When did we become a society where child support was needed, demanded, withheld? When did walking away from your marriage mean you could walk away from the child? When did this become our reality?
Stark. Harsh. True. I find myself living in a place where the non-custodial parent equates time with money and believes that a minimum donation makes them a Parent.
They withhold financial assistance, they do not parent, they show up when it is convenient for them. They tell the world they are a parent. They show their child that they are not really part of their world. They live in contradictory allegiance with their own dark places and lack of soul. And, they somehow convince themselves, that they are right.
I see men and women who live on a shoe string to take care of children from past relationships. I see them finding ways to be inserted positively into their child's life. I do. But these are the rare ones. They are the dot in the sea, the needle in the haystack. This makes me insatiably sad.
Sad for the custodial parent who takes on that extra burden to parent for two. Sad for the child, who never understands how they did not choose to play a role in this staged version of parenting , and yet it is their reality. I even, on some degree, am sad for the non-custodial parent who never knows the joy of a deep relationship with someone who they brought in to this world. For the person who gazes, from afar, with jaded eyes, on the relationship that the custodial parent builds bit by bit, minute by minute, touch by touch with their child.
Parenting is the most special thing I have ever been able to do. It is not an obligation. It is an honor, a joy, a life process that I am happy to allow consume me. I have this Amazing Kid. It is pretty cool. It is My Best Thing Accomplished In Life... this Mama Biz. Glad I am not missing one moment of it.
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