Where Did the Fathers Go?

Where did the fathers go?  Strange question I know but, hopefully, I’ll be able to get an answer.

This question occurred to me as I looked at my eldest son’s friends. There are so few of his friends that actually have “fathers”.  I put the word father in quotes because, now days, this has become a relative term. What I mean with “fathers” are biological fathers.  Besides my son’s friends, in my own circle there are very few “fathers”.

The question becomes even harder when your child is one of those children and you get to the day in which your child utters the wonderful word why.  My son is one of those children with a biological donor instead of a biological father. The day he asked why I thought my heart was going to break.  I had played that scenario in my head a million times but nothing really would’ve prepared me for having to look in his eyes as I tried to explain.

I became a mother at 17 and very quickly after I got pregnant I became both a teenage mother and a single mother.  The father of my child did not want to be a father and he made it clear.  Ever since that day I had been preparing for the moment I would have to be accountable to my son for those 2 facts of my life.  I decided not to take his donor to court and force him to pay child support or make a judge force him to be a father.  I did this because I grew up in that situation and the effects and consequences where horrible.  Although I do have to make clear that I don’t judge or put down women who make the decision to do so, my experience led me to make the decision I made.  I made my choice fully aware that one day I was going to have to explain it to my child.  When the day came I died a little and then explained the difference between “real fathers” and biological donors.

Fortunately my son is one of those few children, in that situation, that can actually understand, assimilate and appreciate the difference. You see, even though my son has a biological donor, he does have a “real father”. I met my husband when my son was a baby and thankfully I couldn’t have made a better father for my kid.  I admire that man so much.