Dear Margo | 04/01/2009 11:00 pm
Dear Margo: No Longing for Long-Gone Dad
She has not spoken to her estranged father in 12 years. Is it normal she wants to keep it that way? … Margo Howard’s bright
advice
No Longing for Long-Gone Dad
Dear Margo: When I was a teenager, my father cheated on my mother with his best friend’s wife (a close friend of my mother, or so my mother thought). Needless to say, my parents are now divorced. After leaving our family, my father neglected to stay in contact with us — despite the fact that he lived a few blocks away — and I have not spoken to him in 12 years. Oddly enough, he sent my sisters and me a Christmas card this year and enclosed his telephone number. What is he trying to do? What is his motivation? I have long since dismissed my father from my life and find myself apathetic to the entire situation. I would like to continue living my life as I have been. Is this normal? What would you do in my place? — Estranged and Comfortable with It
Dear Es: In answer to your question about what your father is trying to do and what his motivation might be, I think the answer is quite simple: He is trying to get you to call him. I would guess he is (correctly) afraid of the reception he would receive if he called you. He has put the ball in your court, and if I were you I would leave it there. You made a decision a dozen years ago and you have lived with it comfortably. I think a father living a few blocks from his children who makes no effort to have a relationship with them is a deserving candidate for the indifference you and your sisters have showered on him since he made his new life. Not everyone agrees with me, but I have long been in favor of estrangements when they make your life better. Blood relatives are given to us by DNA. Period. I support doing what improves your life, whether it’s being estranged or making a repair. That is up to each person to decide — and nothing I would let outsiders have a say in. — Margo, unswervingly
And Baby Makes Two
Dear Margo: I am a graduate student and have three years of school left before I get my degree, but I cannot stop thinking about having kids. I know that I have plenty of time, but I don’t know how I can wait much longer. I just got out of a serious relationship and am not interested in looking for another one. I just want to have kids. My own father was absent most of my childhood, and I do not see any benefit to waiting around for the right guy. I believe single mothers are fully capable of raising healthy and confident children. Please help me decide what I should do. — Baby Crazy
Dear Babe: I, too, believe that single mothers are capable of raising healthy and confident children. But I also get the idea from your letter that you are obsessing about motherhood in a way that doesn’t seem entirely integrated. There is no biological clock ticking, you probably have very negative feelings about the newly broken romance, you would be mixing scholarship and a new baby when there is no need to do so, and … the fact that you had an absent father may be coloring your thinking about the importance of one. As I said, a single mother (or father) can do just fine, but to have two parents is the better situation for everyone involved. I would hope that you give yourself some time before deciding on any course of action, and perhaps talk over your feelings — about everything — with a mental health professional. — Margo, maternally
Dear Margo is written by Margo Howard, Ann Landers’ daughter. All letters must be sent via e-mail to dearmargo@creators.com. Due to a high volume of e-mail, not all letters will be answered. To read more about Margo Howard, click here.
COPYRIGHT 2009 MARGO HOWARD
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
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Read more about: Children, Christmas, Dear Margo, Family, Father, Motherhood, Old Fathers, Parenting, Pregnancy, Relationships
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77 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment
Estranged, I agree with Margo that it is up to each person to decide on the necessity of estrangements or repairing relationships, and you must do what is right for you. However, I caution you to make sure that you have truely and fully resolved your emotions (not just hidden them away) before you make any decisions. If you had no feelings whatsoever in the matter, his card would not have bothered you so much. A counselor can help you reach an informed authentic decision. Such as: How would you feel if, after knowing your father held out an olive branch, your father were to die without you having talked to him or confronted him or made amends or had closure of any kind, because in essence, that seems to be what you believe your decision to be. It is a hard decision and I wish you the best.
Debra I think you assume that this card bothered her. She doesn’t say shes upset - she’s feeling guilty for not feeling upset.
Having been in this EXACT situation (3 years not 12 though) I understand what she’s going through. I was upset my father tracked my address down after we stopped talking and I moved because I feel its disrespectful; he knows he’s out of my life for good. But I have been completely indifferent to the cards he sent me at my mother’s house.
He could die tommorow. I wouldn’t be happy (except that it would mean my mother could finally have some peace), I wouldn’t be sad.
If the letter writer is anything like me once you get to the point of actually not caring the only feeling you have are guilt - as in "does this make me a bad person?"…which is an entirely separate issue from whether someone feels anything for the estranged family member.
Any and all feelings I had stopped after the first year with regard to the first kind of guilt I described. I don’t even care enough to write "return to sender" on the cards. They just go in the trash.
PS - thank you Margo for giving the view that relatives are just DNA linked people in your life…..if people in this world used "but they’re family" as an excuse for putting up with crappy behavior of any sort we could use the same excuse to encourage victims of incest to continue to have relationships with their attackers, or even take the next step and use the same line of reasoning to encourage women to stay in abusive relationships with their husbands.
Slippery slope.
I agree it’s best to really know if your feelings are resolved, but I also feel that if you feel the situation isn’t right or heathly for you, then you should, at this time ignore it. You may change your mind, you may not. I was in a comfortable place with my own estrangement with my father (parents divorced when I was in college, I saw him 2 times in past 20 years — though from time to time would send address/phone number (I live 200 miles away) he would ask my mother from time to time how I was doing). For me there were multiple reasons for not going for a "resolution" (he was unmedicated bi-polar/which caused a lot of things he couldn’t change in himself…). In my 20s I was indifferent. In my 30s I wrote poetry and spilled out a lot of other things. Now I am in my 40s. At the end of Feb. this year I was contacted that he was deathly ill — and went to see him and stayed to visit at the hospital and hospice through his brief, tragic ordeal which lasted about 3 weeks. We never "talked" about the past (for me there was nothing to say about those times). But it was a resolution of sorts, as we were together — although others don’t quite understand it. Not everyone has a family situation that can be understood — but if it makes sense to you - in a positive (not angry, unhappy, unsatisfied way), then that’s really all that matters.
Good advice on both counts…I think if "Estranged" is comfortable being estranged, she should keep it that way, because if she opens up communications with her father I have no doubts it would make her life emotionally difficult, at the least. It seems like her father just realized how much of a burden his guilt is, and sending that card was just another selfish action to try to atone for what he did…he betrayed her, and the ball hasn’t been in his court for 12 years.
As for "Baby Crazy," she should just wait it out…it’s possible that she could have a baby now and everything would be great, but this doesn’t seem like the time to do it nor the time to risk it. It’s a weird, primal urge…I’m 21, dislike/fear babies, and still get that weird tug on my ovaries (ha). But I recognize it for what it is: a biological, primal urge, and one towards which action should not be taken until it’s more than a simple evolutionary compulsion. There’s nothing wrong with having a baby by yourself, but Margo’s right in that two parents is the ideal situation. I don’t necessarily think she has to see a therapist though; this is a common problem, and she just needs to think really hard about why she thinks she needs a baby.
Good luck to both.
I say wait on the kids for while. If you feel the motherhood desire is getting to you, go volunteer at the local hospital’s kids cancer wing or the pediatric wing. Help those kids get through the serious traumas they face everyday.
Or, better yet, put an advertisement in the local college paper that you will babysit while parents go to college at night or on Saturdays. Don’t say you don’t have time to do this - remember that child raising takes up all of your remaining life. Babysitting of other people’s children and seeing how they act right before bedtime might help you make important child related decisions which could affect the rest of your life.
excellent advice. altho i swear all the kids i ever watched were prefect with me and if they weren’t i, being very stupid, said, "i will never have brats like these!" which of course backfired on me and i had brats. but still not as bad as most of what i had to deal with. babysitting never made me not want to have kids. for some reason (and i babysat alot in my teens) it just made made me want to have kids more.
a bigger point you made saying "don’t say i don’t have time for it!" if a student can say that now then they definitely do not need a baby. b/c if you don’t have time to babysit another kid once in a while. you certainly do not have time to deal with a baby. babies come you don’t have time to study, think, eat, shop, sleep etc. that alone should make you want to wait. instead of babysitting. spend the day with a student mother that didn’t wait or had a wonderful accident and let HER tell the story about just how tired she is and how much she loves her child but wished she has waited.
Margo you are right on for both of these writers! Estranged - DNA means nothing, it is how your father treated you that counts. It is one thing to divorce your mom and quite another to dump his children in the process. He in no way acted like a father and does not deserve the title.
Babe - Having a child sounds great but there is so much more you need to have other than love. I wish I had finished school before I had my child. I think perhaps you are trying to fill a void in your life or avoid something that makes you anxious, such as school/expectations of self/others. I hope you choose a good therapist and work this out before doing anything hasty and life altering.
Margo, I was relieved to read your reply to Estranged. It takes more than a title and/or DNA to truly parent a child. Dad walked out and did not look back, Dad gets what he gets what he put into the relationship at this point. As long as Estranged isn’t holding onto any anger is resolved with her feelings and ok (which from her letter it sounds like she is); keep on keeping on.
The second poster I agree with the other posts that state as well as Margo, children are wonderful little beings that are a whole lotta work. Better to finish the degree first and then figure out if you want to still be a single mother and are in that situation go for it. Get the degree/career first though.
Baby Crazy, I agree that you should wait until after she graduates and gets your life settled. That way you will be able to support, both financially and emotionally, a baby should she have one. I understand the wanting of a child. I am a single mother of 1 and would love to have another child (and my son wants me to have another one so he can have a sibling that lives with him instead of just the three half-siblings he has that live in a different state), but is not in a relationship and is not able to afford that second child at this time.
Even with a biological clock ticking, a parent most put aside their own feelings and do what is right for any child they currently have or wish to have.
Should something happen and you are no longer capable of having a child once she is settled, there is always adoption. There are many children out in the world that need loving parents, yet do not have them.
But once you are have graduated, gotten your career and your home in order, then go for it. More power to you. It will do both you and your impending child better in the long run that you waited so that you could give that child the best in life, yourself at your best and fullest.
When my mother died in 2000, I didn’t shed a tear and haven’t shed one for her since. She made me cry so much when she was alive that I didn’t have any tears left for her when she died. I tried to see her once a year, briefly, and for a few years I even took her traveling (neutral ground, rather than her home). I did so in order that I would be sure that, when she died, I wouldn’t feel guilty. Now, almost nine years since her death, I am both (i) glad that she is dead since her cutting words cannot hurt me any more and (ii) totally devoid of any guilt. The latter is important because guilt would have enable her to control me from the grave. Thus, "estranged" should look only to the future and to her mental health after her father’s death.
As for the graduate student. WAIT UNTIL YOU HAVE Ph.D. AFTER YOUR NAME AND CAN CALL YOURSELF Dr. before you think of having children. Right now, you think you need children but, please, think "do children need me?" You are not ready to have children until you finish the task you have set yourself, namely, completion of a Ph.D.
Emotional neediness is not a reason to do anything, ever. You may have emotional needs that you think children will meet but you are not, in your present emotional state, ready to meet their needs.
Get your Ph.D. and write the best thesis you can. Get the best recommendations you can and then, when you have a steady job, maybe in just three or four years, start your family.
If you insist that you can’t wait, go to a psychiatrist who will explain that you should meet your own emotional needs before you look to babies to do so for you.
When my father died in 2000, I cried. But it wasn’t because I grieved for him — it was because I couldn’t grieve for him and I felt cheated. He was a controlling, overbearing tyrant with a sadistic sense of humor, who made my life unbearable. It wasn’t until I was able to be free of him that I found peace. I stayed in contact with him only because of my mother.
I have a sister with whom I’ve been estranged since 1993, except for a couple of years when we were trying to take care of my parents (Mother had Alzheimer’s and died in 2001). She is also a control freak, and I’m much happier without any contact with her. They say that blood is thicker than water, but I’ve found much more satisfaction from my relations with friends than I ever did with my family. I always joke that we raised the term "dysfunctional" to new heights.