A Father’s Love

Did the radio show interview over Memorial Day weekend and several people called in and said what their favorite stories were. One woman said that her favorite story was “Her Question” about the single father who is explaining boys and love to his thirteen year old daughter. She talked about what a positive role model he was, in a time when it’s so easy to bash men. I was really touched by her words and found myself wondering where that story came from. And then I remembered that I had a brother-in-law who was a single father. My niece’s mother died when she was around 4 and her father raised her until she was 13, when he died. They were bonded like molecules – it would have taken an explosion to tear them apart. But of all of the quirky things I knew about him, two stood out. He loved his daughter like no other… and he was 100% unprepared to be a single dad.

I can be a very judgmental person when it comes to children born out of wedlock. I was raised to believe that you don’t have children until after you are married, and I did not grow up seeing single mothers. Really. Practically none. It wasn’t my reality. And so I thought” Why would anyone do that, why would anyone do something so difficult, why would anyone bring a child into the world without two full-time parents.” Keep in mind, I was raised to believe that abortion was the “solution” to an unplanned pregnancy. I knew one person who didn’t believe this. She was Catholic and adopted, and I just accepted that she had her reasons. I think it is because my world was so pro-abortion, and I didn’t grow up with strong Christian family members, that nothing changed mt world view about this for many years.

But I had a completely different attitude toward divorced parents. My parents separated, and that I could understand. However, again, my father was unusual in that he was a constant presence in our lives. We saw him a few times a week, he came to our sports games, he took us to family reunions. Very present. So, I knew nothing about what it was like not to have two present parents. My mother worked, I was a latch-key kid, I knew money was tight. This became my new normal. My closeness to my mother, even as a teen, was steadfast. At least, that’s what I remember.

So there it was. Choosing to be a single parent made no sense to me. But ending up a single parent because one parent left, or one parent died, was completely different. In many ways, it’s completely the same. I just had to learn that reality with maturity.

At any rate, as I watched my brother-in-law do his best to be a good parent, I did everything I could to help. I would try to make her Christmas and birthday special, when I could I would visit, and as she hit puberty, I would talk to her about life. In contrast, her father’s message was “no boys”. And of course, her response was to date in secret. She lived with me briefly, and although some would say that I was trying to be a friend, what I was really doing was trying to bridge the gap so that she would be honest about her dating, when she couldn’t be honest with her father.

My story “Her Question” was about a question my niece could never have asked her father, with his “Leave Boys Alone” decree. My story was about a father who was an average guy, with average interests and average beliefs about the need to protect his daughter, who is confronted by a question that he is completely unprepared for. An honest question, a question that indicates that his daughter has discovered boys, likes a boy, is ready to spend time with boys, and if he doesn’t step up with answers that are meaningful, real, and honest while still being infused with fatherly wisdom, then she may never open up to him again. In my story, he steps up, and I’d like to think that the answer he comes up with is one that many single custodial fathers find themselves capable of saying when the time comes.