On Fatherhood...
I will be throwing a few people lock, stock, and cooked-off barrel under the speeding bus on this post. I speak of such things not to accuse, confront, or display 'butthurt'...but rather to illuminate the associated feelings that I personally have.
Like so many of my generation...I come from a 'broken home' that is, my birth parents separated and divorced at an early age. In my case, it occurred somewhere between my second and third birthdays for reasons a bit too numerous for this blog...though a running trend with the paternal DNA is that on one occasion, it was deemed more important to go get drunk with my 'grandfather' than to watch an eighteen month old child. I have it from more than one witness (including my REAL grandfather) that on that evening, I had a bath simply to soak the dried, nasty diaper off of my infant body. In the intervening years since my mother filed for divorce and sole custody, my father has been...an absentee at best, a deadbeat at the worst. Point of fact, it required JAG judgements to secure child support and continued benefits for a young military dependent, especially a highly active one with a persistent need for stitches. Visitation was....infrequent at best, often years apart. Point of fact, I have cousins, aunts, and uncles that I haven't seen in person in over twenty years (if ever). Insults and injuries here...the stock response to any sort of question or concern from the side of family that gave me my name is as much a cop out as the rest. "It's water under the bridge, you can't do anything about it." That might actually mean something....if the past mistakes were ever corrected and learned from. But of course, they are not. Upon learning that after 10 years, I will have another child...I did not call him a tall. Why? Because a decade ago, he didn't give a shit at all about his first grandchild, so why would he care about his third? I'll explain a little of that...later. So, on a tangent...it completely wigs me out that I have cousins that think he's the greatest thing since sliced bread, whereas to me, he's a prime example and model of what NOT to do as a father.
When I was four, my mother married my stepfather (The guy I call Dad), and has been married to him since. Our relationship has been...tumultuous at best, and has at times been adversarial, rough, loving, supportive, and abusive. I owe him for my belief of learning lessons from the negative, of taking something positive or as growth from the bad. Thanks to him, a Mensa candidate can relate to...well, just about anyone, from the intelligent to the not-so. I can relate highly technical and philosophical topics on a layman's level...all thanks to being insulted, degraded, and (at times) hit for 'speaking over' someone or 'acting superior'. I also downplay my own intelligence and skills, due to being 'so smart I'm stupid' or the classic 'why are you playing around with that stuff, it doesn't pay the bills!' That stuff being computers, gaming, and writing... A personal triumph is that a career as an IT specialist and graphics designer came as a direct result of gaming and 'playing around' with computers. Downside...I have to be in the mod to write, or have music jammed in my ears (like right now). From physical to mental to verbal abuse, to which I owe my refusal to back down, an incapability of laying down and being cowed for whatever reason, and an almost militant need to stand up for myself. After years of being dared to hit him as a teenager, I refuse to throw the first punch in anything, but you can rest assured I WILL throw the last. Not to demonize him, really...he has had my back when all others haven't, for you see...I think our difficulties do stem from the fact that I am not his blood son, but not in the way most may think. He wants me to be his own son, but for some reason, he doesn't understand that I...already am.
Which brings me to the example....the model, of what TO be; my mother's father. Though he dies when I was 15, he left me with so many lessons and memories that sometimes it is hard to imagine that it has been that long. A Pentecostal Holiness by faith, you would have never really known it, he didn't talk the talk....he walked the walk, a lesson I learned from. I have memories of siting around watching the Braves play, dancing, and playing softball (he was grooming me to be a badass pitcher) and talking about the fire department. To this day, I want...crave...need to join an FD, but I tell you something I don't know. I don't know if I would become a FireFighter for him....or for myself. It's a question I've never answered, so I've never done it.
So now we fast forward to 2002. My ex-wife became pregnant with our daughter, Kaelyn Lee Starr. She was due to be born in February of 2003, and for the most part was a fairly uneventful pregnancy, outside cravings and odd hours. Hell, I don't even remember her having morning sickness at all. So other than doctor's appointments, it was fairly normal. Which brings me to a strong personal belief....Guys, if you're going to be there for the conception, you can be there for the appts, the puking, the skinned knees, etc. Don't ditch your lady to go party, get drunk, and play ball or whatever. Be there, be a man, be a dad...she'll thank you, and one day...so will your kid.
I don't exactly remember when, last week of November, maybe the first day or two in December, my ex started having severe pain in her stomach. On the second day of this, I took her to the doctor who found a massive infection in her uterus. She had had stitching put in, because she has an incompetent cervix, which means that without stitches, her cervix could not hold the baby in. Apparently, somehow the stitches became infected, and at 6 and half months, her doctor determined that it was too advanced for anti-biotics and informed us that they would need to induce labor to flush her uterus and cervix of the infection. One week later, on December 6th, 2002 Kaelyn was born live, though the doctor's told me that she was not even conscious and would not survive. She was not taken to an incubator, or a breathing machine, or anything....she was simply wrapped up and handed to us like any other baby. I held her, with the exception of a few brief moments when my ex was lucid enough to hold her, until she finally stopped breathing. In her brief time here, she fought more to live than most people do in an entire life, and I swear to you...there is no way that I could have been more proud of her if she would have lived a full life. When we left the hospital, we had a wind-up chiming angel that my cousin had given us from the gift shop, one that we had not opened, and it remained un-opened in the packaging for at least 6-7 years. Sealed in its hard plastic packaging, as we entered the elevator to go to where I had parked the car out front, that angel started chiming, and chimed until we left the hospital grounds. I've no wish to play woe is me, so I shall simply say that for me the loss of her I took very much internally, private, and personal. Rarely do I speak of it, merely to say that she lived...and only if I am asked if I have kids. It took several years to come out of the mourning that most people did not even know I was going through...another lesson learned from Dad....no one cares about your pain, so why show it? I distinctly recall going to the beach once several years ago and seeing a guy playing on the sand with his daughter...had to have been 4-5 years old. I admit that I broke down right then and there (well...my version of it at any rate) and wanted nothing more than to have my little girl in my arms...to run and play on that beach. It's been a long road, and unfortunately one I am still on a little bit.
Skip years...I've already written about my experiences during my death in 2007 with Kaelyn, so I won't recap. Suffice to say, the pain is lessened, my reactions to some things...well, I'm still working on it.
Now we arrive to.....current events. Such a motley mix of feelings and impressions of things is my 'paternal' life now. I have since split from my ex-wife (3 years ago), and solidly living with my soulmate, the woman that I have been searching for for over twenty years (I may blog about it sometime....people may also be shit out of luck on that story). Now, she is pregnant with what is essentially both of our's second child, and I am playing 'step' to her daughter, Kylie. Such a handful that one is...spoiled (in the wrong ways, imo), undisciplined, and often times angry with a solid inability to keep her hands to herself. With a father that refuses to discipline her properly, and then only when it does NOT inconvenience him or makes him look bad. I'll not belabor the point to much on this, but suffice to say that there is join custody of her, and since she is a toy on the shelf to be played with at will, she spends half (at least) of each week with him. The first day or two once she's back, she is an absolute horrible terror.....cannot take no for the simplest thing, slamming things, yelling, screaming, and attempt to boss her mother around. Mind you, neither one of us take this at all...it is not acceptable, and she is disciplined for it. It usually takes us two days to get her straightened around, and by that time...we usually have one god day with her and back she goes to her father's house, and the cycle continues.
But hey...she's basically fucked from the get go. Months ago, we tried to discuss with him her behavior, and the fact that she lays her hands on her classmates, and something would need to be done, to be changed, and yes on his end to. Not only did he refuse to listen, to speak rationally, to plan....you know...to ACT LIKE A DAD, he got argumentative, confrontational. When I calmly asked him if she wanted the same violent criminal history that he has...he promptly got in my face like a schoolyard bully and berated me to punch him and that if I did he'd 'beat my ass'.....all in front of the kid! Back to a Dad lesson there.....years of being taunted and dared to hit my own Dad....what makes this tool think he's going to goad me into hitting him?Mind you, that was months ago....and though he really hasn't done jack or shit except start dating some girl that acts like she's entitled to be 'Mommy' with a snobbish attitude...he does at least act like half a fuckup, instead of a complete one. And this is the caliber of guy that Amanda's whole family wanted her to stay with.......................really? And believe me when I say, there's far more to the story than just that.
We still have not been able to get him to sit down and rationally discuss a plan to correct her behavior, and she still has issues with behavior in school.....though now magically, he's concerned over her behavior with no word really as to why.
That all being said...when she is behaving, she is an absolute joy. Silly, sweet, funny, and addicted to hugs...she wormed her way into my heart and I'm as fiercely protective of her as I could be my own blood. I admit to some concerns for her future, and her mother and I have butted heads a few times over courses of action. But we both want what's best, and give her all the tools she needs to make well informed and appropriate decisions regarding her actions....choice/consequence, etc.
And so now...we are pregnant. 8 weeks and two days at the time of this writing, and we just got our first clear ultrasound of two arms, two legs, a head, and a strong heartbeat. I am excited in my way, and in some respects feel a little guilty that he may take Kaelyn's place in my heart...but it's really more of a calm'ish, pleasant happiness. Tempered with the realism that some things may be the same for him that it is for Kylie...and for Kaelyn admittedly. And words cannot express the contempt and solid refusal that I have for any input, opinions, etc from those that have caused problems for me (and Amanda and Kylie) since I moved to Texas to have ANYTHING to do with my new son/daughter. The time will come, I am sure that Kylie's father will try to buy a favor by watching my kid. I tell you all, you'll have to break my cold dead fingers from my cold dead corpse, (and I will still be fighting) to even allow that to happen....
But mostly...the same as Kaelyn. I don't want to make the same mistakes as was made with me. My son/daughter will know me...I will be there, for every skinned knee, dirty diaper, cry, first steps, kindergarten, the prom, etc. He/she will know I value them, support them, love them no matter what...though I won't take any shit, either.
I am not my fathers.
