“I Owe My Absent Biological Father an Apology.”

 

Thirteen years have passed since I had “the conversation” with my biological father. My biological father, a man who had absolutely no interest what so ever in being my father since the very moment I was conceived and ultimately delivered onto this earth. He proved this by not only disappearing to never be heard from again, but when I found him in 2008, he even told me to my face, “I have worked aggressively over the years to prevent you from ever finding me.”

Over the past thirteen years, I have come to somewhat gain insight into what would actually cause a man to behave this way towards an innocent child, essentially his very own child. I can now understand to some extent, how this man would even go so far as to reject and even disrespect that now adult child to his face when standing right before him on his porch. Well, not exactly on his porch. More like the walk way that led to the beginning of the steps to the porch.

When I stopped being emotional. When I stopped mentally punishing him because society says that he was a deadbeat for what looked like abandoning me, logic kicked in. I have now realized that he was not rejecting me. He really did not abandon me. He was rejecting fatherhood at that time when he was a teenager. He was rejecting being made a father without his consent. Yes. He participated in the sexual act, but he was not having sex to become a father. He was having sex for the pleasure of it. That is it.

I actually took the time to take a critical look at the reality of men being the ones who do not get pregnant. I took the time to realize that childbirth is actually the female’s choice. I realized that he was actually behaving normally. My biological father was only doing what teenaged males and grown men have been doing with teenage girls and grown women for many years. He and my mother were teenagers just having sex. She has also admitted that they were two kids “just doing something” as it related to their little teenage fling all those years ago. He was not having sex to become a father. He was having sex to get an ejaculation. She was not having sex to become a mother either. I cannot pretend that this is abnormal behavior because the teenager he had sex with some 51 years ago was my mother. Today, over 77 % of black children have been born to single mothers and mainly out of two people who were just having sex or “just doing something.”

You see. The man can only become a father should the female decide to deliver the baby. In actuality, my biological father was made a father without his consent. He was made a father without his permission. As a result, he apparently decided that he was not going to be forced to be a part of that situation. Oh, and my mother did not attempt to force him to be a father back then or ever. She understood that she made the decision to have sex and eventually to have the baby. My biological father decided on his own, that he was not going to be a part of a situation he never signed up to be a part of. So, he went on about his life.

Sadly, today too many males are bullied and even shamed by society into taking on a situation that they did not sign up for just because of  having sex with a female. I am a firm believer that a baby should not be used as a bullying tactic or as punishment for a man having sex with a woman who consented to have sex with him. Hundreds and thousands of a men are being held hostage legally as a result of current child support laws that obviously favor women, but the punish men for having sex with a woman who decide to have a baby that he never wanted. What’s even more interesting is that these very same child support laws don’t hold the women responsible for actually having a baby that the man actually does not want. 

I do not think that this is legal practice is fair at all to men. If having a baby was not a part of the plan at all, I do not think that a man should have to pay money to a woman for a baby she decided to have on her own without his consent. I think if she decides to have a baby that the man does not want, she in actuality also decides to foot the bill that comes with having a baby. I know. This sounds too much like right or better yet, it sounds too much like equality.

I have to give my mother credit. She is the epitome of a female taking responsibility of deciding to have her baby. She never called him. She never spoke ill of my biological father. As a matter of fact, she never even mentioned him at all. Hell, my other family members (grandmother, aunts and uncles) never mentioned this dude either while growing up. I just happened to find out about him, at the age of 22 during a telephone conversation with an aunt who accidentally let it slip out who my biological father was. My mother basically did it all herself with help from family and some state/public assistance. She never depended on my father to help her.

Of course, many of you will read this and think, “Damn, Rico!” “You don’t owe him an apology for anything!" "He is the one who should be apologizing to you!” I guess this sentiment can be true in some context. Well, based on what I know now and coming from a different place in my life mentally and emotionally, I owe the guy an apology. I owe him an apology for publicly implying that he sucked as a father. How could he suck as a father when he was never in my life? I owe him an apology for trying to publicly embarrass him on public radio in the city where he sides because I felt disrespected. However, I do not apologize for looking him up in 2008 and creating the opportunity where we finally got to meet in person for the very first time to have that much needed conversation.

After that meeting, he should have been allowed to crawl back into his hole and continue to live his life without me. He never owed me a thing. I was never in his plans. Actually, based on how I came about, I was not in my mother's plans either. She just made the best of a situation she decided to participate in creating. The four children my biological father created in his two marriages were in his plans. He wanted to be their father. I am glad that he decided not to make four more children fatherless. I am glad (for their sakes) that he was in the position in both marriages (mentally, emotionally and financially) to decide to want to be a father to them. I am that glad he was presumably allowed to make the choice in those two situations.

I know this is going to be hard for most people to read because many of us in today's society are so caught up in this misnomer that the man should be automatically emotionally attached to a child that is created because he and a woman decided to have sex. Truth is most people having casual sex ARE NOT doing so to create a baby. They have casual sex to for the pleasure of reaching orgasms.  Contrary to popular belief, men actually know who they actually want to have children with and who they don’t want to have children with. However, the man is often not allowed to make that choice. His choice is actually made for him by the woman he happens to be having sex with at the time. 

The turmoil with child support and this frighteningly normalized creation that’s often referred to as, “baby mama drama,” are the results of men being legally forced and socially shamed into being fathers to the children of women that many of them never intended to be. Since the woman decides when she will become a mother, there is no thought ever given to the man about how he may feel about her having a child without his consent when it was just casual sex. The man is not offered the right of refusal. When he has the guts to verbalize that this is not what he wants, he is immediately raked over the coals and called a deadbeat. Furthermore, he is able to be threatened by the woman with legal action.

This unfairness needs to change. Bringing children into this world should discontinue being a casual affair. Far too many children, better yet, far too many black children, are being brought here without fathers because she decided to do what she wanted to do and not do what was best for the unborn child. Trust me. Whenever a single/never married woman decides to bring a child into this world without a father or at least a man who actually wants to be a father, the psychologically damage is long lasting.

To make it plain. It hurts. It hurts for a long time. It robs the child of so many things that a mother can never replace. It brings about an emptiness that a mother’s love alone can never fill. Anyway, absent biological father, I apologize for any inconveniences that I may have caused you since 1969 when I was born and in 2008 when I showed up on your door step and rang your doorbell.

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** This article is an excerpt from a short story I wrote. IF you would like a copy of my EBook (Short Story) **

"The Greatest Pain I've Ever Had: A conversation with my absent biological father who never wanted to be found

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