The View from a Drawbridge

My parents got divorced when I was three months old. I never met my father. I did not receive a single Christmas or birthday card, photograph or visit, in my entire life. He paid not one penny of child support.

People used to ask me if I missed my father. My stock response was, “How can you miss something you never had in the first place?” And it was true. I couldn’t even conceive of what it would be like to have a father in my universe. You may as well have asked me if I regretted my lack of bonding with the Loch Ness Monster.

It wasn’t until well into my adulthood that I began to get a sense of what I had missed out on. I looked around and realized that other people had a level of confidence that I lacked. They grew up feeling as though someone had their backs. They also knew what it was like to feel safe. They had someone to go to when they needed advice. And my female friends with decent fathers knew what to look for in decent life partners. I should have had that. I deserved it.

But in a warped way, having no trace of that man in my life was probably the best thing that could have happened to me. Any human being who can sleep at night, knowing that his child may be going without due to his irresponsibility and indifference, is not worth knowing. It’s better to have no male role model in your life than have one with such a wont of character and integrity.

So to all you deadbeat dads out there, if you’re going to do it, don’t do it halfway. Go all out. Disappear. Don’t even pretend that you care. When all is said and done, it’s the least you can do. Literally and figuratively.