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\u201cWent to buy some groceries and never returned,\u201d \u201cpicked up the wrong child from daycare,\u201d \u2014 these stories about fathers are all over the Internet. And although they do take place, there are good dads too, but these days many people still perceive them as some kind of a miracle. This article will tell you about how difficult it is to be a father sometimes. But what most people never see are the silent decisions, the swallowed pride, and the moments where everything could fall apart \u2014 yet somehow doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
1.<\/p>\n
I am divorced from my wife \u201cJune,\u201d we have one daughter together, \u201cClare\u201d. We divorced on bad terms after I lost my job. Came home to an empty house and a note saying she needed someone who could \u201cgive her the lifestyle she and Clare deserved.\u201d I didn\u2019t see Clare for a while after that. Those were the longest months of my life \u2014 wondering if she would forget me, if I had already become just a name she used to know.
\nHowever, I\u2019m now in fantastic financial shape. I now have 50% custody of my daughter and am trying to make up for lost time. This means, since the world has opened up again, as long as Clare does well in school and helps with her chores, the weekend she\u2019s with me, we will do whatever she wants, usual things like museums, movies, near-by national parks, festivals in our city, etc. I try to give her memories strong enough to overwrite the absence.
\nYesterday I went to pick up my daughter from school and June and her husband were waiting there and asked to speak to me. They said that the businesses he used to run took a massive hit and have never recovered, and that it\u2019s meant they\u2019ve had to scale back their lifestyle significantly, including June getting a job. They then informed me that June was pregnant, and they didn\u2019t want my spoiling Clare to affect the relationship between the 2 kids, as they couldn\u2019t do the same for their baby. There was something else in June\u2019s eyes too \u2014 something I couldn\u2019t quite name. Regret, maybe. Or resentment.
\nI told them I had no intention of changing how I raised Clare because she was a great kid and deserves to be rewarded for her good behavior. The conversation devolved from there, with June finally screaming at me that I was just some \u201cdamn Disneyland dad using his money to get back at her.\u201d What she didn\u2019t understand is that none of this was about her anymore. It was about a little girl who once waited for a father who didn\u2019t come \u2014 and a man who refuses to ever be that person again.<\/p>\n
2.<\/p>\n
The daycare called and said my daughter\u2019s eyes were sore. Everything was fine in the morning. Okay, I took her to the doctor, and he said that she should stay at home for a week due to conjunctivitis. I offered my husband to stay with her, and he agreed \u2014 he thought it was like a holiday, all he had to do was just stay at home and drop medicine into the child\u2019s eyes.
\nIn reality, on the first day, our daughter had a toothache. He took her to the dentist, who pulled 2 baby teeth at once. She screamed so hard he later admitted it echoed in his head all night. On the second day, the child started coughing. My husband had to treat her throat, teeth, and eyes. On the third day, my daughter said, \u201cDaddy, my ear hurts!\u201d Again the father and the child went to the doctor who prescribed drops for the ear. And then it was necessary to take blood tests and X-rays. Every morning he woke up hoping, just hoping, there would be nothing new.
\nFor 2 weeks, my husband treated the child and ran to doctors. I\u2019ve never seen him so happy running back to work. But I\u2019ve also never seen him hug our daughter that tightly before leaving.<\/p>\n
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\n3.<\/p>\n
About 7 years ago, my wife confided in me how much she was depressed because she had to give up her career. She spent all her time with our kids. And I said, \u201cOkay, I\u2019m now a stay at home dad. Go get a job and show them what you\u2019re made of, baby.\u201d I thought it would be temporary. It wasn\u2019t.
\nAnd everything seems fine, but all these 7 years, men have been coming up to me and saying stuff like, \u201cYour wife left you with the kids again, didn\u2019t she?\u201d or \u201cWhat did you do wrong that you deserve this, mate?\u201d And women would kick me out of parents\u2019 room and treat me like I\u2019m worthless. At first I laughed it off. Then I stopped laughing.
\nAnd single mothers all think I\u2019m a single dad because there\u2019s no other reason for a man to be a parent. Except my kids love having me around. I\u2019m a good cook, and after running a landscaping crew, I can handle 5 kids and still get the housework done. What people don\u2019t see is that I chose this \u2014 and I would choose it again, even if no one ever understands why.<\/p>\n
4.<\/p>\n
When my daughter was 10, she wanted to try out for a community theater version of Beauty and the Beast. She got nervous, though, and almost backed out, because she was so sure she wasn\u2019t going to make it. She stood in the hallway shaking, script crumpled in her hands, seconds away from quitting.
\nMy husband, who did some acting in high school, stepped in and said that he would also audition, even though he knew he was never going to make it. He was terrified too \u2014 but he didn\u2019t show it.
\nHe wanted to demonstrate to her that it\u2019s okay to audition for something that you don\u2019t think you\u2019re going to make. She ended up not only just making it, but she got the part of the Chip. My husband got the part of Maurice, Belle\u2019s father. He didn\u2019t even want to be in a goddamn play. But every night on that stage, when he looked at her, you could tell \u2014 that part was never really about acting.<\/p>\n
5.<\/p>\n
When my son was in the hospital, it made so much more sense for my husband to stay with him because he doesn\u2019t drive, I could get there in 20 minutes, but it would have taken him over an hour and only one of us were allowed to stay. The decision felt simple, but it wasn\u2019t \u2014 it meant hours alone, waiting, imagining the worst.
\nThe entire time, he was either questioned whether Mum was involved or ridiculously praised for staying with him. As if just being there was extraordinary. As if he had a choice not to be.
\nWhen our son was born my husband stayed with us from when we went in until kicking out time on the ward, they literally couldn\u2019t believe he hadn\u2019t gone home yet. I mean, his first child had just been born, and he wanted to be involved whilst I recovered from being sliced open, and a tiny human yanked from my womb. The next day, the nurse came to me and said they\u2019d never seen a dad stay as long as he did in 20 years of working on maternity. I remember thinking \u2014 maybe the bar has just been set far too low.<\/p>\n
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\n6.<\/p>\n
When my daughter and I go out, it\u2019s always a problem to go to the toilet together. So, I go straight to the accessible toilet. If someone suddenly asks me why I go there, I surprise them with the counter question, \u201cWhich one should we use then?\u201d And while they\u2019re trying to come up with an answer, I\u2019m off. It\u2019s a small thing, but in those moments, you realize how many spaces in the world weren\u2019t built with fathers in mind.<\/p>\n
7.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve got an 8-month-old son and my partner has been really struggling with postnatal depression, and she has a lot going on, so for 8 months I have been doing the majority of the looking after and caring for our son. Don\u2019t get me wrong, she does a great job, she\u2019s just struggling mentally a bit currently. I end up doing everything. Some nights, I don\u2019t sleep at all \u2014 just sit there listening to him breathe.
\nWhenever we go to see people or whatever, and I change his nappy people are always like, \u201cOh, you\u2019re on nappy duties, that\u2019s good\u201d and I can sense that they think I\u2019m doing it because we\u2019re out, and I\u2019m trying to look good. My partner will get the \u201cyou\u2019re doing an amazing job as a mother!\u201d And I\u2019ll just get the classic, \u201cDad\u2019s doing a good job too\u201d as if they almost forgot about me. They don\u2019t see the exhaustion. They don\u2019t see the fear of getting it wrong.<\/p>\n
8.<\/p>\n
I lived with my mother and stepfather. My stepdad was like a father to me since I was 3 years old. At the age of 15, I started to slip seriously in my studies, I partied 24\/7. I thought I knew everything.
\nMy stepdad tried to sort out the situation, and we ended up fighting. He tried to reason with me, and I in my youthful maximalism yelled at him, \u201cYou are not my father!\u201d That\u2019s how a 15-year-old girl brought a 40-year-old man to tears. I\u2019m still ashamed. The look on his face didn\u2019t fade with time \u2014 it stayed, quietly, in the back of every memory I have of him.<\/p>\n
9.<\/p>\n
I divorced my husband. After a while I started having fights with my daughter who kept saying that her father was good, and I am a monster and do everything wrong. I sent her to live with her father and thought that after a month they would both cry from each other. But it\u2019s been a year!
\nThe daughter feels happy there, they don\u2019t fight. She has even started getting better grades at school, and the ex got back in shape \u2014 they go to the gym together now. I visited them recently, their house is clean. Although, they both only made a mess when we all lived together. It was like walking into a life I didn\u2019t recognize \u2014 one where I was no longer needed.<\/p>\n
10.<\/p>\n
My husband was refused entry to the pool. My daughter is 4 months old, and my husband stays at home with her. He wanted to join the infant swimming group, but they wouldn\u2019t let him, saying, \u201cOur mums will feel uncomfortable around you.\u201d He came home holding her a little tighter than usual. He didn\u2019t say much \u2014 but something in him had clearly shifted.<\/p>\n
11.<\/p>\n
I remember working at the reception desk in a gym, and a father and his daughter came up to me asking where they could change. I was confused, of course. There were no family changing rooms at the time, so I had to send them to an empty solarium. They thanked me like I had done them a favor, but really, it felt like we had failed them.<\/p>\n
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\n12.<\/p>\n
When I met my now-wife, she had a 3-year-old daughter. I always made it a point to treat her as I would my own kid, and we became close pretty quickly, when she was around 4 she even started calling me daddy. Her biological dad comes in and out of my stepdaughter\u2019s life, she calls us both dad but when she\u2019s with my wife and me, she refers to him as his first name.
\nWell, last night she was visiting with her bio dad when I got a text from my stepdaughter wondering if I could pick her up. Well, I got there, she was sitting outside with her bio dad holding her arm. Something felt off immediately.
\nShe came over to my car and told me she was messing around with a skateboard and fell on her arm, her arm was bruised, swollen, and hard for her to move.
\nI asked her bio dad, why didn\u2019t he call my wife. He said, \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s that bad, she\u2019s just being dramatic.\u201d My stepdaughter just looked at me and said, \u201cDad, can we just please go, I\u2019m in a lot of pain.\u201d That word \u2014 \u201cDad\u201d \u2014 hit differently in that moment.
\nAs she was getting in the car I told her bio dad see this is why I\u2019m her real dad, not you\u2026 I actually care for her and her well-being. The daughter actually did break her arm, and I\u2019m the one who was in the ER with her until 1 a.m., sitting in a plastic chair, waiting for the doctor, promising her she\u2019d be okay \u2014 and meaning it.<\/p>\n
13.<\/p>\n
I came to the pool and saw the following: at the entrance to the women\u2019s shower room, 2 little girls, 3 and 5 years old, were standing holding hands, afraid to go in. There is no door to the shower room, and around its corner stands their father, shouting, \u201cGo, don\u2019t be afraid, ask any woman to turn on the shower.\u201d He couldn\u2019t see them. They couldn\u2019t see him.
\nI thought then how inconvenient it is for fathers \u2014 they can\u2019t change clothes together with their kids and those are out of their sight for a long time. And sometimes, those few minutes feel like forever.<\/p>\n
14.<\/p>\n
My wife and I had a daughter. I work remotely. So when my wife started going crazy on maternity leave, I let her go back to work \u2014 part-time at first. But in the meantime, our baby girl was growing up and demanding more attention. I had to take more and more time off work. Each day felt like a balancing act that could collapse at any second.
\nMeanwhile, my wife\u2019s career took off, and she started begging me to let her work full-time. I was angry, but I realized that I didn\u2019t want to deprive my significant other of this chance. So I officially went on paternity leave. It wasn\u2019t the life I imagined \u2014 but it became the one that mattered.
\nFor 6 months that I\u2019ve stayed with the baby, people around me divided into 2 groups: many of them supported me, but some of my friends didn\u2019t approve. However, when I carry my daughter from a walk, who now weighs almost 30 pounds, and also grocery bags, even I find it hard. So, I think I made the right choice. And when she falls asleep on my shoulder, everything else goes quiet \u2014 like the world finally agrees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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