I’m just going to lay this out there. My ex-wife has, despite what she would tell you, done just about everything she can to keep me from seeing my kids. She has thrown the kids birthday parties on my weekends and refused to let me see them that weekend while simultaneously refusing to so much as invited me to the parties. She has offered to forgive all child support if I gave up my parental rights. She has snuck out of the back of buildings after dance recitals to keep me from seeing my kids. Until the kids were old enough to have their own phones, she would reject my phone calls on their birthdays and holidays and tell them I didn’t call.
She used all of the above to try to take my time away with my kids as well. She made a list of the weekends she denied me and took me to court to have my time with my kids taken because “He’s not using it.” and “He doesn’t even call them on their birthdays.” Also, “He doesn’t come to their birthday parties.” Although, in the last example she claimed that not telling me what time the party was (as she had to give me a date to deny me my time with my children) or where the party was didn’t mean I wasn’t invited.
She always considered it her right to do all of the above things because “I’m their mother.” And her statement, as far as it goes, was correct. I was there when both girls were born and I witnessed her give birth to them. It was an awesome experience, if a bit crazy and leaning heavily on the gross side. (Both girls were born C-section. Yes, I watched their deliveries. No, I didn’t pass out. But seeing your wife’s guts is a lot different than seeing a gut pile that comes from a dead animal you’ve just hunted.)
And, while this is certainly not the way that all women act, I know I’m not alone. I know one of Nicole’s cousins got pregnant and decided to leave her man. To the best of my knowledge, she still hasn’t told him that he has a child. To be fair, though, I haven’t kept up with my ex-in laws since the divorce and she may have told him. All I know for sure is that she hadn’t informed him as of the last family Christmas party before I divorced Nicole. I also used to work with a woman who refused to finalize her divorce until her ex-husband agree to give up all of his parental rights and privileges. I’ve heard similar stories from other men, and quite frankly from women as well.
I got into an argument with one of the women at my church because she said she should have the right to do exactly as Nicole did because, you guessed it, “I’m their mother.” Listen, chick, dads have rights, too and it’s not up to you to decide what they are.
And, once again, it’s not good for the kids. The America First Policy Institute covers it well here. In short, children without a father figure are more likely to get poor grades, end up in jail, use drugs and commit suicide. Most mass-shooters also come from fatherless homes. There is no mention that “moms doing double duty” do anything to help the situation.
Of course, the popular conception of fatherhood used to be this guy:
and now it’s him:
And that doesn’t help. I have no statistics to prove this, but it seems likely to me that a a woman who has been told that every father is an incompetent, drunken moron is less likely to want the father of their child(ren) to be involved. That makes sense, I guess. And less face it, saying that a big dude has a “dad bod” makes him sound unattractive. (For the record, I’m 5’8”, weigh right around 400 lbs. and don’t consider myself to be attractive, so I get it.) So, yes a lot of this is on society as a whole.
Put bluntly, we should be shaming these guys publicly. Put some pressure on these dudes to take care of the lives they’ve created. Of course, this is harder in a society where a woman can murder a child she doesn’t want to care for before it’s born and then virtue signal about it, but that doesn’t change the fact that men owe it to their kids to be there as much as they can.
And yes, a lot of the problem stems from men who won’t do their job. It’s been thirty years since NWA did a track called Findum, Fuckum & Flee but it seems that the attitude is, if anything, more prevalent now than it was then. And yes, if a man bails on his responsibility to his kids it’s his fault. The problem here is, again, societal. Society used to teach a boy that he was responsible for his kids. Now it just teaches him that his job is to make a payment from every paycheck. Those guys suck.
The fact remains that yes, a woman does need a man to help her raise a child. If she decides otherwise (and many do) it’s her fault. A man who doesn’t know he has a kid can’t be responsible for it. When a woman refuses to let you see your kid on your night and the courts won’t do anything about it, what then?
I don’t get to see my kids as much as I want to. I’ve always done my best to be there for them. In the depths of my depression my oldest, Riley, called me screaming and panicking because her sister had thrown up. She had a phobia which she has since overcome. I dropped what I was doing and went to her house to get her and we went back to my house and spent the day/night watching Netflix and eating pizza. That’s what fathers are supposed to do (Note: It’s perfectly okay to do physical and eat healthy, too. When daddy’s a fatty you get what you get, though. The details aren’t what matter.) In that case, my ex let me do it because she couldn’t figure out what to do with one kid screaming and the other one puking. If you think about it that’s just another good reason to keep dad around. There’s nothing wrong with using your ex as an escape valve especially if, as was the case at the time, he’s working a job with a flexible schedule and can take the time off to take care of the kid.
And so, it seems, we come to my inspiration for today’s post. Today is Father’s Day. Call your old man. Or text him. Better yet, go see him. Because you won’t always be able to. It’s been twenty-six straight Father’s Days without the man who taught me how to fish, how to hunt, how to use a power saw and how to treat a woman. Remember one of the strongest influences in your life.
And for the record today is Father’s Day. It is not “Moms who do double duty day.” The day for mothers was last month. It’s not “The Day We Should Take Away from Dad’s Because Some People Grew Up Without One.” I feel bad for those kids but they’re not a reason to deny respect to the fathers that were there. Today is Father’s Day. Celebrate it with our old man. He deserves it and, quite frankly, so do you.