Why are fathers so important to their children? #rawtruth
I would like to reiterate why I blog and speak so raw in my blogs about my life and children. To put it bluntly is because it is therapeutic for me, growing up I was not allowed to express myself. So, I always said to myself that I would whenever I got the chance to and here we are.
This particular blog is going to be hard for me as it will talk about my relationship with my father, which unfortunately is non-existent by my choice. It may upset and trigger some people and if you are easily offended I guess you should not be reading my blogs in the first place. #justsayin
Why I think dads are so important is not because I am one but from my own experiences and observations. I am not going to quote statistics or research but talk it about it from real-life experience.
I will discuss a lot of things my own family does not know about me but I have always been an authentic, upfront and blunt person, so why should I stop now! Anyway as a child I was deeply unhappy for many reasons but the main one was because of the way my mum, myself and siblings were treated by our “father”. I would say from the age of 7 or 8, I spend most of my childhood crying every night and thinking of suicide until the age of about 13-14 years of age.
You see, my family and I never talked about what was happening at home nor did we ever talk about our feelings, so for me, I struggled to comprehend what was happening. When we were on holiday (very rare) or social gatherings we all played a role of the happy family and no one was none the wiser. We were quite a religious family and because I associated church with my father I never really wanted to go as I felt forced into it and not able to develop my own opinion. When times were hard I used to pray every night for two things either save me and my family from this man or give me the strength to end my life.
Neither came true, so I gave up on religion. I believed if God could not save me and my family from the situation we were in then he can’t be real and trust me I prayed hard daily for help. We did not receive help and in a way, something inside of me was answered that there cannot be a god if he was prepared to allow my family to suffer like this.
You see the right fathers who want to play an active part of their children’s lives should always be able to as it creates a balance in your child. The emotional balance of your child far out ways any financial incentive for that father to contribute to see that child. I have always said this the best form of child support for your child/ren is shared parenting. I had a father by name but nothing else even though we lived with him he was not emotionally or financially there.
My mum always to the brunt of the stress, finances and emotional support when and where she could throughout our lives. This scenario created a chain of events that would change all of our lives forever and why it is so important to have both parents available. My symptoms of the lack of father figure were quite extreme but not uncommon with other children that come from similar backgrounds.
Anger, I was a very angry and frustrated child, which in turn caused me to get into serious fights and act out in school regularly. You see I think this was my cry for help but in my day domestic violence and abuse was a very taboo subject and lack of awareness and training around the subject was very real. As I got into my teen’s substance misuse and alcohol played a big part of my life not because I wanted to but because it numbed the pain I was feeling and allowed me to escape from reality. This led on to a life of promiscuousness throughout my teens and early twenties not something I am very proud of but again I had no guidance or role model to look up to.
I used to get jealous of male friends who were close with their fathers as I never had it and felt ashamed of myself. Like I am not normal or broken because I had such a bad father who was not a nice person or loved his children the way they should be.
You see a lot of boys feel like this but they don’t have the capacity or courage to speak about how they feel. This is not just boys it is just as important to show your daughter’s how much you love them and how they should be treated by a man. My emotional growth, awareness around women and mental growth was all distorted for the simple fact of not having a father around something that I longed for more than anything.
I used to go to friends homes and see their fathers hug and kiss them, talk about there day at school and just have a laugh and joke with them. This was alien to me and made me feel uncomfortable because I had never experienced it myself.
You see if you choose to have a child whether that relationship works out or not. If you chose to cut a parent out of your child’s life for bitter and selfish reasons. I want you to know and understand it will impact them emotionally for the rest of there lives whether you want to acknowledge it or not! Bringing in a stepparent with not fill the void or nor should it, stepparents should be a bonus not to fill a gap in your child’s life.
I saw a newspaper article the other day of a young girl in the US who was admitted to hospital due to the abuse she was receiving at home. When the doctor came to speak to her privately she told them she wanted to die and to let her, she was 8 years of age! If you think that children as young as eight don’t think about these things you are mistaken because they do and regularly in the wrong environment. You see this is why I have fought tooth and nail for my kids and why I never stopped as I know what it is like to not have a father in my life, something I never wanted for them.
Their mothers also knew this but again it was used against me as they know how much it would upset me not being able to see them regularly. I hope whoever is reading this understands the importance of fathers and the negative impact it had on me for not having one. I overcompensate constantly, emotionally distanced and generally wary of all women apart from my mother. All I needed was the love, guidance and support of my father, who knows how different my life could have been. Fathers create balance to your child/rens lives whether you like to hear it or not. My experiences will be different for everyone and not all fathers are perpetrators or abusers, I know some excellent fathers who are denied access due to Parental Alienation.