Deadbeat Dads

by | May 3, 2026 | Essays | 0 comments

Deadbeat Dads

 

When I got divorced, the woman took our dogs and wouldn’t let me see them.

 

Those dogs were my family, and I loved them dearly.

 

I called and called, and she just kept ignoring me.

 

It taught me a lot about family and about life.

 

Dads always get a bad rap.  It’s always the “absentee father.”

 

Getting my dogs taken from me was the first time I realized that maybe the Mom played a pretty big role in the Dad’s absence.  In fact, she might have been the decision maker.

 

It’s possible that the Dad was doing everything he could to see the kids and be part of their lives, and the Mom was doing everything she could to prevent that from happening.

 

It’s possible that the Dad was a completely decent human being, and the Mom just made him out to be the bad guy.

 

Maybe the Mom even vilified the Dad to the kids and tried to turn them against him.

 

If my dogs were humans, they would probably think I abandoned them.  That wasn’t the case at all.  There was someone doing everything she could to keep them away from me.

 

From now on, anytime I hear about a “deadbeat Dad’’ I will always have to question the Mom’s role and entertain the possibility that she had a lot to do with it.

 

 

 


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