Abiola’s Love Class: Fatman Scoop! A Single Dad with Breakup Pain

Of course, I’m dying. I’m Fatman Scoop. I make people dance. I’m no tough guy. Who wants to wake up in the morning and be in this position? And it’s hurtful. I deal with pain every single day. But you know, I force myself to get up and try and keep hard and hopefully I can get to a place where I am better. But, look, when you really love someone and things happen – it’s devastating.

So what do you do to cope on the toughest days?

You know, I’m blessed with friends that talk it out with me. If I didn’t have friends to talk it out with me, I would be in deep trouble. I got a support system luckily. And that’s what keeps me going, that keeps me moving. And then when I wake up and I see my kids, I’m like ‘I can’t quit’. Because no matter what’s going on, they still have to live. So that’s what keeps me going and sometimes that’s what I have to do to eat the pain. But I do meditate at night. I do meditate 20 minutes a day. I try to meditate 20 minutes a day.

Meditation is key. So, what’s your advice to other single dads? Because what I hear you saying is that first you were very like a lot of dads… focused on making the money and working all the time and feeling like you were doing your part of fatherhood that way. And then now, you’re realizing ‘Wow, okay. The kids need me more.” And so you shifted your perspective and it’s forcing you to grow.

Yes it is, it’s definitely forcing me to grow. You are 100 percent right. I was more focused on – ‘Alright, here are the projections for this month. This is how much I gotta make for everybody to get this. You get your shoes. You get this, you get that. And the car gets fixed. Then I go here, and we can do this’.

And let me tell you something, when I first started cooking – it was horrible. I was making high blood pressure steak. The smoke alarm was always going off. The kids were eating my food because they didn’t want to hurt my feelings. They were like ‘Hmm, this is great’. But then, I just kept working and kept pushing. The fourth week was like ‘This Thursday’s food was pretty good’. The fifth week, sixth week they were ‘Oh, you’re getting good’. Now it’s to the point where they call me in the day time like ‘What are we having for dinner?’ You know, I look at YouTube for recipes and go to Recipes.com. I do all that kind of stuff.

[My son Torrance] recently go into a car accident and he was laying on the floor and a woman came to assist him. She was trying to keep his mind off of everything and she asked him who his role model was. And he said I was his role model. And that re-purposed my vision of trying to even be better for him. Trying to be more patient when I deal with him. Because, you know, he gets me angry and makes me go crazy but I just said ‘I have to try to be better. I gotta try to be more patient.’

You said you’re doing hair. How are your hair braiding skills? Because sometimes my father sent me to school with my hair looking twisted.

Scoop: (laughs) I’m learning, I’m actually going to go to the Africans to take a hair braiding class and I got to the Dominicans right here in Harlem and I have them tell me. One of my people who owns a beauty salon, she’s showing me. My daughter can do her hair now but if I don’t like it I’ll say, ‘Do this or do that’ but I still want to be hands-on enough that I can do it if I don’t like the way it’s looking.

Is there anything else that you would want our readers to know?

Keep at it every day. And anybody who’s in a [breaking up] relationship, it’s not easy. And the thing is, sometimes you can’t listen to your friends or family because they’re like ‘Oh, get over it!’ Sometimes you just can’t get over it and you don’t know why you can’t get over it.

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Catch up on Abiola’s Love Class

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Passionate Living Coach Abiola Abrams gives extraordinary women inspiring advice on healthy relationships, self-esteem and getting the love we deserve. You’ve seen her love interventions in magazines from Essence to JET and on shows from MTV’s “Made” to the CW Network’s “Bill Cunningham Show.” Find love class worksheets, advice videos, coaching, and more at Abiola’s Love University. Her upcoming advice guide is named “The Official Bombshell Handbook.” Tweet @abiolaTV or #loveclass.

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