When You Want to be a Parent

"I want to be a dad to my kids," says my son at the end of his second year of medical school in response to questions about what medical specialty he wants to pursue. He observes that some medical specialties don't work well be being a dad.

Funny how our priorities drive the decisions we make.

I wanted to be a mom to my sons, I chose to be a mom. I chose carefully and thoughtfully. I enjoyed my time as a mom, I enjoyed my children.

Obviously, my being a mom was not to be. This was not because of my career, but because of a series of actions by others who felt it was their right to interfere with my right to be a mom. They judged me to be. . .what. . .a bad mother? According to the caseworker in Elbert County, I was a good mother, a very good mother. But what do caseworkers know? She was likely shining me on. As for what anyone else thought. . . one must consider the source.

When that choice, that right, was taken from me, I grieved. For years. Frankly, I still grieve. Because the effects of what happened when we were investigated-but-not-taken-to-court by the child welfare agency have rippled out over the years. Excuse me, over the decades. As many know, I fought for the fundamental right to family association for decades. Since I couldn't finish raising my children, I tried to ensure that that right was not infringed for other parents, even the imperfect parents. After all, we are all imperfect parents.

So, to my son, I say:

I hope you get to be a dad to your kids until they are adults and beyond. 

I hope you don't find your rights to determine how to raise your children held hostage to a threat of child abuse by your child because your child chafes against your rules or your methods of discipline and they learned from someone else that they can turn you in for that.

I hope you don't have anyone else second-guessing your parenting decisions, and condemning you for doing it differently than they think it should be done, and deciding that you don't have the right to raise your kids until you conform to their so-called expert advice and recommendations.

I hope that nobody expects you to be a perfect parent and takes your kids away just because you were imperfect.

I hope you are free from the devastating influences of bitter ex-spouses who want to control you and use your kids to do so (this is the generic ex-spouse, not any ex-spouse specific to you);

or insecure ex-spouses who use emotional manipulation to undermine your child's loving relationship with their step-mother when they become too attached to their step-mother, rather than rejoicing that your children are loved and happy when they are with you and your (generic) wife;

or an ex-spouse who thinks its a good idea to exploit your child's rebellion and use that take the kids away from you and then allow the children to do all the things you tried to prohibit such as drug use, gang associations, dropping out of school, robbery, commit violence and more when they win custody; 

or vindictive (generic) step-fathers who love their own children better than their step-children and use that as an excuse to abuse your children in their mother's home and you can do nothing to protect them (because, believe me, the authorities will not believe it when you report your children are being abused by their step-parent in the other parents home, especially if the other parent is a cop);

or control-freak family members who use your children to triangulate their relationships with you, using emotional manipulation to control you, causing emotional damage to your children and you and undermining your relationship with your children;

or having your ex and/or step-parent badmouth you over and over to your children until your children believe the lies, even into adulthood;

or having your ex-spouse move, and take the children, and not tell you where they are;

or having your ex-spouse and/or her husband refuse your phone calls to the children and return the mail and packages that you send to the children and tell the children that you don't call or send them anything, and you don't love them;

or after having all your rights trashed and being unable to win the battle, having your children hold you responsible for not protecting them, or for not rescuing them from that bad situation others put them into, and blaming you for all the bad that happened to them;

or never being able to restore the emotional intimacy that exists in a healthy parent-child relationship because of the mean, petty, selfish and abusive actions of others who didn't care about hurting your children to accomplish their own agenda against you, just so long as they won and that you were hurt.

There are some things that you cannot fight and hope to win. You can't control what others do to to you, and sometimes you're damned if you stand up to it and damned if you don't.

If love were enough, it probably wouldn't matter as much, because then love would overcome all those influences that want to interfere with or destroy what you have with your children. But the selfless love of a parent for a child isn't enough to overcome those influences, not always. The existence of that love can be perverted by others until the child questions the existence or the character of that love. Kids don't know any better, but the adults exploiting them do know better.

But the child still needs. That need cannot be perverted, or stolen, or erased, or lied out of existence. When the child needs but doubts the love, the intimacy is gone. As a parent, you will grieve for that loss, even though you had no control over what your child feels and no way to help them understand as long as they do not want to understand.

I hope your relationship with your children will be as long-lasting, as intimate and as fulfilling as Papi's was with his son. It was a rare and beautiful thing to behold, a blessing, a joy. It lasted to the day Papi died, and endures in his son's heart. It is was a comfort that sustained him through his grief, that he never missed an opportunity to partake of that loving father-son bond of intimacy that never diminished, even into adulthood and middle age.

I hope you get to be a father to your children, just like you want.