February 28, 2025 • 11 mins
Ron Long and Gabino Meza from the El Paso Center for Children Fatherhood EFFECTS Program answer questions from El Paso community men.
Go to epccinc.org for more information on the FREE Fatherhood EFFECTS program, or find them on Instagram or Facebook under "El Paso Center for Children."
Questions:
1-What does family mean to you?
2-Divorced father of one has daughter going through puberty
3-How to teach our children the lessons we learned from going through struggles
4-How would you feel/cope if your kids were taken from you?
5-Their thoughts on 3rd party websites like "Talking Parents" to communicate with ex-spouses
Go to epccinc.org for more information on the FREE Fatherhood EFFECTS program, or find them on Instagram or Facebook under "El Paso Center for Children."
Questions:
1-What does family mean to you?
2-Divorced father of one has daughter going through puberty
3-How to teach our children the lessons we learned from going through struggles
4-How would you feel/cope if your kids were taken from you?
5-Their thoughts on 3rd party websites like "Talking Parents" to communicate with ex-spouses
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
So we're here with Ron Long and Gobino Messa. There
two fatherhood specialists part of the Fatherhood Effects program for
the Al Paso Center for Children, Inc. Now, I asked
on my social media if there are any questions that
men had for these fatherhood specialists, and I don't want
them to have to wait for the answers. So we
have about five questions here that we're going to go over.
(00:20):
Really good questions, I think, all different types from local dads.
So this is the first question for I'll start with
you Ron. What does the word family mean to you?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Great question. I have acrostic or an acronym for family,
and this is just something that I use for myself.
Family for me means forget about me, I love you,
forget about me, I love you f A M I
L Y. So that's what family means to me.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
I love that. Gotbin, No, same question, What does family
mean to you?
Speaker 3 (00:56):
For me? The word family means I can say the
whole world for example. For me, family is everything. Everything
I do is to have a healthy and strong family.
And yes, that's it.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
I love that. So the next question. This man is
a divorced father of one preteen daughter who is in
the pre stages of puberty. God Bless him was text
message from their daughter's mother, daughter is going through puberty
with nothing else said about the topic. This dad asked
a close family female friend, the mother of a fifteen
year old daughter herself and has same values and believes
(01:34):
as he does, to speak with his daughter. So this dad,
you know, divorced, has a pre puberty daughter and he
asked a close family friend to speak with his daughter
on what to expect and proper hygiene, what to expect
from puberty. Was he wrong for being proactive and asking
for help with his daughter from this lady? And keep
in mind the mother still is in the picture.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Me personally, I don't think you can ever be wrong
being proactive as a dad. You know, you you want
to make sure that you're connecting with people that can
possibly help you. And of course those people need to
be trusted sources of information because I believe that the
quality of your of the information that you get is
(02:18):
going to determine the quality of your decision. So if
you find that quality person, that quality resource, you know,
touch base with it, connect with it and and try
to learn everything you can. Because now with information flowing
on on on the web. You know, it's a lot
(02:39):
of good resource. There's a lot of good information.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Out there, definitely, and got to be no same thing.
Was this dad wrong for being proactive and asking for
help with his daughter from this family friend.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
There's nothing wrong with being proactive. I think the main
reason for this person for being proactive is because he
wants the best thing for his daughter. So it is okay.
It is always okay to be proactive. Research and try
to do the best for your kids. Try to find
the best answer. Research it.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yes, yeah, yeah, thank you for the answer. All right,
Next question, how do we teach our children the lessons
we learned through our hardships while doing everything we can
to make sure they don't go through those hardships.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
I personally think if it's a mistake, be able to
communicate why it was a mistake and what would you
have done differently if you had another chance? Why was
it a mistake and what would you have done differently
if you had another chance, And you know, and being
(03:42):
being transparent like that with our children. I think that's
important that you know, we're not just trying to pull
the adult card, because sometimes adults don't have like adults
and I tell my son. I tell my son this,
and I said, I will disappoint you. I will do
my best to limit those times. Yeah, but I will disappoint.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
So another part of this question too, because I know
I actually know who wrote it in it's what they
would also like to know, is, Okay, you do everything
to protect your maybe not protect, but you know, you
work and you do this and you're there for your
kids so that they don't have to go through the
struggles you went to. But there are certain lessons that
you learn in those struggles. So how does a child
(04:26):
learn those lessons without struggling?
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Right?
Speaker 1 (04:29):
I had a very bad childhood. My husband, you know,
had some stuff done. But we're doing everything in our
power so that our kids don't go through that. But
if they're not going through struggles, how do they learn
those lessons that you learned that come from going through
a tough time?
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Can I answer this?
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Who are yes? Please me?
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Personally? Some of the greatest lessons I learned was through loss.
When I was winning, when I was doing good, when
I was on top of the world. I really didn't
learn too much from those moments because I just kind
of said, you know what, Hey, I just got to
keep it going. But in the struggle and the hustle
and the fight when your back is against the wall,
(05:07):
when you think you're in the pit, and you get
out the pit, you come out the corner, you know,
and you have to fight through some things. You learn
so much from struggle. You learn so much from loss,
you know. And so I feel like if you can
learn from those lessons and don't repeat, you know, those
same mistakes, then I think that that loss and those
(05:28):
those times of struggle is a powerful teaching tool just
in life in general.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
So I'm thinking like for a child that maybe you
know has doesn't have struggles, maybe sports something you know,
on a smaller scale, because they win, they lose, but
they need to. Sports is a good way or being
part of a team where they can win or they
can lose, and it's up to you whether or not
which is going to happen. And got be you know
the same thing. You know, you have a child, you're
doing everything so that they don't have to go through
(05:55):
the hardships you went through. For example, I you know,
I endured a lot of abuse as a kid. I
would never want my child to go through that, but
it may be who I am today. But for my kids,
if a father doesn't want them to go through those struggles,
that's why you work so hard. How do they learn
those lessons that they would otherwise learn during those struggles.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
I think some of the ways that we can do
it is, for example, telling them the stories about ourselves,
what we went through in our lives. For example, for me,
my dad he had cancer when I was eight years
of age. When I was eight, so that was something
really hard for me, but that thing, it really helped
(06:37):
me to shave my life. And for example, I can
tell the story to my kids all this happened to me,
and so on, and as well like probably telling them
some stories of our friends or other things that are
going on in our community so they can start thinking
about it. Okay, in my life right now, it's okay,
(06:57):
everything is okay, but probably point in their lives, something
bad is going to happen. And that's the truth for everyone.
Everybody is struggling in their own ways, but we need
to think about it, what we can do and to
have resilience to overcome those bad things in our lives.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Storytelling and then you're also you know, spending that one
on one time, bonding with your child while you're doing
the storytelling. So the next question, how would you feel
if your kids were taken from you? Shed light on
this issue. So I wanted clarity. I said, as in
given custody or kidnapped. He said, not kidnapped. That would
be far worse. It's usually one sided when it comes
(07:36):
to the courts, and women always get full custody. Sometimes
it's even harder for us to get anything at all
visitation there, but it's not the same when you don't
have them every day. How do you think, how would
you cope with that situation? This person wants, this dad
wants to know.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
I'm not a specialist, I'm not a psychologists. I'm just
speaking about my experience about being a dad, and if
there was something that came in between me and my children,
my son, my daughter, I definitely would feel slighted in
some kind of way. Depending on the situation, I might
(08:11):
even feel hopeless, you know. But that's what one of
the benefits of our program is, because, like I said,
you can never encourage your dad enough. In life. You
can't control everything that happens to you, but you can
control how you respond to it. And that's one of
the things our program does is that we help men
respond in a positive and constructive way.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
So you know, in response to this dad, maybe connect
with other men during one of these programs, or maybe
even like you had said earlier, a hobby, but finding
other people for support that have gone through the same thing.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Yes, I personally feel that no one on this earth
is exempt from pain, hurt, disappointment, and embarrassment. And that's
one thing that we do connect with as human beings. Pain, hurt, disappointment,
and embarrassment. Somebody has experienced least one of those in
their life. And if you can connect with that pain,
that hurt or disappointment with another man, now you don't
(09:06):
feel so bad like you're the only one going through it.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
You don't feel so alone. I think feeling alone during anything,
whether it's a cancer diagnosis, the loss of a loved one,
that feeling of being like you're alone is the worst.
So connecting with someone else and so God be noa
same thing. How do you think that you would cope
in that situation?
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Can you repeat that question again please?
Speaker 1 (09:25):
So this man is saying that, how would you feel
if your kids were taken from you? As in a
custody issue. He's saying that a lot of the times
the courts favor the mom and sometimes the dads only
get very limited visitation, if any. If your kids were
taken from you, you know, and you couldn't see them
every day, how would you cope.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
Talking with them with a trusted friend, a trust family
like my cousin, my brother, so they can give me
some advice or not ad biased, just talking about it, researching,
looking for someone that can help me to have my
kids back, or not only to have them back, but
to have something equally with the mother and with me. Yeah,
(10:04):
because for sure, it's horrible if you not have your
kids in your life.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Right, that's a that's a very difficult situation. And we
have one last question. Do you recommend websites like Talking
Parents that's the name of the website to provide objective
third parties for communication between ex spouses who are still
attempting to co parents? So I'll repeat the question, do
you recommend websites like Talking Parents to provide objective third
(10:30):
parties for communication between ex spouses who are still attempting
to I didn't know websites like them, Ron.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Well, I meet me personally as a father specialist, I
don't recommend against it. However, there is a website that
I do recommend, and this website is get parenting tips
dot com. Get parenting tips dot com. At the father Program,
we're very familiar with that website and we know that
(10:57):
is a trusted quality source of information.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Okay, got By, no, same question. What do you think
about these websites?
Speaker 3 (11:04):
I think these websites are really beneficial. Actually, I was
talking with my coworker Ron about the Getparenting tips dot com.
These are really good website in which you can talk
about many different topics or situations that are going on
in the lives of the parents mom and dad.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Well, thank you both for answering these questions. If they
want to reach out to you, they can go to
epccinc Dot org. Again, two fatherhood specialists from the Fatherhood
Effects Program, Ron Log and Gabino Messa. If you want
to learn more about these services, you want to see
if they could be good for you EPCCI inc Dot org.
Just take that first step, reach out, get the information.
(11:45):
There's no commitment you have to make. Just reach out.
That's all it takes. Ron and Gabino, thank you. So
much for being here with me today.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
Thank you so much, Thank you so much for invioting
us
So we're here with Ron Long and Gobino Messa. There
two fatherhood specialists part of the Fatherhood Effects program for
the Al Paso Center for Children, Inc. Now, I asked
on my social media if there are any questions that
men had for these fatherhood specialists, and I don't want
them to have to wait for the answers. So we
have about five questions here that we're going to go over.
(00:20):
Really good questions, I think, all different types from local dads.
So this is the first question for I'll start with
you Ron. What does the word family mean to you?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Great question. I have acrostic or an acronym for family,
and this is just something that I use for myself.
Family for me means forget about me, I love you,
forget about me, I love you f A M I
L Y. So that's what family means to me.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
I love that. Gotbin, No, same question, What does family
mean to you?
Speaker 3 (00:56):
For me? The word family means I can say the
whole world for example. For me, family is everything. Everything
I do is to have a healthy and strong family.
And yes, that's it.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
I love that. So the next question. This man is
a divorced father of one preteen daughter who is in
the pre stages of puberty. God Bless him was text
message from their daughter's mother, daughter is going through puberty
with nothing else said about the topic. This dad asked
a close family female friend, the mother of a fifteen
year old daughter herself and has same values and believes
(01:34):
as he does, to speak with his daughter. So this dad,
you know, divorced, has a pre puberty daughter and he
asked a close family friend to speak with his daughter
on what to expect and proper hygiene, what to expect
from puberty. Was he wrong for being proactive and asking
for help with his daughter from this lady? And keep
in mind the mother still is in the picture.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Me personally, I don't think you can ever be wrong
being proactive as a dad. You know, you you want
to make sure that you're connecting with people that can
possibly help you. And of course those people need to
be trusted sources of information because I believe that the
quality of your of the information that you get is
(02:18):
going to determine the quality of your decision. So if
you find that quality person, that quality resource, you know,
touch base with it, connect with it and and try
to learn everything you can. Because now with information flowing
on on on the web. You know, it's a lot
(02:39):
of good resource. There's a lot of good information.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Out there, definitely, and got to be no same thing.
Was this dad wrong for being proactive and asking for
help with his daughter from this family friend.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
There's nothing wrong with being proactive. I think the main
reason for this person for being proactive is because he
wants the best thing for his daughter. So it is okay.
It is always okay to be proactive. Research and try
to do the best for your kids. Try to find
the best answer. Research it.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yes, yeah, yeah, thank you for the answer. All right,
Next question, how do we teach our children the lessons
we learned through our hardships while doing everything we can
to make sure they don't go through those hardships.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
I personally think if it's a mistake, be able to
communicate why it was a mistake and what would you
have done differently if you had another chance? Why was
it a mistake and what would you have done differently
if you had another chance, And you know, and being
(03:42):
being transparent like that with our children. I think that's
important that you know, we're not just trying to pull
the adult card, because sometimes adults don't have like adults
and I tell my son. I tell my son this,
and I said, I will disappoint you. I will do
my best to limit those times. Yeah, but I will disappoint.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
So another part of this question too, because I know
I actually know who wrote it in it's what they
would also like to know, is, Okay, you do everything
to protect your maybe not protect, but you know, you
work and you do this and you're there for your
kids so that they don't have to go through the
struggles you went to. But there are certain lessons that
you learn in those struggles. So how does a child
(04:26):
learn those lessons without struggling?
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Right?
Speaker 1 (04:29):
I had a very bad childhood. My husband, you know,
had some stuff done. But we're doing everything in our
power so that our kids don't go through that. But
if they're not going through struggles, how do they learn
those lessons that you learned that come from going through
a tough time?
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Can I answer this?
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Who are yes? Please me?
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Personally? Some of the greatest lessons I learned was through loss.
When I was winning, when I was doing good, when
I was on top of the world. I really didn't
learn too much from those moments because I just kind
of said, you know what, Hey, I just got to
keep it going. But in the struggle and the hustle
and the fight when your back is against the wall,
(05:07):
when you think you're in the pit, and you get
out the pit, you come out the corner, you know,
and you have to fight through some things. You learn
so much from struggle. You learn so much from loss,
you know. And so I feel like if you can
learn from those lessons and don't repeat, you know, those
same mistakes, then I think that that loss and those
(05:28):
those times of struggle is a powerful teaching tool just
in life in general.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
So I'm thinking like for a child that maybe you
know has doesn't have struggles, maybe sports something you know,
on a smaller scale, because they win, they lose, but
they need to. Sports is a good way or being
part of a team where they can win or they
can lose, and it's up to you whether or not
which is going to happen. And got be you know
the same thing. You know, you have a child, you're
doing everything so that they don't have to go through
(05:55):
the hardships you went through. For example, I you know,
I endured a lot of abuse as a kid. I
would never want my child to go through that, but
it may be who I am today. But for my kids,
if a father doesn't want them to go through those struggles,
that's why you work so hard. How do they learn
those lessons that they would otherwise learn during those struggles.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
I think some of the ways that we can do
it is, for example, telling them the stories about ourselves,
what we went through in our lives. For example, for me,
my dad he had cancer when I was eight years
of age. When I was eight, so that was something
really hard for me, but that thing, it really helped
(06:37):
me to shave my life. And for example, I can
tell the story to my kids all this happened to me,
and so on, and as well like probably telling them
some stories of our friends or other things that are
going on in our community so they can start thinking
about it. Okay, in my life right now, it's okay,
(06:57):
everything is okay, but probably point in their lives, something
bad is going to happen. And that's the truth for everyone.
Everybody is struggling in their own ways, but we need
to think about it, what we can do and to
have resilience to overcome those bad things in our lives.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Storytelling and then you're also you know, spending that one
on one time, bonding with your child while you're doing
the storytelling. So the next question, how would you feel
if your kids were taken from you? Shed light on
this issue. So I wanted clarity. I said, as in
given custody or kidnapped. He said, not kidnapped. That would
be far worse. It's usually one sided when it comes
(07:36):
to the courts, and women always get full custody. Sometimes
it's even harder for us to get anything at all
visitation there, but it's not the same when you don't
have them every day. How do you think, how would
you cope with that situation? This person wants, this dad
wants to know.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
I'm not a specialist, I'm not a psychologists. I'm just
speaking about my experience about being a dad, and if
there was something that came in between me and my children,
my son, my daughter, I definitely would feel slighted in
some kind of way. Depending on the situation, I might
(08:11):
even feel hopeless, you know. But that's what one of
the benefits of our program is, because, like I said,
you can never encourage your dad enough. In life. You
can't control everything that happens to you, but you can
control how you respond to it. And that's one of
the things our program does is that we help men
respond in a positive and constructive way.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
So you know, in response to this dad, maybe connect
with other men during one of these programs, or maybe
even like you had said earlier, a hobby, but finding
other people for support that have gone through the same thing.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Yes, I personally feel that no one on this earth
is exempt from pain, hurt, disappointment, and embarrassment. And that's
one thing that we do connect with as human beings. Pain, hurt, disappointment,
and embarrassment. Somebody has experienced least one of those in
their life. And if you can connect with that pain,
that hurt or disappointment with another man, now you don't
(09:06):
feel so bad like you're the only one going through it.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
You don't feel so alone. I think feeling alone during anything,
whether it's a cancer diagnosis, the loss of a loved one,
that feeling of being like you're alone is the worst.
So connecting with someone else and so God be noa
same thing. How do you think that you would cope
in that situation?
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Can you repeat that question again please?
Speaker 1 (09:25):
So this man is saying that, how would you feel
if your kids were taken from you? As in a
custody issue. He's saying that a lot of the times
the courts favor the mom and sometimes the dads only
get very limited visitation, if any. If your kids were
taken from you, you know, and you couldn't see them
every day, how would you cope.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
Talking with them with a trusted friend, a trust family
like my cousin, my brother, so they can give me
some advice or not ad biased, just talking about it, researching,
looking for someone that can help me to have my
kids back, or not only to have them back, but
to have something equally with the mother and with me. Yeah,
(10:04):
because for sure, it's horrible if you not have your
kids in your life.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Right, that's a that's a very difficult situation. And we
have one last question. Do you recommend websites like Talking
Parents that's the name of the website to provide objective
third parties for communication between ex spouses who are still
attempting to co parents? So I'll repeat the question, do
you recommend websites like Talking Parents to provide objective third
(10:30):
parties for communication between ex spouses who are still attempting
to I didn't know websites like them, Ron.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Well, I meet me personally as a father specialist, I
don't recommend against it. However, there is a website that
I do recommend, and this website is get parenting tips
dot com. Get parenting tips dot com. At the father Program,
we're very familiar with that website and we know that
(10:57):
is a trusted quality source of information.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Okay, got By, no, same question. What do you think
about these websites?
Speaker 3 (11:04):
I think these websites are really beneficial. Actually, I was
talking with my coworker Ron about the Getparenting tips dot com.
These are really good website in which you can talk
about many different topics or situations that are going on
in the lives of the parents mom and dad.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Well, thank you both for answering these questions. If they
want to reach out to you, they can go to
epccinc Dot org. Again, two fatherhood specialists from the Fatherhood
Effects Program, Ron Log and Gabino Messa. If you want
to learn more about these services, you want to see
if they could be good for you EPCCI inc Dot org.
Just take that first step, reach out, get the information.
(11:45):
There's no commitment you have to make. Just reach out.
That's all it takes. Ron and Gabino, thank you. So
much for being here with me today.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
Thank you so much, Thank you so much for invioting
us
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