One of the thing that intrigues me is that, whenever someone discovers our kids are adopted (and were adopted at an older age) the first question is usually, “What happened to their mom?”
No one – yet – has asked me about their Dad. Ever. At all.
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Isn’t that a [funny/sad/common/typical] commentary on the world in which we live.
It’s altogether too common for the dad to fuck off, or alternately, for the mom to take the kids away from the dad, and thus life as a single-parent (ie mom) begins.
I don’t know what to say, other than the other shock about the kids is that they all have the same dad… which as you know… the fact that I’m shocked is another [funny/sad/common/typical] commentary on things.
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I read a lot of adoptive moms’ blogs, and it seems to me that most people, all over the place, focus on the birth mom and completely forget that there was a birth dad at all. (Most of the other blogs are infant/toddler adoptions, so the biological parents were never part of the kids’ lives, or are not remembered.) I will say that in non-adoptive families, the dads are usually given the shaft as well. But it is not nearly as pronounced an oversight.
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So…what did happen to their
momdad?Seriously, I am not surprised by this at all. I have 2 stepchildren who have lived with their father and I since they were small. People are always shocked that he has custody and not her and will ask what’s wrong with her. We also have custody of my 2 children from a previous marriage. No one has ever asked what was wrong with their dad. It’s usually just assumed that he’s out of the picture.
Suburban Turmoil Blog Hopping Weekend…Virginia
ps – My youngest daughter is named Violet – she’d love the purple hair :-)
pps – Yes I do have eleventy-million children. -
This is driven deeply into our psyches in this culture, isn’t it? We almost expect dads to be flakes and disappear, but when the mom does, we wonder what on earth happened.
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Ya. What Jo and Kikit said.
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Very sad comment on our society. Its so true on so many levels of parenting. Like, when a father is the single parent we are all so impressed with his dedication and hard work. With a mother, we expect it and so never even acknowledge it.
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