Can be a criminal and a good father ?

Kuklinsky was killer but also a good father and a good husband;michael mancuso killed his wife but went to the daughter first comunion (who know if she was happy of it ?);the bellomo daughter said that his father was a good person and spilotro Cooke everyday the breakfast and want that his son must go to Scholl and so on.

For you is possible that a person will be a sociopat killer but once turned back to home was a completly different person ?

Furio,

person who enters a life of crime knows that prison or early death are part of the life. A good father tries to make sure that he's THERE to support and protect his family.

A criminal can be good at the details of raising a family, but unless he's doing the criminal stuff as a means to an end with plans of leaving it behind....he's not a good father overall.

This is the funny thing about the Italian mafia.

Almost all of those guys were fathers, husbands, and somewhat family-oriented. This is the opposite of many gangstas today who come from fatherless homes, and the absence of a father is blamed for their delinquency.

What would say it possibile that a criminal that kill,sell drugs ecc when turn back home become a completly different person.
Kuklinsky's wife was shocked when know that his husband was a serial killer,sure he often beat her but the next day buy her flowers and apologize,kuklinsky said that admited the 5 murders for avoid to his family the shame and let that his wife (he don't ask for the divorcembut richard want to divorce) and sons to don't be market as iceman sons.
However even bikers ,gang members ecc had family.

I trought if one of more of us can split the criminal life from the family life.

A kinda good example is that book by Roy's son, Albert;


It was surprising how he was able to compartmentalize the violence, with his affection for his family, plus he left em with some dough to sit on.....


Doesn't excuse him but, I'm sure there are lots of examples....

This is what I means. An another example was kuklinsky.

Reminds me of a quote from one of my favorite characters on TV



Not exactly about being a father but I still think it fits. Bonus points to whoever can name the show and the character who said it.

Mike from Better call Saul, he said that to that bald headed 'dealer' with the Minnesota accent and the ridiculous Hummer :-)

That geek works IT at a pharmaceutical company and steals pain pills to sell to some cholos.. In the new season he thought he could do without Mike, we all saw how that worked out LOL

I read 3/4 of Kuklinsky's book before I realized it was all bullshit. I recall it saying how he was a shitty father and husband. He would force his wife to have sex. He beat her often enough that the son wanted to kill him. One of the daughters lost her virginity out of spite towards her dad. That being said, he sounds like a douche. Demeo on the other hand, was a good father and husband according to Albert's book. In my opininion I think if you get involved in that life you should love your family and set them up bc one day you're number will be called. Didnt Leonetti turn out to be a good dad? But don't they put their familia before their family when taking the ultimate vow? That right there shows their priorities. I wanted better for my kids, so I made goals and achieved them. Thats what my dad instilled in me and thats what I will do with my sons. Isnt that the American dream? Fuck those guys. How many times do we hear that this one could have been a ceo? They shouldve been, but they want the easy way out.

Kuklinski was a horrendous father and husband. He used to beat the living fuck out of all of them on a regular basis.

To answer the thread, no. Can u be a criminal and a good father.

A major job as a father is to be a role model. Children emulate their parents.
And being a criminal you fail as a positive role model in a child's life. Therefor failing at one of your most important jobs as a parent.

I saw in a documentary that his wife said that yes kuklinsky beat her but after apologize with her with a Flower and go out for a dinner and that never beate his sons. Kuklinsky in a interview said that declare guilty of the 5 murders because in this mode his family can avoid the media and that ever the wife dont want to divorce but Richard said her to made a new life away from him.
Now I dont want to defend him but at last was a decente father.

Sonny I think that even if someone was a criminal and do the impossibile for dont let his sons follow his way is a good father.

1. Kuklinsky was not a decent father Furio.
2. A father should lead by example Furio. In this day and age being a member of LCN in the US is a choice. It's not the only road open to young Italian males who wanted to be more than ditch diggers as it was once. And a father who chooses that lifestyle is not a good parent.

You can't be a criminal and a good father. Period.

They are mutually exclusive.

This kinda reminds me of a Soprano scene, " The bookies son is a cardiologist? Nice...."




I feel like you guys really mean, you can't be a cold blooded murderer and be a good dad, cause I mean, come on guys, a BOOKIE is a bad role model, lol....
Again, how many street guys y'all actually come into contact with? Cause there is a lotta grey, it's not all black and white...

An Italian proverb says : you do what I say and don't do what I did. With the translation loses some sense in the original is "fate ciò che vi dico e non fate come me".

of course you can be a crook and a good father

just like a legitimate job having dad can be a horrible father

You cant be a good father from jail. All criminals eventually go to jail. A good father sets an example, children learn what they observe, not neccesarily what they are told. Seriously, " hey son, dont lie, cheat, and steal. By the way, i will see you in five years, im going to do a bid".
My answer would be no.

Another pearl of wisdom from cookcounty.

You truly are a national treasure.

I'm sure some of these guys are/were able to actually hide their involvement until their kids are/were almost adults.

This is a thread that more than ever convinces me, a lot of people don't get the streets;


They might read about the mob and what not, but it's almost like they don't understand LIFE lol...


Roy was brought up, you know what's ironic? HE came from a decent family, should have been a doctor. Grew up next to the Profaci boys, and his mother didn't want him around em cause she thought they would be a bad influence. But THEY ENDED UP LEGIT AND UPSTANDING, while he bacame a serial killer. GO FIGURE. Sammy the bull, came from good parents, but ended up a criminal. John Gottis father WASNT A CRIMINAL, but Gotti ended up as one.
Scarfo, had a son that followed everything he did, and had another who was legit that fought with him, disagreed with him all the time. How do you account for that?

It's easy to just blame the fathers or the environment, but look deeper.
Scarfs father was legit, he didn't respect him BECAUSE OF IT. Was his father a bum for not being able to afford a nicer neighborhood, for getting up and going to work? Roy was bullied, plus he had a bad reaction to the death of his brother, these emotional issues have to be taken into account. Gottis father wasn't a criminal, but he was fuckin broke, all the time, and Gotti couldn't take this. THATS not a good role model for a young man, trust me, and this had a huge effect on Gotti turning to the streets. Gravano, if the teachers coulda diagnosed his dyslexia, who knows? Going to school and feeling like a moron is not an empowering thing, Luciano had a similar sentiment.

I love the movie the Bronx tale, how he tells the kid over and over he lives a bullshit life, and when he dies, no one will give a fuck. Roy looked his son in the eyes and told him he was going to hell. That's real as fuck...


To say' all kids emulate their fathers, like they don't have a fuckin brain of their own. How's that different from say a black person blaming the environment, and people saying suck it up, take responsibility for your life, same thing.


Like y'all are funny, fuck fathers, I come from a family where EVERYONE IS ABOUT THAT LIFE. My GRANDMOTHER ran a whorehouse outta Bull Tavern on the west side in the 50s. Two of her employees were her DAUGHTERS, one did time for stabbing a chick in the throat, and killing her.
HER son got locked up at 14, blasting at the police like it was legal, and got shot the fuck up and cuffed to a hospital bed. Both my parents were heroin addicts.
I mentioned before my cousin was Larry Hoovers last appointed Board Member, and HIS brother was more respected than he was. I mean all my people just stuck in it. Well, I was the fuckin anomaly, the smart kid. You think I got a gold star for staying away? I was practically a pariah, and thats my point, you have to have internal fortitude man. I crack up at the Sopranos, cause I KNOW THESE PEOPLE, I'm not Italian, but I got 5 Janice's in my family. My moms is a carbon copy of Livia, right down to the dead father who's permantly a "Saint", and the obsession with mothers killing their kids. It's eerie... Lol

Ok, rant over, it's just like how are you guys so black and white with this one is beyond me..

There's a criminal and a criminal. Of course criminal guys with the image of Vito Genovese, Kuklinski, DeStefano or Nicky Barnes cannot be good parents or husbands, but there are educated criminals on high positions within the system, who gets away with crime on daily basis. I have dozen of examples in my life, when a lot of people and government agencies knew who these people were and what they did, but nobody ever had the chance to catch them. These guys were present on the black market with cigarettes, gas, oil, etc. God knows if anyone was ever killed over it. They got away with it maybe because they had government connections, maybe because they paid off the right people, maybe because they operated under the radar, maybe they were lucky, which i highly doubt...what ever was the reason, these people were always around their families, neighbours,friends and now, around their grandchildren. They were normal family guys in suits, always around their families. Period. I know this for sure. None of these guys ever hit their women or children.They were and still are high class families with huge respect in their own country(i say their "own country" because i think that some of these families are forever banned from the U.S. and other countries). Now they are legit(or for the last 16 years) or live under high government pensions and smile as they think of their already invested ex-dirty cash around the country and also around the world.Their children have their own families and they all have good jobs and happy marriages and im almost sure that they are all well informed about their fathers past activities.

Right on Toodoped many of the old timers got in it for the good of it .

We all have a little of these guys in "US" And if you don't well I guess you we raised far for east coast .

These guys started with the fall of Yugoslavia and controlled the East European market during the 90's with connections to Russia, U.S., Italy and England. Some of them lost a lot of their investments in the U.S.(mostly Florida) like real estate, since they got banned from there. Plus these guys were not some ordinary shady businessmen, some of them were pure samurai. One example is when a 70 year old guy learns about him having a terminal cancer, then the guy locks himself in his toilet at home, takes a gun and shoots himself right in the heart so he can have an open coffin. Nobody knew about the suicide, instead the news were that a famous businessman died of cancer.And that was that. During his funeral, suddenly a number of black mercedes cars with russian, serbian or albanian licence plates rolled by and more than 50 guys in black suits, golden chains and dark shades paid their last respects. Not much of guys like these still around. So my point was, believe it or not, these people were all about their families, which of course its a rare example.

It mostly depends of the kind of person that you are, no matter if you're criminal or not.

Was it only me who appreciates the irony of CabriniGreen talking about how people don't understand the streets, only what they read, then proceeding to talk about Demeo, Luciano, Gotti and Scarfo.

@CabriniGreen: no one is saying children have to emulate their parents. But to say they don't is simply naive.

ALL children learn from their parents.

It's not that kids always emulate their parents. The question is wether you can be a criminal and still be a good father. The answer is still no.
Forget the exceptions.

Now, if your father is a criminal, it doesn't mean you will become a criminal or have some kind of horrible and tragic life. It could simply mean your life would've been better had your father not been a criminal. The anxiety and shit you go through when you have to worry about a close family member that is at risk of going to prison or being killed anytime alone is enough to say being a criminal makes you a bad father in many ways. Kids don't choose their parents so it's on parents not to make their children's lives hell.
Doesn't mean that kids are doomed to a life a crime. It might make it more likely though.

Another thing, NOT being a criminal and a parent doesn't make you a good parent. We always hear this or that gangster came from "good parents" but truth is we don't know how good they were. Maybe on paper they were good. They didn't break the law and run a criminal organization. So what? They could've been assholes for all we know. They could've beat their kids, or simply not paid attention to them, who knows.

I feel the same about The Sopranos. My dad is a gang member and my mom is the exact same personality type as Tony Sopranos mom. That show is amazing to me.
Overall as a kid a lot of this caused dysfunction in me and I dabbled in the streets myself but overall I made it out without a criminal record even though I went though so much. Had my parents made different decisions though, my life would've been so much more productive. Basically they didn't cause me to fail at life but they did set me back.
The truth is somewhere in the middle.

Good post SolCal

@ solcal


You know what I'm talking about my friend......

@Sonny

I gave you examples YOU could relate to and understand, cause I know all you guys are familiar with the subject matter...


You guys DONT EVEN RESPECT STREET KNOWLEDGE, not really, not unless it came from the papers, or some website, or a book, or something you can tangibly look at.... To be honest, in the real life section, I expected a lot more real life stuff from people... Lol

Also what I was saying, is that you make it seem as if shit is a foregone conclusion, you a criminal you are bad, I say depends on what kind of criminal, and indeed, what kind of person you are..



This reminded me of Moes post, where he tried to say Bellomos daughter was basically tainted forever cause her father was a gangster, this sounds like the same, but with the parents. I guess my only point you can't really make a statement like that, if you don't really interact with that element on a consistent basis. My point was there is grey areas, a guy might be desperate once, get caught, I don't think that makes him a bad father. You could steal to feed your kids.....

@Sonny

I actually have COUNTLESS examples from real life, you think I make sense of the mob from just reading? 90% of these mob moves I've seen in REAL LIFE, that's why they are instantly familiar to me, sometimes I can't even exactly explain it right away, I just get it....... If I referenced something from my life, you wouldn't get it right away, EVERYONE WATCHED THE SOPRANOS...


Remember the episode about the degenerate gambling father? Tony talking about what a great father STONE GANGSTER pussy was? That show touched on these themes as well, A.J. Was a wreck, meadow wasn't.



I think the only only thing I don't like is the blanket statement that NO YOU CANT, cause life is grey.

@ Sonny

I get your point, but mine was that in order to make it, I had to almost REJECT EVERYTHING TAUGHT, and believe me, this was a personal choice.


You liked solcal post right? Notice how he said his mom was the same? Don't tell me the Soprano reference wasn't relevant, I bet SoCal felt the same way I did watching that, like how did they come up with a " Fake REAL PERSON LOL".. And the thing is without that reference, it's too hard to explain, I say Livia you get it right away, see?

You gotta understand, you are talking to a guy, dude in 7th grade the school principle STOLE ALL THE XMAS money from the charity that raised it!!
ROLE MODELS? You better be strong yourself where I from , lol that was my only point, GOOD FUCKIN THREAD ACTUALLY, REAL GOOD DISCUSSION THNX GUYS FOR THIS ONE....

@ CabriniGreen:

Good posts. Hear what you're saying. You're exactly right that there are no definitives. Life is grey not black and white.

My point was in general, it wasn't the rule. There's always exceptions.

And of course I respect street knowledge. No one pays more respect to a guy like PB than me. Problem is this is an Internet forum and most 'street guys' are full of shit. So it's not that I don't respect legit 'street' perspective. It's more that it's hard to trust through the plethora of bullshit out there.

And getting back on topic 'in general' criminals are bad fathers. And sure, stealing to feed your family is a different story. I'm talking modern day LCN.

@Sonny

Right on man, and that's why I said I do understand why Ivey is quick to check people who claim inside info an such, without it, the boards would be flooded with nonsense, and you would have to sift through endless bullshit....

And you guys are very correct, the psychological trauma is, difficult to quantify, material things don't always make a good parent...

What do you guys feel about a guy like Kennedy? And his sons?

OK I'll jump in late for fun.

I have known Made Members, Associates, and Non-Members of Italian descent. From the people I know there weren't a lot of differences in the way any of them were raised. Just typical run of the mill raising the kids. Whether they fought with their kids or they were really nice to them, it just seemed to be a representative sample of fatherhood. Good, Bad, Indifferent.

Just my experience during a certain era, in a certain location, that's all - nothing more.

Apologies if I have submitted a similar post am new to the forum. Interested to hear views on this subject

This is a very interesting thread particularly to me as I joined solely because I am profiling the daughter of a notorious mafia Don. He's been absent for most of her life allegedly but has had a massive affect on her decision's and way she's lived her life. She herself has been linked to crime and violent acts and I joined this with a view to find out more about her father.
I don't believe a criminal at a certain level can be a good father part of it is being a role model and obviously keeping your children safe. Exposing them to danger is par for the course if you are a criminal but what of the mothers? Can they be good mothers choosing to lay down and have children with these men?