by Roxan Finnell

Created on: June 15, 2008

It did not surprise me when he called today. Everything is about him. I recognized the phone number and when my son was going upstairs to get the phone I told him who it was. Kristoffer merely hit the off button on the cordless phone. There's probably a message on my voice mail. I'll delete without listening to it. There's no need to hear the same promises he never keeps and his latest hypocondria attack.

The last time he showed up he ignored his daughter, never once looking at her. He boasted about buying a house. He owes the kids years of back child support, but since he's been able to dupe the system into believing he's disabled while working under the table he doesn't have to pay. But he gets to buy a house. As I'm struggling to find a way to move closer to where my daughter is suppose to college, he gets to buy a house. My son was so angry by the way his sister was treated, as though she did not exist, he admitted to me later he wanted to hit the person ignoring her.

I suppose he'll call again. He has the audacity to expect the children to tell him happy father's day. This man who shows up when it suits him. The same one who promised them Christmas presents when I was having financial troubles then did not call for six months. Who, when they were small and we had nothing to eat, came over to brag about buying slabs of steaks to feed his friends with. He did not show up at the hospital when his son had surgery and did not even ask about his daughter's graduation from high school. Every opportunity he had to do the right thing and be not only a father, but a dad was thrown away to serve his own selfishness. It began before the divorce and if he knew the first words his son said when he left the house, what would he think? "Can we get a new dad now?" Years wasted thinking only of himself, that will one day leave him alone and wondering why the children never come to see him.

I have more respect for the ones who leave and never come around. When they hang around with the sole purpose of messing with their kid's head by making empty promises an excuse for everything and demanding rights they haven't earned. The ones that go away are the honest ones.

Being a parent gives no one an instant right to their children. It is being there for them by listening, showing you care about them and teaching them. Only then will the right to have a father's day or even a mother's day be possible.

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