Jul
Dear Dad…My Letter to your Deadbeat Dad!
I am one of the lucky ones. I have an amazing father who has been supportive my whole life, and more importantly, has been there for me. As a child and even now, I feel that my father would do anything to make sure I’m happy. But I have found over the years, there are many, many people who aren’t as lucky.
I bring this up because I have a friend who doesn’t have a relationship with her father. He recently actually had the audacity to use her name to drum up business for himself with a potential client! Seriously! And I know another person who recently got a call from his father out of the blue because he was feeling sorry for himself, and wanted someone to listen to him. Boo-freaking-hoo! I was SO upset. I think I was more pissed than either one of them were. Was it because they’re used to this treatment? Is it just their way of protecting themselves by chalking it up to “dad being dad?” It may not be my business to address their fathers, or any other deadbeat dads for that matter, but for some reason I feel like I need to say something. For them, and for all the other boys & girls and men & women, who have been forced to grow up with a man who has purposely chosen not to be a part of their lives. So for all of you needing a voice, use mine!
Dear Dad…
Although I haven’t heard from you in a while, actually ages, I just wanted to let you know that I’m okay. From your years of silence, I’m guessing that doesn’t really matter to you, but I thought it was time for me to reach out to you.
You see, I’m okay. I’m living a decent life. I’m a good person. I have other family members who love me, and I have great friends. I’m doing well for myself, and I’m proud to say that I am happy about the way I’ve turned out…in spite of your absence. Again, I’m ok…most of the time.
But then there are the other times when I can’t help but wonder where you are. I can’t help but try to make sense of a man who wouldn’t even want to be a part of their child’s life. And there are days when I just want to stay in bed and cry because it hurts so much knowing that you are out there…close by…and still don’t want to see me.
There are a lot of emotions inside of me that I keep bottled up because I’m afraid of what would happen if I took the lid off and let them out. Would it cause me to explode? Would it just hurt me even more? Would you even care?
Life is short, and I’m sure that at some point in yours you will look back and realize that you are the one who missed out. YOU didn’t get a chance to see what an incredible person I am. YOU didn’t get to experience the joy of having someone look up to and admire you unconditionally. And YOU will never know how much you have really and truly cut me to the core!
But the good news is…I will be fine. I will move on, and I will be strong, and I will not let you take the joy out of my life. I will do what it takes to make myself healthy and whole.
Maybe one day we WILL be able to mend what you have broken, and that would be beautiful. But if not, I needed to make myself feel better by letting you know how you missing out on my life has affected me. I’m not trying to make you feel bad, but I think too many fathers go through life causing damage and leaving the rubble behind for others to clean up. Let this letter serve as a symbol of me dropping off the pieces at your door so that you can deal with it now. I’ve carried this for far too long and it’s MY time to be free!
I wish you the best, and at the very least, I thank you for my life. With it, I plan to do marvelous things. Watch me Dad…even if you’re watching from the sidelines.
Sincerely,
Your child
Don’t know about you, but that made me feel better! For those of you dealing with this issue, know that there are people who are pissed for you, understand your pain, and are rooting for you!
And for the fathers who recognize themselves in this letter, remember it’s never too late. Just don’t expect your child to immediately jump into your arms and say everything’s ok. It’s still not…but start with an “I’m sorry” and see where it goes from there!
I know this didn’t speak to everyone who has had this experience (or non-experience) with their father, but it came from a place inside me that has witnessed the effects of fatherlessness. I hope that this helped someone, and I would love to hear your comments. Please leave one below!
As always…Just my humble opinion,
Pebbles
First off I am 22yrs old and my father left when I was 2 months. This letter is sad, it really brought tears to my eyes. This was great!
Ahhhhh…you brought tears to my eyes! I had a great father, who died very suddenly when I was 15-
My daughter, on the other hand has a deadbeat sperm donor whom I haven’t laid eyes on since I ran into him when my daughter was 15 months old, she’s now almost 8, before that I hadn’t seen him since I told him I was pregnant.
There are days when I want to find him and run him down with a big truck, and others where I feel bad for the both of them!
My father was/is a drinker. For most of my life he has lived with in 40minutes of me and he know absolutely nothing about me. I have tried time and time again to reach out to him and to have him in my life and it always ends the same…a drunkin disaster. About 5 or so years ago I decided I had enough and completely cut off what little contact we had. Last year he got sick and my sister has been taking care of him. I did go with her for his surgery and everyone keeps telling me that some day I will regret it because he is my father….but I feel its not for me to regret. I will be there for my sister and help her in any way I can and be there for her but I really can not be there for him. All I think about is all the times he wasn’t there for me…through sickness, heart ache, and dissapointment I never had a Dad to turn to. I was blessed with an amazing mother who is my best friend and was/has been there for me through everything. Recently I went to a wedding and during the father daughter dance I found myself crying….I will never have that and that was the only time I found myself missing a dad. I would have loved to be a daddys girl and I think in a lot of ways my sister still longs to be and my heart aches for her. No matter how hard we try to put our dead beat dads behind us there are still times (like at that wedding) where it hits you all over again and you are reverted into that crying child who just wants a daddy and I don’t get how the dead beat dads don’t get that.
My daughter is 22 years old now and her father lived in the same town all of her life..about 5 minutes away and has not been in her life. He has other kids 9 others to be exact who are all younger than my daughter. He would come around on a Christmas here a birthday there with gifts and thought that mad him father of the year. For years I was so angry at him and would wish the worst possible thing to happen to him because how could he treat his child (first born) like that. I chose to have this child with this person and he chose not to be there for her. I shoudl have made a better choice of who I decided to create a child with. You live and you learn. But it’s his loss. She is the joy of my existence. She now has a son who makes the world a better place. He is my everything and he is loosing out on being a part of thier lives. I feel sorry for him!!!
As a person who had a wonderful father, I cannot relate to this story. However, as a person who is trying to have a child with my wife and having a difficult time doing it, I cannot understand how some men can be blessed with the unconditional love of a child and not take 100% responsibility and return that unconditional love. I will never understand it.
I will eventually be a father. I will eventually show my son or daughter undying love and devotion, but to know right now that there are so many deadbeats out there really makes me sick to my stomach.
I hear a lot of times people say to these deadbeats, BE A MAN…I say, NO, BE A PERSON. Have a heart. Care for this precious gift you have brought into this world. They deserve it.
Great post Pebbles.
This article touched a very sensity part of me, My father has alway been around but was never there for me. He never tought me anything never took me to the movies or even talked to me about girls and relationships. I don’t think he really knows anything about me. To make a long story short he is an ass hole!!! I still love him because he is my father but I have recently realized that I don’t like him one bit.
DEAD BEAT DADS SUCK!!!!!!
For every titled “dead beat dad” out there I am sure there are some “manipulative Mom’s” claiming they are doing the better job. How many Mom’s are responsible for making a father feel as if his presence is a requirement versus welcomed or encouraged and done so in a positive light? How many courts have allowed custody to a worthless irresponsible Mother only because she fought to have sole rights (and the law sides with woman in this matter more often than not) because she was so angry that she chose the wrong man? But he still could have been a good father? But you’ll never know because you were too angry or too selfish to support him to be one. You’re too busy creating more heartache and making life harder and more negative for all involved…because your angry, you’ve been slighted and you wanna teach him a lesson. If this isn’t you, I’ll bet you know someone who this description fits for.
I have seen both sides and they both are sad, unfortunate occurrences but the one sided opinions regarding this matter to me are sheer crap in my opinion.
There are always two sides to every story and I am tired of hearing only about Mother’s tell their sad tale of how horrible the father always is…or how the children raised by Mom’s only tell the story through the tales of their Mom’s and have no clue what really transpired in the relationship at all because they have only been subjected to one side of the story…did you do everything possible to make him feel as if his contribution to his child had importance, relevance or that you needed his assistance and guidance so you both could produce a positive influence on your child? Or was he always the jerk who treated you wrong and therefore incapable of being good to anyone else? I’m sure you NEVER did anything wrong in the relationship either right….you are perfect in every way aren’t you?
There is a difference between a dead beat dad and a dad who has been pushed away by his ex …Yes, some fathers are no good and some have not been given the proper chance or support and encouragement to be the people they are truly capable of being for their children.
I wish for once the human condition would condition itself to recognize their own faults first vs. always ready to pass blame onto another…maybe it might be easier to fix these problems in relationships if you focused more on what you could do to improve the mistakes you made or make versus always focusing on the mistakes the other person makes…in every demise of ANY relationship, there is always someone at fault and that person is you…spend more time on that and maybe things will get better for you versus focused on passing blame to others.
I myself have a son and I know there is nothing in the world more valuable than him…Nothing, not my life and not yours. I will always be there for him, it is my honor to be there for him with or without his Mother…he will never get rid of me. I am still with his Mother and we love each other through every trial and tribulation…and there have been plenty…I am just tired of hearing the same old sad song creating a stigma that has allowed the title of “dead beat dad” to become so recognized…
I digress, Woman are perfect, they can do no wrong…nothing that ever happened in their lives or a relationship that was their fault; it was always the fault of the “deadbeat Dad”…
I know every situation is different and again, my heart aches for the children who think a father has no love for them…maybe it’s true, maybe it’s not.
Wow…i was just b**ching about my dad to my friend the other day…I’m 41 and still holding on to a bit of anger. I’ve let go of a lot but still is PITA sometimes!
Thanks and really like your blog…came across it from blogfrog/SITS!
Thanks to you ALL (even you Soap Box Tangent) for your comments! The purpose of my blog is to not only give my opinion, but to see what other people have to say as well. I just want to be able to start the conversation. So thank you so much for responding!
Your letter really hit home with me. I’m thinking about printing out your letter and sending it to my so-called dad. You’ve written exactly what I’ve always wanted to say to him.
My father was a preacher and he was screwing around with his secretary(my stepmother now). He and my mom decided to divorce, thus neither one of them wanted us, so they left us at our grandparents house. My sister was 8, my brother was 6 and I was 4 years old. I don’t even remember living with them as a child.
I’m now 49 years old and still don’t really know him personally. A couple of times he has asked forgiveness and I always said I forgive you. I told him I always wanted to be close to him, like a daughter should be, but that never happened. He always broke his promises.
His second marriage, he and my step mom had a daughter. I don’t even know her, they lived in Texas and we lived in Indiana. The other day, my half sister, became one of my facebook friends, but we still really don’t know what to say to each other.
Living with my grandparents was the best thing that ever happened to us. They became our parents and took care of us and loved each and every one of us. I’m just sorry that they are gone now, I miss them so much! When Mother’s Day and Father’s Day comes around, I think of them and what they did for us.
As for me, I didn’t have my biological Mom or Dad! I had my grandparents, which were my Mom and Dad.
I’ll be 28 soon. My parents have been separated since I was 3 months old. My sister is three years older than me, she barely remembers him. He made a conscious decision no to bein our lives. I guess our attitude did not help either. I’ve always been mean to him when ever he called, which has been every five or so years to check if we were still alive. Birthdays came and went-not one birthday call in all my 28 years.
I’ve never experienced having a dad so it never really mattered to me. My friends and I never had fathers. In fact it always stroked me as being odd when people with fathers spoke of them. Sure, my cousins had fathers, but I never looked at it that way-they were my uncles. My mother did what she could, but struggled to maintain us. She never could have afforded the kind of attention we needed as kids, she never meant to be purposely neglectful-but she was. I guess she suffered as well, and as a child it’s hard to see a single parents mental torture. She always threatened to run away. I knew she meant it often time. We were not bad children, but my older brother (I have 2 siblings) was a handful.
But the point is, children and adults like me give these dead beats too much power over our emotions. One can learn from these dead beats. I will honor my dead beat till the day he dies, but he can not steal my joy. I’ve lived a normal life, in fact I still think people with fathers are the abnormal ones-LOL! Better to have one present parent than dwell and regret one dead beat one. My empathy really goes to the ones without any at all. My mother was great, because she stuck it through.
I have an awesome dad, too, but I also feel the same way you do about friends’ dads (and moms) who suck.
Thanks Pebbles