This blog is about my dad, his family and my story of learning about them. So I've been wanting to write a post to tell you about my father, but it seems I can't do that without telling you about my mother too.
It seems to me that once two people have a child, whether that child is planned or accidental, wanted or unwanted, those two people become one in perspective of the child. I can not tell you about my dad, why I didn't know him and why he left without also telling you about my mother.
My mother belongs to a generation and a culture that was in transition. Her generation and culture was one where the woman was dependent on a man to provide for her and to that end, any means to secure a man to provide for her was considered fair game. That is how she was raised and that was how she coached my sister in I when we were young girls. In my mother's viewpoint, it was a woman's responsibility to please her man and keep him at home and as young adults she would remind me and my sister of our womanly duties regularly.
As far as the transition reference, I was born in the early 70's or at the beginning of a woman's right movement where woman started to get much more focal with their rights, especially their maternal rights. A movement was started and I believe still underway that implies if a woman wants to have a child, she has that choice and the man's sole contribution is to provide the batter for this recipe and in an ideal world a child support check.
Now this doesn't mean to excuse my father. He on the other hand had a casual affair with my mother and never ever intended to pay the piper for his momentary lack of judgement. For the purposes of my father I liken his actions to that of a drunk driver who runs over a person in the dead of night and instead of doing what is right, chooses a selfish course of action that tears though the lives of so many for years and years to come.
So my mother was doing her best to secure a financial future for herself and her two other children falls for a guy who probably hinted of a wonderful fantasy life. My father was having a little fun and a child was conceived. My mother, angry and hurt tells my father to go to hell and he, desperate for any excuse to pack his family up and leave the state, gladly accepted.
So what's a girl to do, hate my parents for these actions? Forgive them and pretend this never happened? The reality is that I know just as well as anyone about making mistakes. I've made bad choices in my life that hurt others, granted probably not to the extent of my parents, but one could argue that was more dumb luck than moral compass at work. For example, I have gotten behind the wheel of a car when I was drunk and admittedly more than once. A decision that torments me in the "what if" category. I am really so high and mighty as to deny understanding that while in their early 20's my parents made a few bad decisions?
But than there is the following years of bad decisions where for their own personal comfort, they both just decided that it was better that I didn't get to have a dad. But it doesn't stop there, some of my grand-parents also went along with this. I've been told that my step-grand-father threatened my father to leave me alone. My paternal grandmother shows me a photo of my dad's family when I was 19 years old and says to me, "who do you think he is going to choose, you or these seven children" and with that she didn't mention my name to anyone in her family for 16 years.
My husband's wife received letters from the state of Utah regarding steps to establish my paternity and no action was ever taken after that. My mother told me I would never find my dad, that the state had spent years and years looking for him, it took me less than 2 hours of work to locate my father.
I have come to believe that society as a whole decided that it was okay for me to grow up without a father. Our culture is moving in a direction that downplays the role and value of men and fathers and than we all scratch our heads when the rate of fatherless homes rises. We (the United States) allow young men to sell their sperm under anonymous terms creating thousands and thousands of babies who will never know their paternal DNA.
We send posts around in facebook raving about women and mothers and more posts about the stupidity of men, i.e. "you know how men are." We commonly deny fathers any rights or privileges in custody and divorce battles and than wonder why young men don't want to be more involved fathers.
And I can tell you that there is no consequence to my father for his actions. He doesn't owe me anything in the eyes of the law or anyone else as far as I can tell.
In my father eyes, he has paid the piper. He had to tell his wife and his children, his parents, his siblings and even his church. He was almost ex-communicated, although I believe all his church status has since been restored, being a non-member, those things are really not communicated with me. So you see, as far as my father sees it, he has paid dearly for his transgression.
So what do I want? What would make me whole?
The answer, it's the same as it ever was. I want to be loved and accepted and I thought when he told his family about me, they would love and accept me, but that didn't happen. And because it didn't happen, I'm now angry and hurt that even if I was accepted and loved whole-heartily by my paternal siblings and my father, would I allow that love in? I just don't know anymore.
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