Watch this later.

Watch "Donald Duck - Mathmagic Land" on YouTube

Be Yoko Strong

It's just not necessary to punish people for years for things that can't be, nor would be, undone.

Father of Mine.

Nothing takes the place of a parent in a child's life, even a less than perfect one. I never knew my biological father. I didn't even know I was missing a biological father most of my childhood. He and I live in the same city. I've even met him once. However, I do not know him, and he seems to be fine with that. I'm fine with it as well. Okay, I'm not fine with it, but I'm thirty-something years old, I don't have time to dwell on it, and it doesn't really hurt anymore. The only time it hurts is when I try to look through the eyes of children. I see these kids with part-time parents. Mothers that work too much, socialize too much, and would prefer a sitter to the child's father. They just don't offer to include him in the daily ups-and-downs of the kids' lives. I see kids whose fathers aren't interested in raising their kids, and are content with visitation with them instead. They live completely separate lives. Their children don't know their father as a person; they only know where his television remote is and how to log on to his computer. I see mothers and fathers that spit, curse, and accuse each other of crimes against their kids, without prioritizing the kids at all. They imagine pain the children might feel, exaggerate situations, and use it all toward the other parent as ammo, never once actually stopping to think about, or talk about, what the children do truly feel. I see men throw up their arms in disgust and exhaustion. They give up on children they love because they just don't have what it takes, mentally or maybe financially, to live in combat zones with the child's mother. We all know that raising fatherless children is a cancer within society. It's far-reaching and deep. Women own half of the blame for this cancer. We love to blame men in this this age. We love to label every man a deadbeat or a sperm-donor. We love to curb-stomp their hearts for our amusement or pride. We want the child support check, but not REAL support of our children. We don't want his opinions and he dare not criticize ours. We love to accuse them all of unspeakable abuses. We love to draw horns on, and hand a pitchfork to, any man that rejects our affections or that we're tired of looking at. Women, men do NOT have to agree with your parenting choices to be good dads. When you don't agree with their choices, they are still good dads. Women, men are NOT responsible for your emotions once the smoke has cleared from the wreckage of your failed relationship with them. So you can take the "you shoulda thought about that before....." and shove it up your baby-maker. It's irrelevant now. It does nothing but prove you still have a tie to whatever past the two of you had. It's nothing in relation to raising your kids, so stop it. Women, your children are not your possessions or extensions of yourself, or extensions of your self-worth. If he loves the kids, but not you, it's okay. Your relationship is long over. His DNA did not dissolve from your children, however. The balance of parental power does not tip in your favor, simply because his balance of favor tipped away from you (or yours from him). Some men stick it out. Some have what it takes to deal with the crazy-as-batshit babymamas of the world. Good on them. Men are not women though. They don't thrive on the drama. They don't have tanks large enough to keep enough fuel for the emotional fight. While they are still expected to keep trying, for the kids' sake, if we want what's best for our children, we wont make it impossible for them to do so. Would my mother have been one of those psychos exes? I don't know. Perhaps, in the beginning. I don't know if my biodad was this sort of man who felt bullied or feared it. I don't know if he gave up easy, or if he simply never tried at all. All I know is that it DOESN'T MATTER why or how a father is kept from his children. I know that it is painful. I know that the scab never really totally heals and scars over. I know that the void cannot be filled by others. I adore my step dads. I love them to the moon and back, but it DOES matter that we don't share genes. It DOES matter that there is another man out there with which I do. I am very sure that the hole in me led me down destructive paths in life. That is why no matter how much I dislike my childrens' fathers, and believe me, I do, how much I disagree with their parenting at every turn in the road, I can never, never take lightly the importance of those men being fully active participants in raising them. So .......basically, stop being such a bitch.

It's okay if I'm not okay. Good thing I'm great.

I make no excuses for myself and my past behavior. I can't. I've spent a lot of my life being a grumpy, know-it-all asshole. I would, however, like to think that most of the time I have good intentions. Great intentions even. That said, if I am to assume others also live under the umbrella of good intentions and am obligated to offer them grace accordingly, why then do I feel as though I'm still playing the villain in this play? Maybe someone should be informed that the rest of us moved on to the next act quite some time ago.