. Okay. And Caitlin is 28, soon to be 29.
(05:52):
But Caitlin is from my second marriage. Okay.
And so I got a chance to be in her life when she was 15. Okay.
And so now she is 28. So what happened from ages one to 15?
Right. I was single and I met her mom and we started dating and then we eventually
got married. She already had a child, Caitlin.
(06:14):
I always wanted a daughter. So for me, it was the best of both worlds.
Not you're like a super stepdad.
Yeah, I'm like that. I'm that dude. Oh, wow. And you're still married to Caitlin's mom.
I'm still married to Caitlin's mom. We've been married now for nine years.
Nice. And so, you know, first wife, 18, second wife, nine.
(06:34):
And, you know, the kids are grown and they're doing their thing.
And I'm just, you know, proud to be part of that process.
And your children were grown from the first marriage before that one.
Well, not really grown, grown, but, you know, one had graduated from high school. So I guess you could.
And the other one was still in high school. And so but we all still remain,
(07:01):
you know, with a great relationship.
You know, I think what this has done is it's strengthened my relationship with
my son because now they see me in a separate unit and they see me still heavily involved.
And they also see me as a go for go between, between what their mama want and
(07:24):
what I think they should get as a father.
And, you know, I sort of took the back seat when they were at a certain age,
when they were like seven to nine, but around 10, I was like,
okay, you're going to have to toughen up a little bit and you got to understand
that it's okay to fall. fall, I'm here to pick you up.
And I think that has been what I was missing as a child, not having a father,
(07:48):
is being afraid to fall because who really had me?
How do you think that affected your decision?
I think for me growing up, it put fear in my mind.
And when I say fear, I wouldn't risk, I wouldn't gamble.
I played it safe because I felt that my mom at the time worked two jobs,
(08:11):
I couldn't mess up and cause any kind of confusion because she was the sole provider.
I needed to behave in school. I needed to behave in the community.
I didn't need to bring in additional stress and not having that father in the
household put some uncertainty.
What if she lost her job? Would lights be off?
(08:32):
You know what? These kind of things will happen when you're in a single unit home.
And so what it what it taught me was to never put myself in that position to
where I'm going to have to second guess how I provide or how I protect.
You know, it's so refreshing to speak with, I would like to say,
(08:53):
a grown man, somebody who didn't commit just once with fights and exactly,
you know, involved in their children's lives. I'm sure you have friends.
Do you have, do you know of anybody that probably don't operate the way you do?
Well, you know, you are as strong as the people around you, whether that's family or friends.
And what you try to do is make sure you position yourself with like-minded people.
(09:18):
But during the process, you have to weed away people that are not moving in
a positive direction, who don't have the same values that you have.
And even if you meet them and they don't have the same value,
that's OK if they're willing to improve their status.
And so now I'm at an age where, you know, I'm knocking on 60.
And so the people that are around me are the people that I handpick,
(09:43):
the people that I can pour into and they can pour into me.
And there's this mutual thing to where, you know, we're raising kings and queens.
We ain't got time to be playing games. we we know we've
done everything that we needed to do we've been
in the streets we've been in the communities we've done all those
things and now is our opportunity to not
(10:04):
only pass the baton but point to others so and when how old were you when you
decided that because that's some real mature shit to say and let me tell you
i'm 35 i'm 35 years old and there are men my age who do not I think anywhere
near close to anything you're saying right now,
you know, and maybe they came from a broken home and sometimes not.
(10:25):
I think right now we're living in a culture that is kind of OK with broken home.
And, you know, a lot of people use that as a crutch because I didn't have this
growing up because we couldn't afford this.
And I used to use that as a crutch when I was 17 and 16.
I ain't got a father at home, so I have a reason for doing this.
And then when I got around 18, old enough to vote, having that responsibility.
(10:51):
It made up in my mind that I can no longer use that as a crutch.
I am now my own man and I'm responsible for my own actions and I'm going to
be held accountable, not because of what my father didn't do,
but because of what I'm doing.
I can get tried as an adult, you know, all these things play in your head.
And so you put those excuses aside and say, okay, no more excuses.
(11:14):
Let me move forward to be the best that I can be in that age, in that stage of my life.
And I've just done that throughout the years. is I haven't always made the best
decisions, but I've made decisions that I can live with.
And I think for any man, if you can make decisions that you can live with the
consequences, you're not going to get it all right.
(11:35):
You're not going to find the right person to date. You're not going to find
the right job at the time.
You're not even going to find the right people to hang around with.
But at some point, you got to learn from that and apply it to the next.
The word of the day is accountability. Yeah. Yeah. That's a big word.
Yeah. It's a big boy word.
Yeah, that's a big word. Hey, everyone. I know you're enjoying the episode.
(11:56):
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www.jgboydlaw.com to book your consultation today now let's get back to the
episode so your dad do you have
a relationship with him or didn't have a relationship with him at all?
So when my parents divorced, my father moved three miles from us.
You would think there were 300 miles because I never really saw him.
(13:29):
And I remember one time I saw him in the mall and it was around the holidays time.
And he was walked down with all these Christmas gifts and bags.
And I was like, mom, I see dad. I see dad. And I just ran from her,
ran over to him. He was with his new family.
And I saw all these gifts and he almost treated me like I was a stranger,
(13:49):
like, hey, how you doing?
You know, and then I end up leaving. I just, you know, as a kid,
as as an eight year old kid, you see all these gifts and none of them are for you.
And then I saw him periodically throughout my years, maybe once a year,
either at some location, but he never came to visit.
He never did any of those things.
(14:11):
So then I ended up moving to Atlanta, getting married, having a son.
And I remember bringing my son to him because I could no longer hold on the
lack of father he was for me.
I wanted to give him an opportunity to be a great grandfather. father.
And so he met my son and he saw that I was doing well without his support.
(14:33):
And when I got married, he even stayed the weekend at my house and was amazed
how I was living and all this.
And then when my second son was born, Blake, it was interesting because I got
a call that morning saying, you need to come to Birmingham. Your father just
had a massive heart attack and died.
And I was telling my aunts, I can't leave because my wife is pregnant and we're
(14:58):
getting ready to go to the hospital.
And I remember being there at the hospital, you know, with all these emotions
and it was getting, it was about 11 o'clock at night.
And I remember asking the doctor if he could induce labor because I wanted my
son to be born on the same day.
And my son was born, like I think it like 11 57 p.m.
(15:20):
The same day that my father passed away and my
son came out looking just like my father yeah just
like my father so I took a picture of him put in my suit pocket left to go to
Birmingham for the funeral and I shared this picture with all my aunts and it
just touched him in such a way because when one person leave another person
(15:42):
to come in, that mentality.
And it was just a beautiful, emotional moment.
But I look at my son to this day, and he has the same structure,
faith structure, my father. Wow.
Yeah. So that was my relationship with my father.
Do you hate them? No, no, no. I don't have any room to hate anyone.
(16:04):
My father did what he thought was what he was supposed to do. Do I agree with that? No.
Do the majority of the world agree with that? No. My father later became a minister.
He was in the service, armed service for 22 years. and
then he started his own security
company and then he later became a pastor
(16:27):
of a church and one Sunday I actually showed
up and sat in the back pew of the church and we
ended up going to lunch after service and
that kind of thing so no there was no hate you know I'm here because of the
decisions him and my mom made and so I don't hold any grudges or anything like
that I love this about you that you is nothing that we've spoken about thus
(16:51):
far that stops you from deciding to do the right thing.
And I think that's the most. Well, thank you. But I don't think it's rare.
I just think that a lot of times, especially with media, we highlight the negative.
You know, back in the day when something happened in the neighborhood,
they would pick the most uneducated person to tell their side of the story.
(17:13):
And we'll be sitting there like, why did they pick that That person just won't
camera time that foolish.
And so when you share that on a national platform, people start thinking,
OK, that's how people are.
Yeah. And that's not a true story of the character of of of a strong God fearing black. So. OK.
(17:36):
All right. So what else?
So fast forward to the I'm a Father 5K, which again, we're celebrating our 10-year anniversary.
And one of the reasons why we focus on the health and wellness part just as
much as the fatherhood part is because about, well, almost 10 years ago,
(17:56):
I became very ill out of the blue.
Never really been sick before in my entire life. And all of a sudden,
I got very, very sick to the point when I went to the hospital.
I was trying to figure out what was wrong with me. They were trying to figure
out what was wrong with me.
And they found out that I had liver and kidney failure all at the same time.
(18:18):
And I'm with my laptop and my girlfriend, who's my wife now, with her laptop.
We was trying to figure out what's the true function of a liver.
We all educate it. But unless something happens to you, you don't know right
off hand the true function of how this precious body that God created functions.
(18:39):
And how everything relates to everything.
And so as I was doing this research in the hospital, they ended up moving me to ICU.
My skin started changing color. My face became as dark as this mic.
My eyes were fluorescent.
My body was shutting down. It was preparing to die. And I remember hearing the
(18:59):
doctors out in the hallway saying, we're going to give him about four or five days to live.
It was just that serious. My body swole up.
My legs were as big as my thighs because no water was released.
And so I was at that point where tubes in my mouth, nose, and everything like
(19:20):
that, I was at that crossroads.
And I remember having a meeting with my sons, you know, apologizing to them,
saying, I'm sorry, I'm not going to see you graduate from college.
I'm sorry, I'm not going to see you get married.
I didn't know I was going to get dealt this hand, but this is the hand I'm dealt with.
(19:41):
And, you know, the role of a father is to prepare his kids for life without him.
And this came around too soon. But, you know, here we are.
And then they had to digest that. and the family had to digest that.
And then that night, I said what I thought was my final prayer because when
you're laying in the emergency room, you really can't move, you're laying on your back.
(20:05):
So these fluorescent light is all that you're watching for four or five hours.
And if you stare at them long enough, it feels like it illuminates the whole room.
And that was my opportunity to have a conversation with God.
And I told God, I'm not ready to stop being a father.
I'm not ready to stop being a community activist, but I'm in so much freaking
(20:26):
pain that if you say this is my time, I will accept it.
And shortly after that, a nurse came in my room and she had tears in her eyes.
And I was like, what is that freaking noise I hear outside my room?
I was just irritated. Irritating.
And she's like, oh my goodness, Mr. Man, that's a helicopter with your liver and your surgery.
You're going to live. You're going to surgery tomorrow.
(20:49):
And so, and I'm thinking in my mind, well, I got to call my mom.
I got to call this. There's like, you can call whoever you want to,
but you're going to live and you're going to surgery.
So the biggest question for me is what do you do when God gives you a second chance on life?
I've always been a giver. I've always been a supporter.
Now I do it like I'm on steroids. So.
(21:11):
You are just an angel, huh? My goodness. Well, you know, in the Bible, it was King David.
So you can, you know, an angel is good. Don't get me wrong.
An angel is good, but no, no.
But no, and then that is what really got me into organ donation.
(21:31):
Because I'm sitting here having this interview with you because somebody gave
me the best gift you can give anyone in life. You give people houses,
you give them cars, you can get money.
No gift is better than a gift of life.
And somebody gave me that gift of life. Now I have an extended family and now
(21:51):
I'm able to really do the work that I was put on this earth to do.
So when people look at me, they say, oh, David, you know, art is your passion.
And I'm like, yeah, I've been doing this for all my life,
but my assignment is organ donor awareness and getting people to understand
the precious gift that we have
(22:12):
in our bodies and what we can do long after we're gone to help others.
And to me, that's the most rewarding gift you can have.
I have a very unpopular position on that.
And I'm going to change your position, but let's hear your question.
It's not a question. Okay, let's hear your position.
I'm big on Darwinism.
(22:33):
Darwin, the Darwin theory says that only the strong survive a little pity.
I think we as a people have become so evolved that we continue to create medicine
and we continue to create food that, you know, wasn't actually on the earth
to sustain the population that we have and that people are supposed to die.
And that when weak people continue to live, they continue to breed weaker people.
(22:57):
They continue to breed weaker people? people if i'm
let's say i'm weak whatever that might mean because
that's a whole another conversation right let's say i'm weak and i'm
depending on medicine or all these other things
to survive right and then i survive and then i i procreate now i'm creating
something that was like me in in the first place that needed medicine to when
(23:20):
when originally is whoever's the strongest survives and then the evolution continues
from there but i'm not saying you should have died now That's not what I'm saying.
Well, it's almost like you're putting dirt on me right now. I'm glad you're
here because this is great.
But I'm also, I don't know about organ. And did you get to meet your organ donor?
(23:42):
So when you get a transplant.
Everybody thinks so. There's a lot of misconceptions about it,
especially in the African-American community.
And this stems all the way back with the Tuskegee experiment,
all this lack of trust for hospitals and doctors.
You know, some people that look like me and you feel that if I'm in a car accident
(24:03):
and it's a life or death situation, that doctor is going to say my black life don't matter.
And I'm going to give, I'm going to take that person's organ and give it to
somebody of a lighter hue.
That's the mindset, but that's not the fact.
And a lot of times we get caught up in myths and they go from family to family,
(24:24):
to generation to generation, and it never changed.
The process of getting a life-saving transplant is through an organization called
Donate Life for Life Link. It's not the hospital.
So if you go in the hospital and you see that you're a donor on your driver's
license, that does not mean that doctor's going to make that decision.
He cannot make that decision. Somebody hand me my ID.
(24:45):
I need to know. Let's see.
I don't want you to become a donor if you think that's going to weaken the population.
Weaken the human race. When I finish this conversation, then that's when I want you to be a donor.
Let me see what we got here. Let's see what we're working with. Look at that.
(25:05):
Wait a minute. You are. I am. Okay. I still love people and stuff.
No matter how weak or strong they are, right? Okay. I mean, that's just,
and I'm a woman, though, too, though. So that plays a role.
I think women are a lot more susceptible and feeling than men are.
I want to talk about. Well, go ahead. Well, first of all, I'm glad you are a donor.
(25:25):
So, you know, as I was saying, when you get a life saving organ,
the first thing you want to do is reach out to whoever gave it to you.
So I wrote this letter and I had to send it to LifeLink and donate life.
They have to hold the letter for a year because I got a life saving liver transplant.
Plant, that means somebody had to die for me to live.
(25:48):
So you think about the pressure in my mind, knowing that someone had to pass away for me to live.
So a year passed by, I didn't get a response.
Second year came and I got a call and I remember it. It was around Mother's Day.
I was watching LeBron and Steph go at it in NBA.
(26:11):
And I got this call and I ended up talking to the mother for two hours.
I never sat down on the couch to talk to her because I couldn't sit still.
So I walked in every room on the phone thanking her, you know,
want to know who organ I received.
And I received her son, Dylan Mooden organ.
(26:33):
And Dylan was a 21 year old white male who had a number of seizures.
And then this one seizure that he had in his bathroom, and he fell between the
door and I guess the toilet, and his sister couldn't push the door open.
So by the time they got to him, there was no oxygen to the brain. He was in a coma.
(26:54):
While he was in a coma, I was in Piedmont Hospital saying goodbye to my sons.
And so So on the third day, which is already biblical, he passed away. Hmm.
And when he passed away, his parents decided to say, I am going to donate his organ.
He was young enough, full of life. I want to donate his organ.
(27:18):
Six men received his organ.
Two men have a better life because they each got his kidneys.
There's a man around now that is alive because he got his lung.
There's another man alive because he got his heart. There's a man walking around
now that can see because he got his eyes and I got his liver.
(27:38):
And so he saved six lives just with that.
And so I end up driving to Scotts, Louisiana, because that's where they live.
And I rang the doorbell and the mother came to the door.
And I tell you, that was the longest hug I have ever had in my entire life.
(27:58):
We stood in the front door and hugged each other for at least five real minutes
without letting go because she felt that she was hugging her son for the first
time since he passed because his liver is in me.
And I spent the whole day play with her and her daughter and just share stories.
(28:21):
And they were so excited. They Googled me and all this stuff and saw all the
things that I was doing in the community.
And they felt that they really made a good decision.
Now, the other five men never reached out, sent a letter, said thank you or anything.
Not only did I send a letter, I sent a letter to the other five men.
I went to see them. And now we talk at least once every month or every two months.
(28:48):
We talk over the holidays.
They're my Facebook friends. So when I post something, the sister will say, love you, brother.
And I'm like, love you, sis, because now that's my extended family.
It's a part of they gave me something that, you know, a stranger gave me something that allows me.
(29:09):
To go to lunch with my son and my daughter, allowed me to fund artists and arts
organizations throughout Fulton County.
All of these wonderful things go back to the fact that they made a decision
and signed on the dotted line that we were going to donate our child's organs.
So did you feel different having somebody else's body part?
(29:32):
So when you mention your concept of that weakens someone, one, that strengthens me.
Knowing that someone who doesn't know anything about me has a good enough mindset
and good enough heart to say, we want to help somebody.
And we don't know who we helping, but we want to help somebody.
(29:52):
And like I said, you can't give a better gift than the gift of life.
Speaking of the gift of life, let's talk about these children some more.
I want to talk about marriage.
You said you were married for 18 years. Are you married? I'm not married.
I've I've never been married. Do you desire to be married?
Sometimes. Do you desire to drop the independent and become a sharing vessel
(30:14):
to build something together?
Yeah. Yeah. Are you big on compromise?
And I heard that struggle. I heard that struggle. I can be.
It's almost like dreaming because I haven't run into anybody that makes me feel
comfortable enough to relinquish that type of independence.
(30:37):
But if I were to, I feel like I would do it.
Naturally, that's what I should want to do, right? Women are here to,
that's my purpose, to cater to and support. support my husband?
Yeah, that is the perfect answer. But in reality, we all go through things in our childhood.
When you get in a relationship, everybody brings baggage. You hope that it's
(31:02):
a duffel bag and not a three-piece luggage.
But no matter what it is, you're hoping at a point that person is ready to unpack the baggage.
That means that person is ready to address everything in their past that might
make them feel like I can't trust men or I can't trust relationship.
I got to protect my heart, whatever that is. And at the same time,
(31:24):
the future spouse or the potential spouse need to do the same thing.
And when you guys can come together and say, you know what, we're going to do
this, we're going to do this together.
There's no me, there's us. Will they be challenging?
Yes, but we can deal with it head on if we keep communication,
education, if we keep the respect, I'm not even going to mention the love part
(31:46):
because in my opinion, love is a feeling.
Love come and go. One minute you're going to be so in love, you got butterflies.
The next minute that person going to snore, you can't stand them.
So it's a feeling come and go, but it is about consistency, compromise,
respect, loyalty, and trust.
And when you put all those together, that produces love. What type of gender
(32:09):
roles do you have in your first marriage and in your current?
The way I operate is I'm that guy, you know, but I don't have to broadcast it
and and be the club on the table and say, look at me, I'm in charge.
I do it in a way to where I make everybody involved, whether it's the wife or
(32:32):
the kids, that their opinion matters and that they are heard.
Even though I'm probably going to make the final decision I take in consideration,
everybody else's feelings and everybody else's position and then I compromise
that and that might have been something that I got from the Heathcliff hostables
(32:52):
from the James Evans back in the day or the fact that I saw my mom grow up you
know without a spouse and all the decisions she had to make her own.
Getting counsel from other members that are involved To me, that's leadership.
And there's so many ways you can lead. You can lead from the front.
(33:12):
You can lead from the back.
I like to lead in the middle. You know, give other people an opportunity to
shine because at the end of the day, we all win when that happens.
Yeah, I agree. I agree.
What are your thoughts on this 50-50 thing? And we're going to wrap it up.
They're telling us we talk too much.
50-50 thing? Yeah, well, this new culture, this whole 50-50 thing they got going.
(33:36):
In my opinion, it can't be 50-50.
It might be 51-49.
But at some point, someone has to make the final decision and that other person
has to trust the leadership and the integrity of that person to make that final decision.
(33:56):
Does that decision need to be made by the man? Or do you think a relationship
would thrive with the woman being the lead?
I do think there are some relationships that would thrive. It all depends on the dynamic.
If a man and a woman are together and that woman is queen of finances,
(34:17):
she might be in the corporate world as the queen of finances.
But when it comes to those kind of decisions, that man should be smart enough
to know when an expert is in the room.
And that shows leadership of the man. Like I said, you ain't got to lead from
the front all the time. You can lead from the back and the middle.
In that part, in that area, you got to go with the best decision maker in the room.
(34:42):
And it might not be the man, but the man should be smart enough to know that
I ain't the smartest person in this room.
My wife is not a person who stand behind me. She's a person stand beside me.
And at times I put her in front of me because she makes the best decision.
You got to know who you marry. Yeah. And you got to know their strong points.
(35:03):
And that makes a beautiful relationship because a man is not going to be strong every time.
There are times where the children might be strong. The mother or the wife might
be strong, but the respect has to be there mutually.
And so, OK, that's what we're going to wrap it up with this.
What would you tell some of our younger audience who are fathers or and or husband?
(35:29):
What would I tell them? I would tell them to don't make decisions out of emotion.
I would tell them to take some quality time when making decisions. That might be prayer.
That might be sleeping it off and waking up the next day to make those decisions.
(35:51):
And I would also tell them to appreciate and enjoy the process of life.
Everybody's trying to get to the finish line.
But don't miss the process of getting there because that's the fruit of life.
Amazing. Why don't you tell our audience how they can be a part of the 5K run slash walk?
(36:12):
If you want to walk, you can walk, guys. No pressure.
So I'm not sure when this is going to air, but the 5K is June 8th.
And so if you want to register for the 5K, you can go to imafather5k.org.
That's imafather5k.org. but
we do programs all throughout the year so if
you go to that website you'll see a lot
(36:33):
of what we do we just built the garden program at a charter school and and chili
from tlc actually built the guard uh the greenhouse and now the students are
feeding 500 kids so it's almost farm to table uh and so we do a lot of different
things throughout the year but you can follow me Me,
on IG at TheRealDavidManuel.
(36:55):
And the only reason it's TheRealDavid, I got hacked. So I had to change it.
TheRealDavidManuel. That's that King David. Yeah, well, you said it. I didn't.
And then on Facebook, I'm just at DavidManuel. And that's M-A-N-U-E-L.
Thank you for that. Okay.
Thank you for tuning in to Let Him See That Child podcast. Drop a comment below
on what was your favorite part of the episode.
(37:16):
If you're watching us on YouTube, don't forget to click like and subscribe because
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podcast channel anywhere you listen to podcasts.
And if you don't remember anything else, I'll leave you with this. Let him see that child.
Music.