Father's Day

I am not a father. 

I never will be a father.

Through a series of well-intentioned but misguided choices, every year on this day, I am on the outside looking in.  And the sad fact is that there was nothing more in this world that I wanted than to be a father.

There are men who loathe the prospect of being a father.  Some who become fathers abdicate their responsibility.  There are fathers who wish they'd never had children.  I was never and would never have been any of those men.

When I was a child I was beaten by mine.  He put a roof over our heads, food in our stomachs and clothes on our backs.  We were encouraged to get an education, of which I took full advantage.  But that was where it ended with him -- he was a provider and a stern disciplinarian, but he wasn't a father.

He threw me into walls, kicked me down a staircase and one time I went to school with a bruise on my face.  Sure, he spanked me, and sometimes I deserved it.  I don't consider spanking abusive.  When I was too big for him to beat anymore, he started with the emotional abuse.  I lived in fear of him as a child and we are not friends today.

There are those who believe that if a child is abused, the odds of that child being an abusive parent are great.  I know that I would never have beaten a child.  Sure, I would have lost my temper.  Parents tell me that until you've actually been a parent, you don't know how you would react in a given situation.  Although that's partially true, I know what I wouldn't have done because my father gave me the best example of how not to be a loving father.

When I think about my loss -- and its absence is truly a loss -- I tear up.  It is one of a couple of things that can make me cry.  Not even our Mother's death makes me cry, because in the end, that was the natural course of things.  Not being a father is, to me, unnatural. 

I will never hold our child in my arms, never soothe him when he's sad, never teach him to read.  I'll never teach her how to ride a bike, cheer for her as she plays her sports, protect her from the boys who court her.  I'll never see the children grow to adulthood, laugh with them as we remind each other of the silly things that we each did when they were children and beam with pride at what good people they've become.

No, I won't have to deal with their missteps, growl at them when they broke their Mother's vase that I distinctly warned them to care for, tell them not to watch their video games and study instead or make sure to clean their plates and do the dishes.  I won't have to deal with adolescent angst, hormonal changes or sassy mouths.  But even those I would have preferred to what I don't have.

I've met the love of my life too late.  We are no longer young enough to have children.  It is one of the other great losses that makes me cry.

The next time someone says that a woman's biological clock is ticking, think of men, too.  Sure, biologically I could go out, woo some young woman, have a child with her, and when that son or daughter turns sixteen in the natural course, I would be sixty-eight-years-old.  To have a child at this age is selfish.  I would leave a child with more questions than benefits.  People would think I'm their grandfather, not their father.  I can't do that to my children.

Even if I never have children, I still worry about them.

(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles