Being blessed with a beautiful girl and a busy little boy brings many new complications to my charmed life. Cree and Logan also have me thinking and feeling things I never imagined. One of the many complications I hadn’t counted on was the different types and degrees of love I have for both of my children.

OK, take a deep breath! I’m sure my attitude about my kids and the love I have for them comes as a shock to some folks out here but I am trying to keep this real.

Now let me try to explain the two totally different types of daddy love I have for my two kids.

As most readers know, Cree is my princess, but to be honest she's eight going on 18 one day and an 18 month old baby later that same afternoon. My Princess is beautiful and strong, sensitive and bold. Cree possesses a unique combination of mischievousness and genuine innocence. With this in mind, obviously my first thoughts for her are to protect and provide. The birth of my daughter and the changes she has invoked in and on my life was an epiphany for me.

From the moment Cree was born I have tried my best to shelter and love her. I have spent the first eight years of her life having my heart turn flips at the sound of her crying. I have felt outright sick when she is upset or disappointed by my actions, every day life situations and drama's, or the actions of other family members and friends. I am forever ready to come to her rescue or defense at a moment's notice, unrealistically trying to protect her from life’s bumps and bruises.

I firmly proclaim to anyone who will listen that my little girl will always have her room in my house – no matter how old she gets! To make the contradictions between my actions and my desires is the fact I want Cree to grow up and be a "very independent" woman. I want Cree to be a woman who needs a man for nothing. A woman who can buy her own "bling, bling." A woman who can buy her own car, house, and any shiny trinkets she may want. I want her to be able to change a tire and put out her own garbage.

I want Cree to be totally independent but to always know in the back of her mind that Daddy is just a phone call away.

Now the way I am raising Logan is as different as night and day from the way I’m raising Cree. Logan has got to leave the house as soon as he gets his high school degree. Eighteen and gone is the theme for my little warrior. Brother's got to get out of my house, 'cause I’m turning his room into a gym. LOL!!

I’ve got Logan on the fast track to be out-of-the house, independent and he can’t come back home. I have always heard the old cliché that women raise their daughters and love their sons. I am raising my son first, and the love is a gimme. He will know how to cook, clean, wash and fold clothes and walk-the-walk and talk-the-talk. He’ll be a lot like me. I cook, I clean, and I can even sew if I have to. My son is responsible now, for cleaning his own room and I have him doing as many things as his little 3-year-old hands can handle. 

I have been on my own since I was fifteen but that isn’t what I want for my kids. I was forced to start out too early. I want my son to know that he has a home and that he has eighteen years to grow and mature. But I also want him to embrace the concept of leaving home, growing up, and handling his own business. I will let him know he will make mistakes but no mistake is so bad that he will need to come home. Struggling will build character; Fighting his own battles will make him strong. I will provide him with the foundation necessary over the next fifteen years to make it easier for him to never come knocking at my door.

He will know how to manage his money, bank account and beacon score. When it comes time to buy "bling, bling" he won’t have to wait till his next paycheck to make it work. He will not need a woman to take care of him, clean his house, or help him pay his bills.

I love my son, and I want him to grow up to be a strong black man. I want Logan to be a man who will be role model for independence and self-reliance. I have said on more than one occasion that I am reliving my life through him. I know there will be folks saying that you can’t live your life through your kids but I disagree. I am raising my son the way I wanted my father to raise me, and in essence living my life through my son.

And I'm raising my daughter to be the woman that I think all women should be.

I did say night and day didn’t I?