DATE: Wednesday, April 2, 1997              TAG: 9704020033

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY ELIZABETH SIMPSON, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:  107 lines

CELEBRATING FATHERHOOD TOGETHER MEN FROM DIFFERENT WALKS OF LIFE MEET MONTHLY TO TALK ABOUT BEING DADS

AT 8 P.M. on a Monday night, Blair Middle School is empty of students and near silent.

Only the swishing sound of the custodians' mop breaks the quiet until you get up to the third floor, where a group of men is talking animatedly in the library.

The ground rules for this monthly meeting are clear and unwavering:

First, no women allowed.

Second, no talking about jobs or money.

Third, no debate about the Final Four, or any other sports topic for that matter.

So what does that leave?

For these men, fatherhood.

The men in the group, called Blair Fathers, talk about being fathers of daughters and sons. And being sons of fathers. About how one generation of fathering differs from another.

And perhaps most important, about how to bridge the gap between what their own fathers taught them about fatherhood to a new era in which fathers are expected to do more than bring home the bacon.

``Our fathers were busy with work, and there wasn't time for them to interact as much with us,'' said one of the members, Jim Consoli.

Jim White picks up the ball and carries it a little further. ``It's like being without a role model, like blazing a new trail.''

``They were invisible,'' continues Donnell Taborn, another member. ``They were there, but they weren't there. There are things you know you do not want to do like your father, and some things that you know you want to keep.''

Far from a he-man woman-haters' club, this group tips their hat to women and their ability to talk about motherhood any time, anywhere.

They say that doesn't happen so much with men. That when men get together they often lapse into talking about their work, about how the basketball playoffs are going, about what's going on down at city hall, even while their wives are in the next room talking about being mothers.

And when men do talk about their children, it's usually more about parenting than fathering.

``There's a difference,'' White said. ``Parenting is a joint venture, something negotiated between myself and my children's mother. Being a father is different. It's something we try to define here.''

Being a father is something they learn from their own fathers, from the fathers around them, from conversations with wives, and scenes from movies and books, from articles that describe the ways that fathers today are different than fathers of generations past, and from within themselves.

``A father is a guy that will be there for their kid,'' Taborn said during one point in the meeting. ``He will be there to share things with them, he's not just a guy dropping a check off.''

Consoli remembers his father, who was a bricklayer, taking him to work with him on Saturdays. And how his relationship with his father was created during those brick-laying Saturdays. When his own son was young, Consoli would do the same kind of thing, involving him in projects around the house. Until one day he heard his son tell Consoli's wife, ``Dad only loves me when I work with him.'' And Consoli realized he needed to play more with his son, instead of working on household projects all the time.

``I never played catch with my father,'' Consoli said.

Blair Fathers started meeting two years ago, in the fall of 1995. White and a few other fathers with children who attend Blair Middle School approached the school about giving them a place where men could talk about being fathers, to begin a conversation they believed didn't happen often enough.

The group met until March of 1996, then dissolved. A second incarnation of the group began meeting last October.

They talk about how to be more present in their children's lives. About the need to be close to their children, yet also set limits. About the awkwardness that goes along with trying to create an intimate relationship with their children. ``My son looks like this when I hug him,'' said White, who straightens his body like a board to describe his point.

They talk about the issues that come up between fathers and children: The sky-high phone bills. The cigarettes or matches found in a son's pockets. The suggestive note that fell out of a daughter's backpack.

``They're at that age when you need to tell them, `You are not a child, but you are not a man,'' Taborn said.

The answers are not always delivered in neat packages here, but rather through conversations about how each one of them would feel, what they would do, what their fathers would have done.

The men here come from different walks of life, different races, different incomes, different neighborhoods. They don't know where one another works, or what they do for a living, because they want to keep the focus on being fathers.

``It doesn't matter how much you make, the issues are the same,'' said Steve Weston, another member.

Not only is fathering different today than a generation ago, but children are different. They seem to grow up faster, to be exposed to sensitive issues like sex sooner, to have peer pressure that goes above and beyond what these fathers faced as boys.

Which only heightens the importance of a good relationship between child and father.

``I try to make a conscious effort to share memories with them. My father was always either working or thinking about work. My kids and I do a lot of things like going to basketball games, going to the arcade, going to a wrestling matches. But music. . . '' Taborn shakes her head here. ``I cannot share,'' he said, laughing. ``I remember my father saying the same thing.'' MEMO: Blair Fathers meets the second Monday of every month, from 7 p.m.

to 8:30 p.m. in the school library. For more information, call Jim

White, 627-1422, Jim Consoli, 622-1232, or Donnell Taborn, 441-2441. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by Martin Smith-Rodden/The Virginian-Pilot

Members of the fatherhood organization The Blair Father, (from left

to right) Glenn Jenkins, Donnell Taborn, Rick Jones, Jim White, Jim

Consoli and Steve Weston.

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