Where’s Dad?

Father’s Day is hard for me and millions of other fathers estranged from their kids, or people who had terrible fathers. I have two POS dads and I’m estranged from my son and have been since he was 1. He is 18 going on 19 now. The combination of having a biological dad that murdered my mom and grandpa and is in prison for life, with a law enforcement Christian conservative authoritarian dad who beat me and sent me to an abusive boys home them boarding school, and being estranged from my son for his entire childhood leave a bitter taste in my mouth. I struggle on this day yearly not to self destruct and just commit suicide or give up on everything in life. My heart is extremely heavy.

83% of parents with custody of their children are mothers and that number hasn’t changed more than 2% in 80+ years, or within the margin of error. It statistically hasn’t moved at all despite everyone saying fathers are getting custody more often. The truth is, we aren’t. 2/3 of all parents alienated from their children seriously contemplate suicide. With men committing suicide 4x the rate of women, boys 5x the rate of girls, and making up over 75% of all suicides its safe to say that the estrangement of men from their children is driving male suicide rates to record highs.

2/3 of our homeless are male. Many with criminal records; struggling to find work and housing. Human beings aren’t trash. They aren’t disposable. They end up somewhere. Many fathers who would be there for their kids end up homeless due to disabilities, injuries, poor circumstances, illness, etc. These fathers are often never even given the opportunity to see their children.

And this is no small problem. It effects many many people.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0190740919306164

I myself lacked the money and the mental strength and ability to travel needed to fight for my son. He is now grown. My chronic spine issues, cPTSD and depression crushed me. I was unable to pay my child support, so Oregon took the ability for me to get my DL away before I ever had the opportunity to learn to drive. I only recently had that liften in recent years after finally winning SSD but now driving is a stigma. I may never drive. This happens to a lot of young men and it makes no sense to me. They want us to pay child support but take away our ability to drive? That limits jobs we can do and how we can get to job sites. Makes no sense.

So some of us fathers really get the shaft. We get cut out. Thrown away. Discarded. I would have loved to be there for my son and would have been a great dad but was never given that opportunity. She simply cheated on me, moved back in with her mom, named the kid after a crush at work and even after I had a paternity test done was happy to collect child support but never let me see my son. Thousands if not millions of fathers suffer like I do not because they are bad dads, not because they are deadbeats, but because they don’t receive the support they need, are struggling with mental health or physical health problems, and just don’t have the money required to fight a lengthy drawn out custody battle they will likely lose anyway.

This idea that men walk out of the lives of their children or are more abusive than mothers has been proven completely false in the last US Census survey with mothers abusing children more than fathers by tens of thousands of criminal cases. Its a convienant stereotype for misandrists and sexist women to use in their justification for alienating the other parent when they have nothing else. The truth is there are a lot of great men who would have been good dads who are cut out of their child’s lives by vengeful women.

In my case I promised my mom on her grave that I would be a better dad than my father who murdered her. Well guess what? I was never given that opportunity.

Unless the father is a clear and present danger to the well being and safety of the child as determined by a court of law, not a whim, not an accusation, not an excuse, then the father should be allowed to be a part of the child’s life. Period.

Many studies show that when we alienate kids from their parents they suffer more mental health issues, struggle more in school, and have higher crime rates. The bond between child and parents is sacred, and the bond between a dad and a kid is just as sacred as that of a mother’s. Its time we started supporting fathers instead of being so quick to judge or put down fathers. If you are estranged from your father and have heard a bunch of bad things about him from your mother, consider the source and whether you should discover who this person is for yourself. It may be time to realize her bias may cloud her judgement.

To all the fathers out there who can afford to fight to be in the life of your child DO IT. Don’t delay. Secure your rights! Make sure that if you are divorced or separated you have a visitation plan that is signed by the court. Don’t leave it to chance or hope for the best. Protect your access to your kid(s). I wish I could have.

For those of you estranged that cannot afford to fight, I see you. You did what you could and were dealt a heavy hand in life. One day maybe our offspring will find us and maybe they will not. That is up to them. All we can do is raise awareness to the sensitivity and severity of this issue and its impact on our lives so that hopefully one day fathers will have more rights and protections and custody will be more equal.