Pride and Joy

I have been blessed with the greatest kids. My oldest are 14 and 13, and I am so proud of them. They are wise beyond their years; smart, sensitive and savvy. My youngest are 7 and 4; bright, bubbly, busy and beautiful.

I was twenty-three and two months pregnant with my second baby when I made the decision to leave my oldest two children’s birth father. It was a bumpy period to say the least. The break wasn’t a clean one. Guilt made me feel like I should maintain a familial bond for the children. Fear kept me chained to the relationship for another eighteen months after she was born.

Even though I lived in a separate city, I maintained regular contact with the children’s father and his family, although I was aware that they considered me a traitor. I was different than they were. They thought I came from a better bloodline, was snotty and demanding, with unrealistic expectations about what a 'real' family looked like. I was told on numerous occasions that the ‘perfect’ family I came from was not the norm in life. The relationship I had with the children's father was what average people’s lives looked like.

When I finally left him, I didn’t even leave to save myself. I just recognized that my children deserved a better life than what we would have had staying with their father. According to his family, he wasn’t perfect, he was simply a good old boy not quite ready to grow up. But there were bigger problems afoot.

When they were still small, just three and eighteen months, I severed the relationship completely with a restraining order and police intervention.

He terrified me then; chronically drunk and binging, calling me names in public, threatening me, watching me. I slept with a piece of my vacuum cleaner beside my bed, horrified that I might wake up to the sound of shattering glass in the night and hands around my throat. The same fear and guilt that held me tightly in the noose of the relationship, I now carried as the ‘bitch’, the ‘deserter’.

Years of emotional garbage bound me to the 'promise' that I had made. I swore to him that I would never hurt, leave or abandon him as others had done. Yet I ended up doing it anyways, and took his children from him to boot! So fearful (real or imagined) was I of the repercussions of my actions and what may happen should I choose to keep his children from him, I ensured that he could see his children every second weekend. It was dysfunction at its peak.

When the kids were really tiny, I knew that when they went to visit him, they were not being kept in any routine. Bath-time and bedtime were out the window, fast food was on the menu and the house they stayed in was unclean, smoky and filled with people I didn’t know. But they seemed to enjoy him and I rationalized that they deserved whatever love he would offer.

His battle with alcoholism and addiction remained steady. The years passed slowly, with power struggles, angry abusive telephone calls, threats and fear that one day he would harm me, and worse yet, them.

I know that they have seen their share of late night binges, been subjected to impaired driving, crude and vulgar language and late-night low-life buddies, reeking with smoke and beer on their breath. Stinking and stoned. Even now after all these years as I write this I have sick feelings and guilty emotions that run through me, tightening my stomach.

By the grace of God, those babies are now wonderful, active, healthy and respectful teenagers. When they visit him about twice a year, I know that their stay revolves around his late night and work schedule, strange ‘buddies’ and constant boozing.

They have been able to articulate to me what it is about him that they worry about (that he is slowly killing himself with his smoking and drinking), what it is that they feel badly for (we are all he has - he is so alone) and what he does that frightens them (sometimes he yells at his brother or dad (or them), they've seen the cops show up in the middle of the night, he has driven drunk, and they have seen him fist-fight).

They realize all too acutely that they are his be-all and end-all. He continues to blame other people for the state his life is in. He manipulates them and expects that they should always do what he wants when they go to visit him. He is suspicious of my influence on them and feels I must be telling them bad things about him, making them secretly fearful of him.

Yet they have loved him. There are cherished photos of fishing trips and Christmas mornings. There have always been many gifts, video games, money and shopping trips. Not to mention all the junk food and candy; goodies that any child would desire.

And so I am the balance on a weighted scale; evening out the crazy making stuff with a calm and solid home.

I married a wonderful man when they were 5 and 6. He offered (and still does) everything that a good and loving father does. Unconditional love with boundaries and rules. A chore list, hugs and encouragement. But best of all, he shows them how a man treats the people he loves, with dignity, kindness and respect. There have never been any silent treatments. No late-night arguments. No drunken stupors. No childhood life at the hands of an abuser.

So for almost 8 ½ years my children have had the blessing and the curse of having two fathers. One stable and one continually unstable.

They also have two tiny sisters that have come into their life as the result of this marriage. Not half sisters. Not step sisters. But sisters. Two lovely little girls that they adore and who adore them.

As I watch my older two navigate all of the important relationships in their lives, it occurs to me that who they really are in their heart of hearts is reflected in the faces of their relationships with those two tiny girls.

Their patience, their love; the resiliency and adaptability they have cultivated as a result of their own growth over the years, in good part due to their own difficult relationship with their dad. As with all sibling relationships, there are ups and downs, tears and laughter; but I sense that these bonds are very strong. The kind that will serve them all throughout their lifetimes.

I was very clear from early on, that my children would need to draw their own conclusions about the man that is their biological father. I have often thought about how I could never forgive myself should something horrifying happen when they are with him. The alternative was to outrun him, try to lose him, punish him,(and them) driving myself crazy with worry and fear that when he finally caught up to them, at six or sixteen or twenty-six, I would have to pay the price for my choices.

What purpose would that selfishness have served? Selfish because I wanted to hoard them to myself; to share love only with them and to keep all their love solely for myself. Instead I chose to let go and allow them the opportunity to walk their own paths and love whom they chose. I offered guidance where I could, tempered with honesty and firm support and sent them on their way with a prayer in my heart.

My daughter (who is much like me) suffers from a great deal of anxiety and made a decision at the age of nine to not go back to visit dad. She spent the ages of nine to almost thirteen staying as far away from her birth father as she possibly could. When she finally decided at nine years old that she couldn’t bear to spend time with him a moment longer, I supported that choice. I watched her struggle with the worry, the feeling of disloyalty, the fear of rejection for her choice. I aided her however I could, reassuring her that he was the adult and she was the child and she could not bear responsibility for the condition of his life.

I also made the conscious decision to support my son’s choice to continue to travel off at ten years old and spend a month a summer with him. I had always maintained that as long as they wanted to see him, I would make an effort to assist in that relationship. If ever they chose to stay away, I would respect that decision and never force them to go. The same way I never forced them to stay. And so it has been.

My sweet daughter went to her birth father’s house half way across the province, for the first time in almost four years this past Christmas. It was a real challenge for her to follow through with this decision. However, she was the one who controlled that decision and has had to learn exactly what those choices mean for her. I try to teach her to pay attention to her gut; her heart. I encourage her to trust herself and that she must listen very carefully to that voice inside, because that is the only one she needs to listen to and count on. The wise one.

My son at fourteen, feels a strong need to bond with his birth father. He loves to fish and play video games; to savour whatever relationship is in existence between them. He is a smart kid who feels a deep and responsible loyalty at the core of his being to be the care-giver of this man.

My heart tells me that somewhere inside my lovely young son, he feels so responsible for his father’s welfare that he goes to simply make him happy and prove to him that he has love somewhere in this world. What a huge act of unconditional love he offers to someone whose choices and behaviors sometimes don’t warrant or deserve kindness and empathy in the eyes of all others.

I am in awe of my children. They have done a tremendous job at playing the cards dealt to them by adult hands. I acknowledge my part in this lifelong journey they are on. I've made bad choices along the way too that have impacted their journey. Maybe that is the cruel truth of parenthood.

Yet, they amaze me with their strength, positivity and maturity. They have been able to express to me that they are desperately concerned for him, yet they know they cannot control his actions or choices. They choose to love him and spend time with him and nurture him the way that he should be nurturing them. They know that is not the right way for a parent child relationship to go. But they continue to choose to make him happy first by spending a total of a few weeks a year being his pride and joy.

It makes me crazy sometimes, but I deeply respect their admirable approach to their relationship with him.

Could I have done this all differently? Most definitely.
Am I sorry that I didn’t keep them from their father and protect them from the danger that I've seen there? Absolutely.
Do I have regrets along the way about the choices I have made on their behalf? YES.
Will they understand someday that I did the best I could as their mother? I certainly hope so.
Will they survive their relationship with their dad? I pray they do.
Do I forgive myself for the path I placed them on? Not yet.
Will I ever? Yes, but only because they are gracious enough to allow me to.