A Letter to My Children's Father...

I ought to simply call you my babies' daddy since that's about all you amount to. A sire for my offspring; a sperm for my egg; a donor.

Alright that was mean. But true.

I intended this to be a note of thanks...

Thank you for creating three wonderful, beautiful children with me. Thank you for crying with me when one of them fell lifelessly from my womb into my palm.

Thank you for showing me alternately how weak of a woman I was when I was with you... and how much stronger of a woman I am without you (or any man for that matter).

Thank you for allowing me to see just how hard it is to be a single parent in this world and how difficult it is not to warp my daughters' minds into man-hating machines. I honestly would love them just the same, if not more if they decide later in life to be lesbians.

Thank you for showing me that bitterness can eat at the soul worse than a canker on flesh. Thank you God for helping me to let the bitterness and hatred go. It's a steady work in progress.

Thank you for allowing me to bear the brunt of raising our girls, teaching them to walk, talk, manners and so much more only to have you take the credit when introducing them to your peers and coworkers. Funny, for all the work I thought I did, I hear an awful lot of WE and I when you respond to compliments the girls receive.

Thank you so much for paying child support bi-weekly and on time. It helps so much to know that its coming. Nevermind the fact that I had to take you to court to get it and keep you in constant fear of returning to the courtroom to have it raised just to get you to contribute to your own offspring.

SO beside the point, I know... to continue:

Thank you so much for the continuous flow of criticisms and insults and jealous outbursts. And really, what is the deal with the jealousy anyway? We aren't together, we haven't been a bonafide couple since November 2000 when you kicked my seven months pregnant ass out of our house. Today there was jealousy because I was talking to my neighbor. T-A-L-K-I-N-G... seems I have a headlight out on my car and I was thanking him for being so kind as to tell me so I can get it fixed.

And how about those criticisms and insults? Thank you so much for showing me what I was like to so many friends before I had children of my own. Boy, I thought I knew so much about raising a child that I freely dispensed advice whether I was asked or not. Then I had Jaalyn and discovered I didn't know squat. But thanks anyway for your (un)timely advice.

Thanks for sitting with me night after night when our babies are sick and feverish and praying to God to please, just end their coughing/vomiting/fever/whatever and let them be healthy. Thanks so much for forgoing sleep to hold your wheezing coughing child upright in your arms so that she can sleep and not choke to death on the thick mucus collecting in the back of her throat from pollen/allergies/virus/strep throat. Thank you for helping me keep track of the seemingly thousand types of medicines the girls need to take and when so that I don't get confused and miss a dose or worse, double a dose by accident.

Thanks for taking them to the doctor each and every time they fall ill, sometimes more than once in a day. Thank you for providing funds for expensive prescriptions, tylenol, motrin, pedialyte, saltine crackers, diaper rash creams, etcetera that they always need following the doctor's visit.

Thank you for finding time in your already jam packed schedule for an impromptu game of peekaboo, trips to the park, zoo, library... time to put together puzzles, practice reading a book aloud and homework too. Thanks for helping each week finding things to correspond with Jaalyn's show and tell assignment and making sure she takes it on the appropriate day.

Thanks for packing lunches, paying tuitions, working 50+ hour weeks and still managing to wash a few loads of clothes, clean the house, cook some meals, take out the garbage, iron school uniforms, participate in school fundraisers and on and on and on when all you really want to do is crawl into a corner somewhere and nap for the next 15 years or so.

Thank you for so graciously coming over to give me a break from the children, especially when you know how badly I need one and how every person needs just a smidgen of time for themselves.

Thanks for enduring insulting jabs from my mother and myself on what a rotten parent you must be ( despite the children being healthy and clean and intelligent. All of that must be inherited from her father/grandparents/etc.). On how the house is never clean enough, the clothing is never nice enough/too nice, they aren't fed enough or some inane reason for giving you hell.


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Wait.

You don't do any of those things.

I do.

Every day. All day.

24/7, 365, never ending, never ceasing.


You sit and live your life separately without a worry in the world. You've absolutely no idea what I do and what goes on on a regular basis, yet you complain I don't have time for you or anyone else because I am so wrapped up in my children. I never thought being involved in your children's lives would be a bad thing. Being too involved is one thing, but I'm just struggling to maintain and keep from sinking in the mire and muck you and my mother keep trying to drag me into.

Getting back to you... all you care about is yourself. I don't doubt for a second that you love the girls. But I'm sick of the attitudes. SO. SICK. OF. THEM. There is a reason we're not together and why no matter how hard we tried we would never be able to make a relationship work.

We do not operate as a team. You do not help me at all... no wait, that's not entirely correct... you do the bare minimum when it comes to helping with the girls. And your piss poor excuse is that you don't know what to do.

Come the fuck on.

You can barely get in the door without knocking something over or stepping on something. Instead of planting your fanny into the recliner and remaining perched there all damned afternoon, could you get Jaalyn to clean the room? Could you take out a bag of trash? Throw some clothes into the washer or dryer? Or maybe just ask "Is there anything I could help you with?"

But no, you sit and complain or you sit in silence.

Today, after the admission of jealousy (and dude, I am clearly missing something here because I am just not getting that whole thing) and the resulting heated discussion you sat in silence, refusing to answer my questions and clearly dictating that you were putting an end to the conversation. And it infuriated me.

And then I thought... you are not even worth getting angry over. For what? We're not together. We'll never be together. And I'm absolutely thrilled to be making drastic changes in my life.

Only you don't know it. Yet...

But you will soon. Very soon.

So... thanks. For the memories, for our children, for the blood, sweat and tears resulting from our disasterous 10 years of knowing one another. We've shared good times and bad... well we've shared more bad than good really but still... we shared. Who knows what the future holds? Maybe we'll share again. Doubtful. But I've learned not to tempt God who despite His Absolute Divinity has a wicked sense of humor.

And I'm not sweating all the "wrongs" you've done to me or the whole "my baby daddy ain't worth shit" thing either. Because karma is a bitch baby. Everything you do comes back. And I pray God has mercy on you when it happens.

So I'll keep on doing what I do. I'll raise our daughters and hope that they learn from the mistakes their parents made. I hope they have better goals than we; I hope they have higher hopes than we.

And I hope they have better taste in men than me.