Even Without A Dad, Things Can Turn Out Right

In our society today, there are many extended families living under the same roof.  There also is a very high divorce rate in our society.  I mean, think about it.  As time goes on, life gets faster.  Time has always flown by, but now the pace of life has increased with many homes having both parents working and perhaps a single parent working multiple jobs.  You add that with the technology that speeds up everything and the stress of it all is just too much.  The divorce rate in our country today is nearly 50 percent.  Last time I checked I don't see 50 percent of our children failing in society. Things can turn out right if a divorced parent makes the right choices with their children.  I am a product of a divorce, an ugly one.  My parents were divorced by the time I reached the age of one.  As I get older, I keep learning tidbits of details of the divorce.  My mom remarried and adapting to a stepfather was tough.  What made the divorce tough was that my father drug the divorce out as long as possible and made life tough for my mom purposefully and he put me right in the path of it.  It was the only thing that my dad could do to "stick it to my mom" so to say and have it hurt.  This went on for years. For a while, my dad bought me a lot of nice things and as an innocent child, I accepted all of it.  I was a kid, I didn't realize what was going on completely and I didn't know the whole story.  I still don't know all of it and I am okay with that.  I have heard enough.  The divorce battle went on and on all the way until I turned 18 years old.  For a while, I felt lost.  I mean there was this massive battle that went on because of me and when you think about it...that sucks.  The focus of my parents were on a divorce battle instead of what was going on with me. I don't want to be selfish, but I missed out on a lot of opportunities because of that divorce.  My dad even decided to get remarried a few years after divorcing my mom.  If one divorce wasn't enough to have on my pre-teen shoulders, his second wife decided to leave that marriage, and I had to hear my dad tell me that it was because of me and the problems he was having with my mom being so difficult.  I couldn't even comprehend this and I couldn't believe it.  Again, only being an innocent child, I had no idea what an impact this was making on me.  Life at home, living with my mom and step dad, wasn't easy either.  The fighting of the divorce plus living in a house filled with stress caused by high demanding jobs was difficult and sometimes scary.  Every dinner, instead of talking about my day at school, I had to sit there and be quiet and listen to everything going wrong at LSI Corporation.  My mom was busy after she got home from work with making dinner and looking at the mail, so there was no time to talk about my day.  This is why I felt lost.  I felt that the difficulty caused by my father from the divorce created a lot of anger from my mom and stepfather.  Many times that anger was taken out on me.  I wasn't the most social kid, because I wasn't really taught those skills like I should have been.  In high school, I was a pretty straight and narrow kid that stayed out of trouble.  By rights, I should have been rebelling.  I should have been smoking and drinking because those opportunities were there.  My own stepfather didn't even trust me driving any cars in the house, and to this day, I don't know why. Being older now and been more mentally developed, all I can come up with is the fact that it was due to being pissed off at my dad for the pain and harassment he was causing.  It was years of build up by the time I was able to drive.

I had a good core of friends in high school.  I am thankful that I was at a small rural school because it really helped take the stress away of a large school.  Remember, I wasn't the most social youth.  For some reason, I chose to make positive choices.  I think the reason why I made positive choices is because I was, without knowing, wanting to help other kids who were in similar shoes as I was.  I didn't want another person to go through what I had to go through.  My closest friends knew none of this about me.  I didn't want to bring them down with my deal.  So I became involved in the community, became the official youth representative for the community of Rockford, as I wrote about in my Youth Action Force blog posting.  It sucked.  I was reviewing a video I had made with a friend to promote our Youth Action Force group and my stepfather came downstairs and told me to, "get that stupid shit off the TV now!"  He followed with, "Nobody gives a shit about that garbage."  I was devastated and felt like I had no one to tell my feelings to.  Even then, I forged forward and still took pride in my positive choices.

Getting back to my father, he attended my high school graduation.  I lost it and cried at graduation because I wasn't ready for that next step in life.  I didn't feel like I had a support system in high school, now I am supposed to go out on my own and be alone more.  It hit me immediately after the graduation ceremony was completed and it scared the crap out of me.  So, I went to start college at North Hennepin Community College in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota and my dad owned an auto body business about five or so minutes away from the college, so I had an arrangement with him to work there after classes.  Because of the ugly divorce, none of the three parental units were supportive or cared if I went to college, it wasn't important to them.  If it was, it was never verbalized seriously.

My dad started his business when he was young.  The funny part of the story is that it was my mom's father who gave him a loan to start his business.  Think about that, the father of the person he was so angry at afforded him the opportunity to have his own business.  When it came to repayment, my dad told my grandpa that if he could screw him out of that money, he would.  Thankfully, there was a written agreement in place.  While working for my dad after college classes, he let his detailing guy go and I became the detailer for all the cars that were finished with repairs.  One day while working, I was out back behind the shop helping my dad load a satellite dish onto a trailer that he was going to scrap, I think.  If you remember satellite dishes from the 80s, they were giant!  And heavy!  Anyways, I was standing on the trailer trying to lift this stupid satellite dish onto it and my dad pulled forward while I was standing on the trailer holding up this big ass boat anchor.  The motion caused me to lose my balance and my grip and the weight of the dish caused me to tear a bursa sac on my right hip.  This injury caused me to need about eight to ten weeks of physical therapy for two or three times a week.  When I got back from the doctor appointment with the diagnosis, I explained to my dad that I had to attend these therapy sessions.  His response was, "this isn't go to work for me."  He fired me from my position at his business.  I was shocked and hurt once again.

To get back to my original point and to close, I had a shitty childhood.  I had a lot of battles that I had to go through alone.  I didn't have support, I was hurt, it was stressful, and I should have been in trouble.  My dad and I have had a few encounters in the past 10 years.  The first time of talking after being estranged for about nine years, we sat at a restaurant and he continued to blame everything on me.  That was two weeks before my wedding.  He still came to my wedding along with my two uncles and aunt.  After that, I saw him a couple of times.  I always went to him, he never came to see me with the exception of my wedding.  The last time I saw him, I crossed paths with him about three or so years ago at restaurant only a mile and a half away from my house I just moved into.  I invited him to come see it, he replied with, "maybe some other time".  I have since moved from that house, he never saw it.  It was my first house.  That was the last time we talked.

With all those battles, struggles, and missed opportunities as a youth, I chose to do positive things.  I didn't have support, I just did what I felt was right and I am glad it was positive.  I have been back at college for three years now trying to complete my teaching degree.  I worked for a couple of school districts, including the school I work at now.  My job as a paraprofessional involves with working with a lot of troubled youth.  The ones that really need the help.  My crappy childhood and situations fuels me everyday to help the youth I work with.  I take it seriously and I believe in professionalism with the responsibilities of my job.  I am self driven, I was not taught these skills as a child.  I would say the best coping mechanism that I discovered that helped me the most, that I use to the present day, is humor.  It may be dry at times, but I like to make people laugh because it is an escape for me.  Besides, I would rather be in situations around people who are happy and I want to be around people who enjoy being around me.  My co-workers are kind of forced to be around me, contractually, but I call several of them my friends.  I did okay.  Things could've been different and I wish some things were.  However, I often tell the students that I work with that what is done is done, you can't change it, so the focus needs to be what lies ahead.  This is what I need to do and it is what I do.  At the end of the day, even without a dad, things can turn out right.

#listentoyourkidsandwhattheyhavetosay