I know I have been there, heck Im still here....You are a single parent struggling to raise however many children in this world, and their other parent is not present. Makes you wanna cut throats and pull tongues through right??? right?? No? okay well maybe not that angry but you know somewhere between hitman angry and cuss you out angry at least...
So how do you encourage your child(ren) to love and respect a parent they have either never met or who is the pop up parent? Well very carefully if you ask me , and no you didn't but I sharing anyway. In my household growing up it was a very tricky situation feeling like I couldn't express to my mother that I loved my father dearly. I knew she hated him and she constantly disparaged him, which to be honest made me not like her rather than him. I always thought that if she hated him that much she clearly wasn't able to love me, considering he was half of me. I desperately wanted to feel free to express my love and longing for my Dad, but it wasn't safe to do so. When I had my daughter I knew I would do everything to foster their relationship and never seek to a negative influence on it. I believe that a child's relationship with their father and mother or lack thereof can be a defining piece of how they view themselves and others. Our parents relationship with each other can be even more important. How we treat each other, how our children see and hear us treat each other shapes their self image. I have chosen that my children's ability to respect, desire, love their father is a priority for me. It is non negotiable especially in an age of rampant family dysfunction. I made the connection that encouraging my daughter to love her father and likewise would be one of the greatest gifts I could give her. I explained to her that we all make mistakes and that even she in her all knowing teenage arrogance will make them, has made them, and she has to have a compassionate heart for her parents and their struggles. No matter what the issue it is never about her or her siblings and while the choices we make as parents always affect her, they are not about her.
Getting her to understand this has become much harder the older she has gets. She sees her fathers' recent abandonment of his marriage and family as a personal attack. She is finding it nigh impossible to dredge up any respect for her father and her ability to cloak him in her neverending supply of childhood love is dwindling quickly. I refill her tank as often as I can I share memories of when her father behaved out the feelings I hope are still buried in his heart for her. I remind her of how her father always slept with her on his chest, and the funny stories he would make up about her activites at night as a baby gallivanting off on wild baby adventures. I slip a story of how "we" began in at least once a week and I answer all of her questions of how Daddy used to be in the present tense. I have told her that while I don't like or enjoy our current situation I still love her father, that no matter what else ever happens that will never change because of my children, they are a gift beyond measure. I remember all the good qualities I can think of and I share them with her. Is it painful for me ? at times yes, but it is worth it. I chose him to be their father and I love him, to demean him is to demean them and that I can not do.
Will we as parents who struggle daily slip up and say a bad thing of course we will but we must be fast to correct it and acknowledge the hurt we cause our children.
Speak well and often of your child's invisible parent, it is not saying that their absence is okay only that their presence was Once upon a Time......
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