How is it that a woman can tell her daughter, “Your father can not be invited to your wedding?” Lemme give you some history. This chick, Steph, is engaged. Her mother raised her after divorcing her father. Steph never had a relationship with her father growing up. She’s not sure if it was that her mom didn’t allow it or her father didn’t want it. But Steph does recall her mother being less than encouraging of her having a relationship with her father.
Steph says she remembers her mother calling her father up on payday and telling him they had no food. Steph remembers helping her mom take all the food out of the fridge and cabnets and hiding it in a closet. Steph remembers on that day, her father walked up to the door, handed her the money, turned, and left. He never even came in.
Steph remembers when her mother re-married and her mother trying to get her to call the new man dad. Steph says right around that time, her mom was taking her father to court to get more child support. And right around that time, her father got engaged to another woman. Coincidence?
Let’s skip on to Christmas 2005. Steph gets engaged. Calls her mom to tell her the news. The next day, her mom called and no more than five minutes into the conversation, she said, “Your father can not be invited to your wedding. If he’s there I’m not coming.” Y’all, Steph and her man are paying for this wedding themselves. Steph’s mother is trying to have pull when really she doesn’t have a leg to stand on. Furthermore, Steph has a great relationship with her father. And it’s not Steph’s fault that her mother is still very bitter.
The way I see it, why should Steph suffer? Why should Steph let her mother bully her? Nobody forced her mom to marry her father–a man she barely knew but married because she got knocked up and in 1973 it was still the ‘right thing to do’. Nobody forced her to have ababy.
Steph has complained that her mother is still pretty bitter. I told her the way I deal with my mother’s issues with my father–when they surface. I ask her pointed questions. “So why’d you marry him?” “How does being pissed help you? Because it sure doesn’t hurt him.” I also like to throw in my theory on bitterness and how it contributes to cancer, high blood pressure, increased risk of stroke, etc. She usually calms her ass down with the quickness because she knows whatever she wants to blame on him, she has to take 50% of the blame too.
I just don’t get it. Maybe because I’m not a single parent. I just don’t get why a parent would try to force their bitterness onto their kids. So what you had to struggle. But you married/layed down with that person. Did you try to find out if they’d be a good parent before you did that? I mean did you really-really try to find out? If not, shut the heck up! And hell, I’ll give you a pass if you tried to find out and were just fooled. But I tend to believe there are signs that someone isn’t going to step up to the plate.
Ladies, don’t give me the nonsense about how men need to wear condoms or get fixed if they don’t want kids. How about, if there’s any doubt in your mind that this man won’t make a good parent, how about you not screw him, use protection, look into adoption, or ever end the pregnancy? Crazy ideas I know. Same thing with men. If there’s any doubt in your mind that the broad you’re laying up with won’t be a good parent, protect yourself from the life-long headache that would be sharing a child with her. Damn!
Don’t give me those songs and dances about how the child should feel like s/he suffered because the other parent wasn’t there. Unfortunately, the child gets to see your behavior, not the other parents. So while the child might not have memories of the MIA parent at every birthday party, school play, and PA meeting, they will have memories of you bad-mouthing the other parent, pulling capers (see the food scam Steph’s mom pulled), etc.
This whole thing with Steph pissed me off because when Steph talks about the best times of her childhood, guess what? She wasn’t with her mom. The best memories of childhood she has are with her grandparents–both sets–and aunts and uncles. Where was her mom? How much involvement did her mother have? Did her mom leave a good impression on her? Apparently not. But to try to use the sliver of a relationship they have now to manipulate Steph into not inviting her father to her wedding is crazy!
When Steph told me her mother said she wouldn’t come, I was like “…” Because really, were it me, and I’ve told Momma Hostess as much, that’s one less plate to buy for the reception. I goes hard like that. Whu-whut! Buck! Buck! Buck!!!
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