I look thru Em's backpack regularly. Sometimes she forgets to share something with me. Other times, I'm looking for notes from school. And infrequently, I am being the parent who wants to remind the child that I will keep you safe and I will follow you if I think you are up to no good.
On this occassion, I was getting the application for the middle school we are trying to get her into; and I ran across a writing assignment that gives me insight into what my child is thinking at times. Going to share.
If I had a father figure in my life, we oculd ahve the same interests, he would be nice to me and my mom, and he would stay with me and my mom.
First of all, he would have the same interests as me. For example, we would be in his car when our favorite song came on the radio ("Teenagers from Mars" by the Network). We would scream at the top of our lungs "Teenagers from Mars and we don't care!" When we would be done, the people in other cars would be staring at us like we were crazy! All we would do is wave and smile.
My father figure would play the bass guitar. It would have stickers on it that said things like "It's not the end of the world because it's already tomorrow in Australia." It would be covered in so many stickers you wouldn't even know the color of it. I play guitar too so we would rock out in our mini-band.
Going on, he would be nice to me and my mom. He would buy us whatever we wanted. For instance, if my mom wanted a new pack of apple cobbler scented candles, ^POOF* there they would be. If I wanted a new collection of CDs and a PS2 game, *POOF* there they would be. He would let us do whatever we wanted to his car. We could turn his ruby red car to midnight black. But most importantly, he would say he loved us every day.
Finally, he would stay with me and my mom no matter what. Even if my mom lost her job, he would help her through and help her find another one. He would stay at home if my mom was closing the EvaR. He would love us no matter what we did.
In the end, if I had a father figure in my life, we would have the same interests, he would be nice to me and my mom, and he would stay with us no matter what.
Wow. What can I say? Em and I talk about her feelings about not having a dad often. She's always missed having that male person in her life. When she was younger, she mourned not having a father. It would kill me each time I heard her sob so hard about not having a daddy. I've tried to explain that if she never has a father in her life, that doesn't make her any less of a person. It only means that she doesn't have a father in her life. She didn't do anything bad. She didn't 'not try' hard enough. She was and is not lacking in any way that keeps her from having a man claim title as her father. Em has been very mature about it all....Yet, I know she gets upset. I know she makes wishes and prayers. I know she cries.
I don't know what to say. The only person seeming to fail at getting her dad in this situation is me. And in order for my Pie to have a man do the things she wants in her life, I have to have a man want me bad enough....and I just don't think I'm of that caliber to be claimed as someone's wife or life partner or whatever.
God, that's an awful feeling...not being able to fulfill this want and need in my child's life. If I could find someone who wants to be her father figure and not have any responsibility to me, wonderful. Unfortunately, I'm the middle man and we're just S.O.L. because it just doesn't happen that way. There are no other male figures in her life. My brother has spent very little time with Em. The ratio of time together in relation to length of Em's life thus far? Not impressive. My father was the same way and now he is gone. And I've very few male friends that can impact Em's life.
What can I do?
My poor Pie.
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