He has 8 kids. 6 grown and moved on. Not one of them refused to let him be homeless? Had a couch for him to sleep on? A computer to search for jobs on?
Sometimes it is a question of self respect. It's perhaps the last thing people cling to, to keep their sense of self alive. It is what probably keeps him going now.
My father refused to take any real help, till his final days.
In his own words, he wanted to "free" his children from the burden he had turned into - he wanted us to go out and succeed & never blame him for holding us back.
All I could do was get him his pills and sit by his bed & promise him that it wasn't a sacrifice (and that I would live my life, soon).
Not that it did any good to his self-worth, but it helps me sleep well at night, at least.
But in this article, he makes it seem as tho his failures were due to career choice, bad mortgages, age, etc. When in reality, it could simply have been self-respect, maybe stubbornness or pride. I just think this article may have been unfairly billed and titled because there is a HUGE piece missing - that of his own pride.
his failures were due to career choice, bad mortgages
He didn't blame anyone did he? He basically said he made all of the decisions, one by one. The source of those decisions may or may not have been what you propose as the explanation. But I think the characterization 'this article may have been unfairly billed and titled' seems...off, regardless. But maybe I'm missing something.
Finding friends for kids to stay with even short term is doable because grown ups take pity. Finding friends that'll let you stay - the threat being for extended periods - is a damn sight harder?
Why do you think his pride stopped him accepting help? Would you put up someone down on their luck?
He explains this in the article. Two children are in Germany with their mother, and the other children are still in high school or college. He hid his homelessness from all of them.
He didn't hide his homelessness, they knew that's why the mom and two kids moved to Germany (for the better social services). It doesn't say why he didn't live with his children, but it does say the mom and two youngest lived with two older kids for awhile and the high school aged kids bounced around with his friends so they could continue to attend their high school.
Exactly. So it's a macho thing (if that is the case).Well when push comes to shove you have to throw all of that out the window. Also, no friends or contacts that would even lend you money? I advanced a contractor $5000 once who had lost his job for work to be done over the next year. And I had never even met him in person (although he did work for perhaps several years..)
I don't think it's so much a macho thing. It's one thing to ask for help when you need it--but quite another to ask for help in the form of room and board, the implication (and correctly so, here) being that for whatever reason you are unable to support yourself.
As a father, to be unable to support yourself, let alone your kids, can be a destructive blow not only to your self-respect, but to your children's respect for you. I suspect that that's what he was trying to avoid, and I find it wholly reasonable. His children's respect might never return, and it's clear from the article that his relationship with his children is part of what he valued most.
If this is the case, it's very sad that the relationships he values the most come with the caveat that he can't be vulnerable around those people. He's not allowed to fail before them. Not able to ask them for help when in need - or they lose all respect for him.
