Sunday, June 15, 2014

Father's Day

As a rule I have a low opinion of  the contrived celebrations of  human situations that come naturally to the species.  Father's Day is a perfect example.  As soon as I had a kid, every day from that day forward was Father's Day.  As long as I live or my kid does, I am a Father, the ole man, her pain in her ass, always there to kick her in the ass or pick her up off of it.

I have had it easy.  My struggles as a father have been nothing compared to the nightmares some folks have gone through.  Truth be told, my kid was more mature at age eight than I am now at age 62.  She needed little discipline, just some support and the occasional shoulder to cry on.

I have been lucky and I know it.  I deserved worse.  I deserved a child who would put me through the ringer with fights at school, substance abuse and general mayhem and rebellion.  Apparently the committee in charge of  assigning kids to the happy couples blew it.  Somewhere out there is a Father who lived righteously and he is cursed with the wild child I should have had.  I sit here happy with their mistake and pleased my kid is now a solid citizen about to engage in a career as a college professor.................

........................  Life is definitely not fair.........  Sometimes it leans your way and sometimes it doesn't.

3 comments:

BBC said...

My kids were easy to raise, they didn't become fucked up until they became adults, it is all a crap shoot.

BBC said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
El Cerdo Ignatius said...

I deserved a child who would put me through the ringer with fights at school, substance abuse and general mayhem and rebellion. Apparently the committee in charge of assigning kids to the happy couples blew it. Somewhere out there is a Father who lived righteously and he is cursed with the wild child I should have had.

Dadgummit, I knew there was a mixup somewhere. One of my daughters had a stretch of a year-and-a-half long (seemed like 20 years at the time) doing all those things you enumerated, and nearly putting her mother and me in an early grave as a result. She has recovered marvelously from it all, and one might say that the rough patch actually did a lot of good for her.

Her mother and I are - at least two years after the bad stuff ended - finally getting around to giving ourselves permission to recover from it, too.

What a freakin' ride, this parenthood thing.