That's an old picture of my father. I don't recognize that person. It was taken probably over a decade before I was born. When I show this picture to people who know me, they say, "You got his ears."
My father was a deadbeat dad. The Wikipedia dictionary defines a deadbeat dad as "A man, especially one who is divorced or estranged from his partner, who fails to provide monetary child support when he is legally required to do so." My father got a head start on being a deadbeat dad before his marriage ended. He proved unable to provide for his family.
Why was that? Because he was a drunk. An alcoholic. Drink began to control him long before I came along, & drink caused my mother to leave him around the time I was four years old. After the divorce he was ordered to pay child support for me, my sister, & my brothers, but he never did. My mother complained about it, but she knew he didn't have the money so didn't fight it - she despised him but didn't want him to end up in jail.
One of my greatest regrets is that I never really talked to him about his life. Not that he would've been terribly forthcoming but who knows. What I know about him I know mainly from conversations I have had with my sisters. My mother was something of an unreliable narrator - he hurt her quite deeply. The stories my sisters have told me have some degree of unreliability too - he preferred them to his sons & they returned his adoration - but neither of them - my late sister Pat or my sister Karin - had any illusions about his disease. So while I take their stories with a grain of salt, I understand they're told with a modicum of love my mother or brothers couldn't muster.
For myself, I didn't feel any resentment about the lack of child support because I don't think I knew I was owed it. My sister Pat in around 1986 or 1987 - or maybe later - negotiated a deal with my father that he would loan me some money I needed for college. I think we understood he was giving it to me, not loaning it. I certainly did not worry about repaying it. I simply had to go to his tiny apartment - he had been sober for some years at this point - to get it myself. It was a weird & uncomfortable moment.
My father died in 1991. He was 64. Years of alcohol abuse took their toll. My fundamental feeling about him is one of regret. I simply never knew him. & I feel a little guilty calling him a deadbeat dad but. You know. By definition, he was.
My father was a deadbeat dad. The Wikipedia dictionary defines a deadbeat dad as "A man, especially one who is divorced or estranged from his partner, who fails to provide monetary child support when he is legally required to do so." My father got a head start on being a deadbeat dad before his marriage ended. He proved unable to provide for his family.
Why was that? Because he was a drunk. An alcoholic. Drink began to control him long before I came along, & drink caused my mother to leave him around the time I was four years old. After the divorce he was ordered to pay child support for me, my sister, & my brothers, but he never did. My mother complained about it, but she knew he didn't have the money so didn't fight it - she despised him but didn't want him to end up in jail.
One of my greatest regrets is that I never really talked to him about his life. Not that he would've been terribly forthcoming but who knows. What I know about him I know mainly from conversations I have had with my sisters. My mother was something of an unreliable narrator - he hurt her quite deeply. The stories my sisters have told me have some degree of unreliability too - he preferred them to his sons & they returned his adoration - but neither of them - my late sister Pat or my sister Karin - had any illusions about his disease. So while I take their stories with a grain of salt, I understand they're told with a modicum of love my mother or brothers couldn't muster.
For myself, I didn't feel any resentment about the lack of child support because I don't think I knew I was owed it. My sister Pat in around 1986 or 1987 - or maybe later - negotiated a deal with my father that he would loan me some money I needed for college. I think we understood he was giving it to me, not loaning it. I certainly did not worry about repaying it. I simply had to go to his tiny apartment - he had been sober for some years at this point - to get it myself. It was a weird & uncomfortable moment.
My father died in 1991. He was 64. Years of alcohol abuse took their toll. My fundamental feeling about him is one of regret. I simply never knew him. & I feel a little guilty calling him a deadbeat dad but. You know. By definition, he was.
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