When my friend Gina was first diagnosed with cancer her biggest concern was that she would die before her twin daughters turned 18. She was afraid that their biological father would take them away from everything she had worked so hard to provide: stability and love, their home, their step-father and their little sister. Throughout her battle with cancer I never once heard her complain about herself, the treatments or anything else. Her mantra never changed. She simply had to stay alive until the twins were 18. She knew she could not fall short of this because the consequences for her daughters were too horrific for her to even consider.

Her worst nightmares have come true.

Last week, less than two months after losing their mother, their biological father abruptly removed them from their school in the upscale suburb in which they have lived for more than 1/2 of their lives. He has taken them to the home of the most recent woman he is living with in a rough neighborhood. He has told them that their mother never loved them and only wanted his money. He has cut them off from all of their family and told them they will never see their step-father or little sister again. He has not even bothered to enroll them in school.

I don’t know what precipitated any of this. I do know that the girls are terrified and cut off from everyone they love, everything that is familiar and safe to them and all while still grieving the very recent death of their mother.

Her sister said it best, “Gina is counting on all of us to fix this.”.

I don’t know how to fix this. All I do know is that getting the word out through my blog may lead us to someone who can help. There is a court hearing next week in DuPage County IL. If anyone reading this knows anyone or knows someone who may know anyone that can help my friend’s daughters (attorneys, advocates, etc.) PLEASE leave a comment here.

Thank you.

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Oh but if I take my heart’s advice I should assume it’s still unsteady

Oh I’m never really ready, I’m never really ready

I’m in repair, I’m not together but I’m getting there”

- “In Repair” by John Mayer

Today, November 3rd would have been his 72nd birthday. The 10 year anniversary of his death was last month. We received a piece of junk mail addressed to him today. He never lived here. We bought this house 2 years after he died.

Ten years. It seems like a lifetime ago.

I don’t believe one of the things I said in last year’s post. I know I believed it at the time.

“I forgave him and grieved for my lost childhood a long time ago.”

No. That’s simply not true. I have never grieved for him or my lost childhood. It’s too much. Whenever I come even close to wrapping my brain around any of the emotions that surface when thinking of him I have to back away. The many forms of abuse I endured when he was healthy are so complicated and so much a part of my identity that I have to deal with my recollections in small doses.

I’m not even sure how to go about grieving for him. It’s so surreal, losing a parent. The hospice nurses told me that it’s actually more difficult for children who lose parents with whom they had a less than loving relationship. They warned me that I may not grieve at all but that somewhere down the road, “maybe even 10 years from now”, it will hit me, and hit hard.

I moved out just as he was beginning to get really sick. After I moved out I mostly only saw him at the occasional obligatory holiday and the seemingly endless emergency hospital visits and eventually in the nursing home. My only memories of him as an adult revolved around pretending everything was normal and his illness. That’s it.

I think that’s why it’s been easier for me to reconcile my relationship with my mother. She’s still here (thank God…or whoever). I never got to know him as a healthy adult.

I wonder how different my life would be if he were still here and healthy. I wonder how he’d have treated my sons. I wonder how he’d have treated me. I’ll never know.

I have to deal with all these conflicting feelings at some point. It’s obvious that avoiding them has caused most of my problems, especially my weight and body image issues, my anxiety and my trust issues. It’s just so overwhelming that I’m not sure when I’ll be able to do it. I’m in repair. I hope wherever he is, he is too.

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I have written quite a bit about my much maligned father.  However, as I’m sure is true with just about everyone, there were some good times too. When he wanted to be he was absolutely hysterical with a biting wit and also acted like a little kid in many ways.  I was reminded of this today.

My aunt sent an e-mail to my sister and I asking for recipes and/or family cooking stories to share in a cookbook she’s putting together for her daughter who recently moved out on her own.  My sister is an excellent cook.  I’ve come a long way, but am still domestically challenged.  My response to my aunt’s e-mail was pretty much along the lines of, “I’ve got nothing, go ask my sister.”.

My sister, who occasionally blogs over at Be Green Save Green, responded with the e-mail below.  I have re-posted it here in it’s entirety.  I have no idea if anyone reading this will find it anywhere near as hilarious as we do but I couldn’t resist.  When I first read it, I laughed so hard tears were streaming down my face for 10 minutes.  Without further ado, for your reading pleasure, may I present a small glimpse into our lives when our father decided to cook:

You wanted a food/story about mom & dad?! Well, frankly, neither one of them had any culinary skills to speak of! However, about once a year dad would get a hair up his a$$ and bust out the giant cast iron skillet……this dish came out different every time, but the main ingredients are as follows:

1) 1 box of Kraft Mac & Cheese

2) 1 pound of hamburger meat

3) 1 bag of the nastiest/about to expire frozen veggies you can find in the freezer (“Oriental Blend” or Lima Beans are preferred)

4) 1 can of corn

5) 1 mini jar of pimentos (We have NO IDEA why these things were readily available each and every time!)

After you brown the meat and drain off the grease (into a coffee can, you know….for the war effort!) add the Mac & Cheese and follow instructions. Then dump in the rest and cook until you almost can NOT distinguish between the ingredients.

Voila! You have the annual favorite:  Big Dad Stud Surprise!

Now, go order a pizza because if this sounds good you have NO business being in the kitchen!

He named it himself. I believe it was a variation on the name of a Western that he liked to watch. Yes, in fact, it did taste as horrific as it sounds. It resembled something like this:

This picture really doesn't do it justice. It was worse.

Thanks for stopping by!

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Being the mother of two sons, this topic is pretty much constantly on my mind.  I wasn’t inspired to write about it though until I read my friend Lynnette’s blog post; A Small Glimpse Inside The Boy.  In that post she discusses seeing a small glimpse of what her husband must have felt as a boy.  It made me shiver.

I grew up with only one sibling.  A sister.  When my first child arrived and he was a boy, I thought to myself, “what the hell do you do with these little guys?”.  I had no experience from which to draw on to raise this child.  So, I did what I do.  I read.  I read a lot.

It turns out that most boys are raised to “be men”.  This means to not show any emotions except anger.  All other emotions are considered weak.  By whom?  By the “men” who were raised the exact same way but deep down feel horrible about themselves because they do in fact have emotions other than anger.  That’s just not going to work for me.  Talk about dysfunctional.

See, I don’t want to be one of those moms on the news saying, “No, I had no idea he was building pipe bombs in our garage.”.  I don’t want my boys to turn into workaholics, rage-aholics, alcoholics or any other a-holic just to numb the feelings that they aren’t “supposed” to feel.  Uh uh.  I want my boys to understand that emotions are normal and ok.

The tough part about this is that society still doesn’t believe that emotions are normal or ok.  Boys are made fun of when they cry, even at very young ages.  In organized sports, boys are told to “shake it off”, “man up”, “suck it up”, etc.  They are called crybabies or pussies.  NO!  Little boys who get hit with line drives are going to cry.  It hurts.  They are little boys.  There is nothing wrong or unnatural about them crying.  If a little girl on a little league baseball team got hit with a line drive and started crying, all the coaches and parents would probably rush out there to check on her, make sure she’s ok, give her hugs and kisses and probably even tell her to sit out the rest of the game with a lollipop.

No wonder we have so many wars, high school kids shooting up their schools and men seeking power at all costs.  We’ve raised them to be angry.  Think of all the different emotions you can feel in just one day.  Apply those same emotions to a man.  If he is raised, as most boys are, to only show anger, then he would probably be angry most of the day.  Every day.

So where do all those feelings go?  No matter what they are taught, those feelings still exist.  They are turned into anger and either directed inwardly or outwardly.  Those are their only two options.  Add to that the fact that they know they feel other emotions but that they are weak for feeling them and another layer of crap is dumped on them.  Shame.  If “real men” don’t feel emotions, but I do feel emotions, then I’m not a real man.  That’s the message they receive loud and clear.

This leads to a whole variety of problems during childhood and even more later in life.  Bullies, rageful criminals or withdrawn depressed kids are the results of these lessons.  They end up becoming emotionally distant adults at best or violent abusers at worst.  The women in these men’s lives are basically dealing with a “man” with the emotional maturity of a five year old.  So, their relationships suffer, causing them more emotions that are not “manly” and they feel even worse about themselves.  One of the theories on what causes narcissism speaks to this:

There are many theories regarding what causes a narcissistic personality disorder. Subsequently what you are about to read is one more theory, based on my experiences in treating many patients with narcissistic personality disorder. I have found definite commonalities between individuals from which one can draw conclusions regarding causation. As such, I believe one of the most common causes is impoverished self-esteem, occurring at a young age. These individuals often have a loss of a strong father figure in their lives. If they have not lost their father figure, then the father has been emotionally absent. These fathers are usually condescending, critical, and do not empower their children at a young age. Subsequently, as they grow older these children overcompensate for their lack of self-esteem, carrying with them some traits from their fathers such as the emotional distancing, while inflating their false sense of self worth. Sadly, individuals with narcissistic personality disorder really never find their true selves.

~ PeaceAndHealing.com

So,  how do we stop this nonsense and let our boys and men know it’s ok and normal to experience all sorts of emotions and stop the spread of anger, abuse and self-loathing?  I don’t have an answer to this question.  It’s a societal problem that most people don’t seem to want to change, despite senseless, preventable events such as Columbine.

How I handle this with my boys is by telling them the sad truth.  They have been told that society looks down upon boys who express emotions such as sadness, hurt and pain.  They have also been told that while they do need to “suck it up” out there in the world in order to avoid being ridiculed and targeted by their peers and/or bullies, they do have a safe place in which to express any emotions they have.  They are encouraged to do so here at home.  I have explained that while it’s confusing, the fact is society doesn’t like it but that’s ridiculous and so home is a safe haven in which emotions are expressed freely.  All of them.

There was a particularly grueling football practice last season.  It was hot out.  They practiced for 2 hours a day, every day of the week.  It was a competitive league and the coaches were tough.  This particular practice, my oldest son took some hard hits.  By the end of practice he felt exhausted and beaten up.  I saw as he walked towards me that he was fighting back tears.  He was ten years old.  I whispered to him that he did a great job at practice and to just hold it together until we got to the car.  He nodded.  Once we got to the car, he let it all out.  By the time we got home, he felt fine.  Tired, but fine.  It was so simple.  He didn’t have to keep all that bottled up forever, just until we got to the safety of our car, away from the other dads and boys who would most definitely have made fun of him if he had cried at football practice.

I understand that this most likely started long ago when men went to war, when their lives were consumed with hunting and fighting.  This is no longer the case.  Most men in today’s society have families with whom they spend time and go to work in a civilized office in a suit and tie.  It’s time that we let our boys and men off the hook.  It’s time that we accept them and their feelings, just as they accept us and ours.

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I really wasn’t sure what to write after my last post.  On the one hand, it was dark and depressing and I thought maybe I should lighten things up.  On the other, it seemed odd to suddenly switch gears, almost like pretending that I didn’t actually publish the deep dark family secrets.  That felt wrong, just like how we all used to pretend that my father wasn’t a raging lunatic and that everything was fine.  I chose a quote from My Way because it was my father’s favorite song and was played at his funeral.  That gives you a clue in which direction I decided to go.  That’s right…even darker.  Read on at your own risk or come back tomorrow after I have changed the subject completely. 

My father had been extremely sick for years.  His health began to fail due to complications from diabetes when I was 22 and he died when I was 29.  Seven long, unlucky years for all of us.  He was near death so many times during that seven year period that I lost count.   He had a kidney transplant among countless other surgeries.  My sister even saved his life once by performing CPR herself while waiting on an ambulance. 

In the end, it was his decision to die.  His body was rejecting his transplanted kidney, he needed heart surgery that was risky at best and he was living in a nursing home.  He was 61 years old.  He decided he didn’t want to go back on dialysis, have risky heart surgery or another kidney transplant.  He was done.  Or, so I heard.

I saw him regularly because my mother had a schedule for us to follow so that one of the three of us visited him every single day.  Yes, at age 29, married, with a one year old baby at home and a full-time job, I followed the schedule.  To not follow it was unthinkable.

He never spoke to me about his decision.  Not once.  He never said goodbye.  Neither did I.  Each time I saw him, we pretended everything was fine, just like always.

I was shocked when my mother first told me about his decision to stop all medical treatment.  It took a few moments for the implications to sink in.  No more treatment.  He was actually going to die.  She came over to my house, alone, to tell me.  She delivered the news as calmly and as emotionless as any medical professional would.  She is a nurse.  Based on all of his medical issues and all the medications he would no longer be taking, the doctors estimated that it would be a matter of a few days.  Of course, not one to go quietly, days turned into weeks.  I firmly believed that he would out-live us all. 

The weeks leading up to the end of my father’s life still seem surreal almost ten years later.  My mother, always in control, began planning his funeral immediately.  Yes, while he was still alive.  The schedule increased in frequency.  We all visited every day.  I have a home video of his last semi-lucid day.  It is truly disturbing to watch.  There we were, in the grass outside of the nursing home, video taping what must have looked to outsiders like a normal family picnic.   There was nothing normal about it, although we were all pretending that it was.  He held my son for a while but it looks unnatural.  It looks staged.  He wasn’t interested.  He was playing the part to the very end.  The rest of us were talking and laughing as if it were any other day.  We were playing our parts too.

One night my sister woke up abruptly.  She was hysterical.  She woke my mother up and said they had to go see my father right away.  They went.  They were in the room when he took his last breath.  They heard it.  It never occurred to either of them to call me.  That hurt at first but I now realize that I wouldn’t have wanted to have been there.  The hospice nurses had told us that anyone who was meant to be there would be.  I believe that they were right.

It was finally over, or so I thought.  I now know that feelings that get pushed down, buried and aren’t dealt with, do come back to haunt you.  I also finally know that when they do, they are just feelings.  They can’t harm you unless you ignore them.  Facing the pain isn’t fun or easy but it is enlightening and liberating.  I’m so close I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.  I think I’m almost free.

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I’ve mentioned that my father was abusive in previous posts.  I’ve probably even written about some incidences and described the overall vibe in our home.  I have never written a specific post explaining the nature of the abuse in detail.  I’ve never really even talked about the specifics to anyone.

I was talking to a friend today about the guilt I still feel over the fact that his long-term serious illness annoyed me, how I used to roll my eyes and begrudgingly show up whenever some major medical emergency occurred, about how relieved I was when he finally died, and about how pissed off I still am that I never truly got to tell him how much I hated him and why.

Up until the day he died I had revenge fantasies.  There were two different versions.  The first one was that he acknowledged and sincerely apologized for and regretted the way he had treated me.  I get to tell him it’s too little, too late and he can go fuck himself.  The second one is that he attempts to berate, insult or degrade me while in a narcissistic rage and completely devoid of fear, I tell him he no longer has any power over me, what a piece of shit coward he was for bullying his young daughters and again…he can go fuck himself.

I never got the chance to even attempt to realize either of these fantasies.  He was very sick for a very long time.  He was a completely different person.  He was just a frail, pathetic shell of the “man” he once was.  We never discussed his behavior when I was his child.  I felt guilty for all the anger, hate, annoyance and revenge fantasies because he was just a sick, weak man.  That really pissed me off.  I felt gypped.  Any opportunity that ever possibly existed to enact one of my revenge fantasies disappeared as he got sick.

The day he died, I cried.  I cried at his wake and funeral.  In fact, the day of the funeral I tried to get out of going.  I sobbingly told hubby I couldn’t go.  It would be the last time I saw him.  Forever.  All hope of my revenge fantasies were officially dashed.  More devastating, all hope of him ever loving me was also dashed.

I know we aren’t supposed to speak so harshly about our parents.  We definitely aren’t supposed to speak so harshly about the dead.  These societal “shoulds” are what have caused my guilt over my true feelings.  I’m supposed to miss him.  I’m supposed to feel some great loss.  I’m supposed to remember him fondly.  I don’t.  I never have.

Maybe explaining some of the sordid details will help with understandng how and why I feel the way I do.  It is difficult to talk about.  It was supposed to be the big family secret.  It is painful and humiliating.  I don’t want pity.  I’m a grown woman with a pretty damn good life.  I just need to get all this baggage out of my system.

The worst of the abuse was verbal/emotional abuse.  He called me names such as whore, little bitch, slut, etc.  These are only some of the words he used.  I know that I have forgotten most of the words.  I used to kind of blank out, go to another place in my own head, and wait for the storm to end.  Based on discussions I’ve had with my sister, I know he also frequently asked, ‘What’s wrong with you?!”.  My blanking out served me well, in that I don’t remember every horrible thing he ever said.  It is also confusing as hell to have the vast majority of your childhood “missing”.

I do remember the rages.  Any little thing could set him off.  Once ignited, that time bomb could not be disarmed.  I got it at full throttle.  I remember psychotic narcissistic rages in which I was screamed at for hours and hours on end.  The punishment never fit the crime.  Most times there was no crime.  I remember that during these rages, he would also hit me, pull my hair and throw things at me.  Once, a full 2 liter bottle of pop was whipped at my head.  Another time, a large can of coffee.  One of his favorite tactics would be to ask some ridiculous question (such as, “what’s wrong with you?”) and then demand an answer but tell me to shut up as soon as I started talking and then smack me in the head or across the face.  These rages went on for hours and hours.  He never left one bruise, cut or any outward wounds.  He was particularly fond of getting right into my face, pulling my hair so that I was forced to look directly into his face, just inches away from mine as he screamed insults at me, spit landing all over my humiliated face.

Every single time I swore I was not going to cry.  He was NOT going to get to me.  Every single time, I did.  I beat myself up for being so weak.  When it was finally over I would go to my room and scream into a pillow and sob.  I felt completely and utterly helpless and alone.  I would plot runaway attempts.  I would wish for him to leave or die.  I would fantasize about my mom getting us the hell out of there.  None of it ever happened.

Well, actually, he did finally die, after an excruciatingly long illness but I was an adult, out on my own by then.  It brought me no pleasure seeing him so sick.  It just pissed me off that I felt like I had no excuse for cutting him out of my life.  My mom and sister needed what little help I was able to provide.  I felt it was my duty to be there for him and for them.

Today, when I hear about a true narcissist who behaves similarly, these revenge fantasies are brought vividly back to life.  I have actual emotional flashbacks.  I want to confront the narcissist when he’s in the middle of a psychotic rage to let him know I’m not scared anymore and take him down a notch.  Actually, several notches.  I’d like to totally emasculate each and every one of them.  There is one at work but he doesn’t bother me enough to even get into a discussion with.  A couple of friends are married to narcissists but they are their battles, not mine.

I will never get the chance to have my father (or a similar substitute) finally love me.  I will never get the chance to live out one of my revenge fantasies.  I will never out-manipulate a narcissist.  I will never hurt a narcissist.  They have no actual human emotions.  I need to find a way to give this up and move on.  Right now, after having just talked about it recently, I am just really bitter and pissed off that the bastard got sick and died without ever taking responsibility for his actions, throwing me even one tiny crumb to show he loved me or giving me my shot at him as an adult.  Hopefully continuing to talk about it and write about it will help me move closer to forgiveness.

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My oldest son’s 11th birthday is this week.  Not to point out the obvious, but I am simply not old enough to have an eleven year old.  It’s not possible.  I’ve done the math. 

As I always do on my kids’ birthdays, I remember their births, the day they were born.  This always shocks me.  It doesn’t feel as if 11 years have passed.

When my water broke 7 weeks before my due date, I didn’t even realize it was 7 weeks before my due date.  I wasn’t keeping track of the weeks at all.  People always asked how many weeks pregnant I was and I always guessed or just told them my due date.  That’s how clueless I was.  We had only attended two sessions of our prenatal classes.

I won’t go into all the gory details of my labor and delivery but suffice it to say that he was born with no problems, a little over 6 weeks early, and weighed 5 pounds, 11 ounces.  He spent one night in the NICU for observation and then was handed over to us (like we knew what to do with him) pronounced healthy, with none of the possible problems they had warned us about with preemies. 

He was the sweetest baby.  He was so tiny and his cry was more like a little squeak.  He let anyone hold him and was even-tempered, right from the beginning.

At three weeks old, we almost lost him when he had to have surgery for a birth defect called pyloric stenosis.  He didn’t react well to the anesthesia and it was touch and go for a day but he recovered from that just fine too.

Now, that little guy is turning eleven?!  I borrowed the term “eleventy-teen” from a friend of mine who referred to her son as that age when he was eleven.  This is the age when the early signs of becoming a teenager begin to rear their ugly heads.

So far, besides the sex education lesson he gave us at dinner one night, the fact that he calls me “Mom” in public (I still prefer Mommy, as long as I can get away with it), and there are to be no hugs in public under any circumstances, and he really, really needs a cell phone, he’s still closer to childlike than to teen-like. 

I just don’t want him to grow up so fast, if at all.  I don’t want him to lose the enthusiasm he has for everything from magic tricks to special effects in movies to fireworks.  I love that he’s excited and proud of himself for being placed in an advanced math class next year and even that he’s nervous about starting middle school (so am I!).  I don’t want other kids, life in general, or God forbid, me or his dad, to cause him to laugh less, play less or put on uncomfortable adult disguises.   And I hope he has a happy 11th birthday. 

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I have attempted to understand why women stay in abusive relationships my entire life, particularly when their children are also abused in these relationships.  As a child I was told that we couldn’t leave because we couldn’t afford it, that I deserved the abuse, that he had “changed” and that I was over-sensitive.  I believed it all.

To this day I have extremely conflicted feelings about women who stay in abusive relationships and allow their children to be abused.  On the one hand, I empathize with their feelings of helplessness and on an intellectual level, I understand that they honestly believe there is no way out or that he isn’t all that bad or that he has changed.  On the other hand, I also know that they are adults, are not helpless and are the only one who can save their children by removing them from the abusive relationship. 

I have no tolerance for the mistreatment of children.  I realize that sounds like a ridiculously obvious statement that no one in the world would disagree with.  However, while it may be true that no one would verbally disagree with me on this, there are many, many adults whose actions prove that they disagree.  These are the abusers and those that allow their children to be abused. 

Children are, in fact, helpless.  They cannot save themselves.  They are totally dependent on their parents.  When one of their parents is abusive and the other either looks the other way or is an active participant in the abuse, there is no hope. 

I actually experience “flashbacks” when I am confronted with stories of child abuse.  I feel the same feelings I felt when I was a helpless child.  It takes me days to recover a sense of normalcy after even seeing a movie in which children are abused.  I feel raw, vulnerable, shell-shocked, anxious, angry, depressed, horrified, scared and helpless.  I want to save them all.  The sad reality is that I can’t. 

In my own attempt to make sense out of my own childhood and move on, I have come to view my own mother almost as two separate people.  I have had to separate the person she is today from the person who raised me.  I know this sounds odd but it has allowed us to have a pretty decent relationship.  I still have to deal with my own feelings about the woman who raised me, but that’s a very slow moving, long and painful process.  In the meantime, I am no longer a helpless child completely dependent on her.  I can see her as she is today.  She is a good Grandma.  She is as emotionally available to me as she can be.  She recently announced her retirement and I couldn’t be happier for her.  She deserves it.  She’s had a rough life and has always worked hard.  I’m glad that she is going to have the chance to enjoy retirement, relax and just…be.

My original intent for this post was to discuss the cycle of abuse.  I’ve seen a diagram of it many times.  My plan was to find that diagram and then write about each phase in significant detail.  Instead, while trolling the internet in search of the diagram, I came across an amazing website that describes it all much better than I ever could.  It also contains tons of helpful information and resources for women in abusive relationships.  That website is Heart 2 Heart. 

Here is the diagram that I was looking for.  If you click on it, it will take you to their section explaining the cycle and much more…

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I wasn’t planning on writing anything about Father’s Day.  My father died almost 10 years ago and that relationship was strained, to say the least.

It occurred to me today however, that I do have a father in my life worthy of recognition from me, even though he is not my father.  That man is my husband.

In addition to today being Father’s Day, it’s also hubby’s birthday.  We let him sleep in and then the boys woke him up to present him with their handmade cards.  He appreciated those cards more than any other that he received today, and he exhibited that in his acceptance of them.  Our sons felt loved and appreciated for the hard work they put into those cards.  Hubby felt loved and appreciated because they put such effort into creating these very personal expressions of what he means to them.

One of the most important things in life to him is to be a good dad.  He wants to have good relationships with his sons and exhibits this in just about every way.  He’s never missed a sporting event, practice, band concert or any other event in which they have been involved.  He is their biggest supporter, cheerleader, teacher and shoulder to cry on.

He effortlessly walks that fine line between teaching them how to be a man, how to be tough out there in this sometimes cruel world and to stick up for themselves, while also allowing them to express emotions.   He leads by example in showing them how to be a good husband, father and human being.  He has fun with them.  He listens to them.  He is genuinely interested in everything they do and say.

He encourages them to practice and achieve in sports, other activities and schoolwork.  He helps them when they run into something they don’t understand or when they get frustrated with their own progress.  He doesn’t criticize when they don’t excel at a particular sport, coaches them, and allows them the autonomy to choose which activities they enjoy the most, even though he secretly wants them both to play in the NFL. 

He is not a work-a-holic who is never home and only interested in getting ahead or making more and more money just to acquire more and more stuff.   He does his best to do his share in both of us providing for our family while making certain that the pursuit of professional success and financial gain are not his sole focus in life.  They see that he is a responsible man but also a loving father and husband whose family is more important than money, success or recognition.

He is generous with his affection and frequently tells them he loves them.  He takes them camping, to the pool, batting cages, air and water shows and many other “guy outings’.  This provides them precious male bonding time. 

He does his fair share of work around the house.  He is more than willing to admit to mistakes and also to jump in when I am feeling overwhelmed.  He is generous with affection for me and more than willing to talk about our disagreements without being domineering or dismissive of my opinions.  These things indirectly send them messages about how to show respect to the women in their lives as well.

I couldn’t ask for a better father for my two sons.  So, to my hubby; Happy Father’s Day to the best Dad ever!

Thanks for stopping by!

Related Reading:

The Good Father (Medical Romance)

The Good Father (Harlequin American Romance Series)

The Good Father: On Men, Masculinity, and Life in the Family

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Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts (Inspirio/Zondervan Miniature Editions)

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