Daddy Issues

I've learned a lot in the past several years about Dads. No two are quite the same.

My husband, for instance, has only been a father for about 6 weeks, but he's amazing at it. He loves our daughter and wants all the best things for her. He worries about her and takes care of her. He doesn't do everything right, and yet he strives to be perfect. Perfection doesn't exist when it comes to parenting, and he'll figure that out eventually, but for now it makes my heart almost explode when I see him trying so hard to be everything that he thinks she needs him to be.

My Grandfather is perhaps the best father I've ever had the privelege of knowing. He loves his kids, his grandkids, and his great-grandkids. He is always there when we need him no matter what, and he makes it look easy. He's been like a father to me for most of my life, letting me live with him when I needed a chance to regain my footing, and helping my Grandma take care of Nathan when I was not quite ready to be the mother that he needed.

Then there's my father. My parents got divorced when I was 9. At the time my mother made it seem as though they were splitting up for geographical reasons. My dad had been transfered to Wisconsin for his job and after living there for a year my mom told me and my sister that she wanted to move home to Rockford. We, of course, were happy to go home. We missed our cousins and our grandparents. What I didn't know, and wouldn't for almost a decade, was that my father had been cheating on my mother... and this wasn't the first time. God bless my mother for protecting us from that awful piece of information. She never once in my entire childhood, said a negative thing about my dad in front of me or my sister. Despite her best efforts to keep my father in a positive light for us, we figured out in our own time that he wasn't exactly what a father should be.

We started out visiting my dad every other weekend. After a short time those visits spread out to once a month, and eventually we were only seeing him once every couple of months. Amazingly it took almost 10 years for me to actually connect the term "absentee father" with my own. My mom did everything virtually alone. She had help from my grandparents of course, but now that I've been the "single mom" I know for certain that even with outside help it's just not the same as having TWO parents for your kids.

My dad didn't want kids. I know this because on my 22nd birthday he looked me straight in the eye and said "It's not my fault I was a shitty father because I never wanted you to begin with." No words have ever hurt me more. I felt like someone had stabbed me through the heart. I Looking back I can see now that he didn't mean that he didn't love me, he was just trying to explain why he wasn't good at it. Either way, it was a cop out. I never thought I wanted kids either. The difference between my father and I is that once I had Nathan, I changed my mind. I learned from my mistakes and tried to correct them as best I could. I missed things in the beginning of my sons life. Not because I didn't want him, or because I didn't love him, but because I didn't know I was missing them. My father had been a parent for 22 years the day he revealed his "excuse." He knew exactly what he missed and still didn't care.

It has taken me a long time to come to terms with my feelings about my father. I realized that I got pregnant the first time because of what I was lacking by not having my dad around. Probably most of my rebellious years can be blamed on my "lack of dad" so to speak. I do not blame him for the mistakes I have made, because regardless of WHY I made them, it was still my choice and I knew right from wrong. I love my dad very much and I have accepted him for who he is, flaws and all. I chose to do that because I wanted to keep him in my life. The truth of the matter, however, is that I'm glad that my kids have fathers who love them and show it, and that they get to experience being loved by my grandfather. I feel that the cycle has been broken and that makes up for anything I may have missed out on by not having my dad around.