Bill Belew has raised 2 bi-cultural kids, now 34 and 30. And he and his wife are now parenting a 3rd, Mia, who is 8.

Financially Distressed dads

Financially distressed dads are the ones that have been deprived financially and are unable to provide the right level of comfort or luxury which is a legitimate expectation of the spouse and the kids of a family.  These dads are always short of money and usually cut corners to meet both ends meet.  They are unable to meet their financial needs because of the lack of a good job that would satisfy the needs of the family or they spend too much money instead of saving it for the future.  These dads are not good at planning for the future and they live one day at a time and because of this fundamentally approach they are unable to think ahead and are unable to therefore foresee the future.  These dads might have also lost a huge sum of money through investing in an unsuccessful venture or a personal lack of judgement in money management because of which they suffer financially and are unable to therefore cope the burden of raising a family.

Finance is really the backbone of any family for ensuring its well being and stability and if that is a soft spot then all the other things around which a family is built go for a toss.  Therefore financial stability is really the cornerstone of any family and its long term well being. Most of the fights in the family between family members that is the husband and the spouse arise out of financial reasons and the other reasons such emotional connect between the couple can be patched up if the foundation is built on strong financial stability, which in turn is built on the bread winner of the family the father.

The father of the family is therefore expected to earn money and be the provider to the family but in many cases these dads squander all the money and are in deep financial trouble because of their lack of judgement or because of their bad addictions or bad habits such as gambling e.t.c. . Gambling in many cases is found to be a principle reason why families end up in deep financial woes because the head of the family takes to gambling and addiction as way of venting his frustrations and wants to become rich overnight and all of this ultimately backfires and triggers a vicious spiral that has a cascading impact on the well being of the family.

The kids in these families are unable to afford money to spend and constantly compare themselves to others in their classrooms and constantly long for a better way of life.  They see their friends going for vacations, buying new and trendy clothes, watches and shoes and they demand these from their dads because he is the only person that they can turn towards and finally end up being disappointed because their father cannot cater to these specific needs of the children.  Some of them are unable to concentrate in their studies because of this financial mess created by their father and make excuses for their dropping performance in school.  They blame their parents for the dip in their scores where as some of them take this is a good lesson and try and work doubly hard so that one day they are rich and famous.  Some of them also take wows to ensure that they don’t up like their father an example of a failure in life who could not provide the right financial support to their families but then take this weakness as an opportunity to reach greater heights and they break all the records at school and stand out in their communities.

Talk to Bill and others about their experiences raising bi-cultural Japanese-American kids.