Involved Fathers

I have been long wanting to blog about this, yet haven't been able to find the right words to explain my feelings surrounding this. Then today I sat down and picked up a magazine with an article titled, The Power of Dads. Yes, it is about a father's involvement in his childrens' lives.

From my experience, men don't give a damn about children. Men feel no bond with the children they have spawned beyond the pride that they have proven their virility. They merely tolerate their spawn while they are under their roof. I have only seen two exceptions. One is my own father who struggled with his own demons from his alcoholic mother leaving him and being raised by his father. He showed us he cared about us and tried as hard as he could.

I watched my children grow up with their father using every excuse to avoid and ignore them. He rarely changed a diaper and absolutely refused to get up during the night when one or more woke up. Never mind that my third son never slept more than two hours for four years. Their father would not allow us to enter the store he managed while he was there because his children embarrassed them (three boys who were well behaved but sometimes loud). At home, their father would yell at me to keep them quiet or get them out of the room because they were too (fill in the blank) for him to watch his TV or play his computer game. Their father absolutely refused "babysit" my children, even for me to go to the grocery store for 20 minutes. Their father yelled at them, ignored them, and avoided them on a continual basis. I truly believed his excuse when he said, "when they are older... " and yet that didn't happen.

The article I was reading explains that children of involved fathers tend to be more social and positive as infants, with a greater capacity for empathy and fewer overall behavioural problems during childhood. As they get older, they have better problem-solving skills, achieve more in school, and adapt better to stress. Benefits for the father are a longer life, better health, being happier and more successful at work, as well as having more satisfying adult romantic relationships. Even mothers benefit through lower stress, are more responsive to their children, and are less likely to leave the workforce.

Hmm... so when my children and I left their father in 2006 and in an effort to discredit me, he had his untrained counsellor draft up a letter stating that my oldest son's "emotional delays" were because I homeschooled them. It had nothing to do with his lack of interaction with him during his entire childhood. Interesting.

Upon our leaving, their father immediately befriended them and became their gaming 'sibling' and proceeded to game and party alongside them and their friends. No parental interaction, he was now the 'cool dad we never had' and my two oldest latched onto this new person because he was fun and there were no consequences at his house. At 12 and 14, what a dream come true.

Yet this left their younger siblings, who were 6 and 3 at the time, out in the cold. My third son has tourettes syndrome and his father stated in a court affidavit that he could not tolerate him. Who says that about their own child?? My daughter, his youngest spawn, is so scared of her father she is now growing an ulcer at nine years old. Their saving grace is their older brothers who have stepped in and raised them during the weeks they are at their dads. I thank God every day for them in their lives.

I used to believe that there were men in this world that do love children, not merely tolerated them. I wanted my children to experience true fatherly love like I had. If not from their own father, then even from a surrogate father such as close friend or even a step father. I keep dreaming...