Monday, January 27, 2014

Not sure what to tell them...

At dinner tonight, we were watching a Disney show where some kids were about to become stepbrothers and stepsisters. Brigham quickly asks if being a stepbrother/stepsister means you fight with your brothers and sisters...Hmm, no not at all. I offered an analogy that if I had Preston and Nathan then met Scott and he had Will and Jackson and we were to marry; then those boys would be step brothers. "Oh, like Papa is your stepdad". Umm, no. All the boys, at this point, are now in the conversation asking me questions about Papa, and my real dad. Offering suggestions that I don't know him, that papa was my dad after I was born and other fictional guesses. 

I must admit I have offered very, very little information to my kids about my birth father. I was trying to answer their questions but not revealing too much information at the same time. I told them I know who he is but I don't have a lot of communication with him. I told the boys they have all met his mom, GG, in Santa Barbara before. And that I would probably never see him again and hopefully they would never meet him either. All at once, they wanted to know why. I said well, he's a bad man. I don't consider him a father or a dad to me and certainly not a grandfather to my boys. And actually, I have a nick name for him... SD. They all wanted to know the meaning of the abbreviation but I told them I would tell them that when they're at least 14 years old. They began trying to guess, Stupid Dad...Son of a Ding dong.... They sure are a funny bunch of boys. 

So this is my dilemma...what should I or should I not tell them about SD. You probably don't know a lot about him either. Not much to tell really. He is kind of a loser guy; in and out of several jobs. I guess he's one of those lazy guys, that mooches off his wife and expects her to do everything. His current wife is a lawyer and takes care of him. With his first wife, he had 3 kids.  Then he had me and then married another gal and had 2 other kids. He never did any fatherly kind of things for me; actually never did any human things for me. For example, one of his younger kids has the SAME birthday as me. He's said on the phone/email/letter happy birthday to me 2-3 times in my entire life, but never on the right date.  I remember receiving a purple bunny near Easter when I was super young. That's about it. 

I explained to the boys that I have never and would probably never call him dad or father because that is a title earned. Tyler quickly offered that Dad has deserved that title! Yes, Scott has!!

I've tried to have communication with him but it always ends up in an argument or something. Nothing is his fault. He usually cuts down on my religion saying that I should be more of a Christian and forgive him. Especially since I've only heard one side of the story.  He addresses me as "his daughter", that me misses and loves me, and he always ends with "Love, Your Dad". I've told him several times it's an earned title and not something he should just throw around. I have way more communication with his wife. This may sound harsh, but as of right this minute, I'll probably never communicate with him again. Maybe his wife, but I'm not worried either way. 

Do I tell my inquisitive boys about him? About what he did to my mom? About what he's done to me? I guess they should know, but it's not anything that is super important to me. He's just not part of my life and he never will be. 


2 Comments:

DoryQueen said...

No, I wouldn't tell them other than what you described in this post. Let the spirit guide. He gave you life and that's it They really are a bit young to deal with adult issues. I'd wait until they were much older. Knowing the whole situation, I think you've dealt with it all amazingly well. :)

Travis Hinton said...

I am so sorry that you are in this situation! What a hard question to ask and to answer. I believe in being honest to an age appropriate limit. You want to show the boys that you can be opened so in return they feel like they can be opened and not hide anything from you either. Also you don't want them to get curious and feel like this was always a topic off limits, to the point they feel like they need to find out on their own (even thought they are still do young now it might perk their interest enough to figure it out later.) But like you said, he is not a big deal and so I would make sure to not make the conversation a big deal either. This is just my opinion, but I think you know your family and the situation best and so I think you will know what you should do!