different
Posted: Fri Feb 23, 2007 12:13 pm
Normally one would start with "Hi" or "Hello" but its too perky to fit my place in life. Im a 49 year old man who started a life with my girlfriend and our daughter nearly 19 years ago. Our daughter is now nearly 18. Unlike many here I suppose, Im different. Im actually guilty "according to the modern concocted laws". Not one denial was made on my behalf of the incidence that took place that destroyed my father/daughter relationship and any and every aspect of the remaining years of my life. Its a long story and I just cant get into all the details without boring everyone to death, but there is a story here and Im going to tell it so take your time and read at your leisure or ignore it, either way, Im telling it.
First let me say: when a teenage girl aims for freedom of parental control regardless of the cost, the answer is only one action and a phone call away and all their wishes will be granted by perfect strangers, all of whom in this case never even raised a child and were clearly incompetent for the job had the opportunity knocked.
My daughter was at the time 15 and had a boyfriend that was 17 ... but little did I know he was a senior about to be 18 and graduating (by the skin of his teeth). My daughter was honor roll at school ... until this relationship.
MEMO : SCAN BOYFRIENDS WITH FINE TOOTH COMB, BEFORE ALLOWING A SINGLE PHONE CALL, DATE OR ANYTHING ELSE THE DEVIOUS LITTLE ONES CONCOCT AS A WAY TO GET TOGETHER
That summer, the summer of 04 when we were told about a graduation party was when Dad finally began to get the picture. We're at the boys graduation party which was mostly this boys family members and Im doing my observing, a fathers job, yea thats what fathers do, look around and see what going on ..... well ...... I was not happy in the least, the boy displayed strange behavior for a highschool graduate and his Grandmother from his mothers side of the family shocked the heck out of me by requesting that I allow my 15 year old daughter to do a few weeks away from home in the summer with her 18 year old boyfriend at their Long Island home. Well I don't know about you guys but I was raised in the 60's and 70's in rural America and this kind of thing was unacceptable. I politely laughed at the woman and simply said "you got to be kidding me, no way".
back to my observations of this boy : This boy as we came to find out had severe psycological problems. A mother that was legally diagonosed as manic depressive and he had similiar problems, maybe worse. Couldnt keep a job (after graduation), cried like a baby when he didnt get his own way, chewed his nails endlessly, staring up into the sky oblivious as to what was going on around him even in a crowd or event. I was freaked right out as I began to spend time around my daughter and this boy. The relationship had already began and I was just becoming wise to the age situation and his mental problems. I was horrified, we have all seen the movies about mental boyfriends, when their girlfriend finally has had enough and drops them. So my daughter in the true spirit of her mother and father was trying to help this lost puppy, something I understood because at one time when I was younger I was a bleeding heart and tried to help so many people any way I could ........ but time makes one wise to this and you become aware of patterns and understand when help is beyond what you can offer. Still and all I can think of no one that would be happy with their high potential child of 15 setting their life on hold to rescue someone with severe psycological issues. We all know that the world today is not as forgiving of lack of education as it was 20 years ago and frankly as a father of a 15 year old I didnt need the extra trouble this baggage was going to add to my fathering job.
I should make note now that I am and always have been blue collar labor of some sort. I ran and worked my own small logging and pulpwood business for 20 years till corporate and wall street aMErica did their usual stunt and moved all the paper mills to south america for cheap labor and higher dividends. Since then I have had this and that jobs, like carpentry, truck delivery, basic labor and shop labor. During the time this occured I had a job driving truck for blacktop paving of interstates which is done at night and in 12 hour shifts, so I rarely saw my family. I had about 20 minute from the time my daughter got home from school till I left and usually my wife ws not home from work yet. We had brief periods on Saturdays and Sundays but I crawled in around 8:00 in the morning on Saturdays and went to bed. Then Id be sitting at the kitchen table pondering the meaning of life late Sat night and Sunday morning while they slept. Not much of a life, a chrime in my opinion, it was driving me crazy. This was also when unknown to me I was loosing control of the family decisions. After seeing the behavior of this boy I wanted it stopped but felt you just cant or shouldnt tell your daughter who she can or can not see. My rule was they had one day per weekend to spend together, that was it. I wanted her to spend time with her girl/ girl friendships at that time in her life, thts how things were when I grew up, boyfriends and girlfrineds were secondary not primary. Well, while I was working her mother allowed them to see each other constantly and the relationship grew way to serious for a 15 year old girl.
So school came back around, my daughter was in her 10th year (sophmore) and I put an end to any week time visits and only allowed the one weekend day for them to spend time together. Well this was the beginning of the challenge. I could see right away that my daughter was not spending much time with homework.
Note: We never married, I have a feeling about marriage I'll keep to myself but let me just say, we never got devorced either. so herby Ill call my "wife ... spouse ... significant other " "her mother" because its more accurate and less syllables than significant other or any of the other terms and "girlfriend" is not accurate, a couple that spends nearly two decades together, raises a child and all the ups and downs of life is more than a "girlfriend"
Work was rained out one night and I could see she was up late on the computer talking so I ended that, then I found her on the phone and had to stop that. Then to my disbelief the phone rang at 6:00 in the morning and it was this kid giving a wake up call. I was about to jump right out of my skin, "what the hell was going on in this town? " I felt like I was living in a foreign country in another time zone .... yea ... like the twilight zone.
One day I was out doing some work before work and she didnt come home on the bus. Her mothers work shift varies, when their work is done they are done and sent home so some days are shorter than others. Well her mother comes home and after awhile says "Im going to get Kayla", Im already a bit wise to it all and say "where?" She replies sheepishly "up to Johns" so I have my say as strong fathers do "I said she was not to see the boy during the school week and was to concentrate on school and her work at home ........ PERIOD!" She was actually given permission by her mother against my wishes to ride the school bus to this kids house after school. Yea I was mad and not ashamed to admit it.
When Kayla and her mother got home I once again began to lay donw "the laws". "No week time visits, one day a week on weekend only, no late nights on computer or telephone and no morning wake up calls, this relationship was out of control and not appropriate for a 15 year old girl ... and furthermore if the school grades and assignemtns suffer you will be grounded and you wont see this boy until the marks come back up .... period !" at which point my daughter replied with the look of a witch on her face "you just try it" I thought at the time it was strange I had never seen her react like that and was wondering what she meant by "you just try it" ... well I found out! She only needed to keep her grades up, something that was never a problem in the past.
Sure enought the first report cards came out around Thanksgiving and she had two 50's and a host of missing assignments. Another stunt that was always carried on in the house was this first report card that comes before Thanksgiving week would always never show up until after, that way we dont get in trouble over the holidays. Well anyhow that was it, I was grounding her which meant their weekend day together was over till I saw improvement in test scores and work assignments. I should make note at this time this was the girls first grounding, she had been sent to her room various times during her live for bad behavior but nothing serious. this was the first grounding, this was the first time I ever had reason to ground her. This was the first time she came home with anything below mid 70's(math) and most classes were always high 80's and 90's.
So she was sweet as Grandmas apple pie all week and weekend, so nice and volunteering to help with all the projects her mother and I were doing on the weekend. It was unbelievable, it was like we had our daughter back. But Im no dummy, I know what butt kissin is when I see it, still I did not expect anything that was about to happen. Come Thursday night (I was back on days for about a month at this point) she came up to me after less than 8 day of her grounding and said "Ive done this and that and all my homework and my grades are great, can I go to Johns Saturday?" at which point I said "I know you have been good but there is no proof your grades are better, it takes more than a week to go from failing to passing let alone maintain a decent grade" Well she went into a tantrum and started wreaking the house and verbally abusing her mother and myself with words I never would have dreamed of saying to my father let alone lived to tell about it (joke). For whatever ever reason, shock and desire to stop what was going on imeadiately I stood up and poped her in the hard part of her head ................ Ok so now everyone reading this is buggin "this is the kind of guy that gets the rest of us in trouble" Wanna know how hard I hit her ? She didnt go down, not even sure if she blinked, her eyes got huge and her face already a rage got more intence and she began to pound on me, which didnt hurt either, her mother ran in and trid to contain her and we struggled till she was on the ground and stopped fighting. Her mother had her around the waiste/legs and I had her by the pony tail with my body back out of the way from her wailing arms. At this time I said "Ok thats it, Im going up to Johns house and talk to his father and set down some ground rules, this relationship is way out of control"
When I got back Kayla was not home and I asked her mother "wheres Kayla?" she said "she said shes going to the hospitol to take picture"
and that was the end of life, family, and relationships as I had known it, from here on I would live in a twilight zone governed by rules and laws that felt like a bad out of body experience, Only those who have been here would understand, the words to describe fail to be found because they dont exist in the real world, only that of the CPS superheros. Maybe thats it ... a comic book reality.
Anyhow judge me as you will, i never hid anything from anyone, perhaps had I lied I would have faired better. My daughter and "wife" are back at home. She is struggling with the reality of the damage she unknowingly inflicted on the family. After a year she came to the reality of her wacky boyfriend which as Daddy perdicted turned very ugly and violent. She tried to quit school last year around a year after the "intervention". We, her parents mainly me fought hard to get her back in school after she refused to get out of bed or move for over 21 days. The school worked with me because they were well aware of the boys problems and what it had done to Kayla as well as her former standing school record. She even abondoned her friends. Incase you all didnt figure it out yet, this psycotic boy used suicide threats and stimulation on my daughter if she would not help him and was not allowed to see him. I knew this somehow, I knew something was wrong with their relationship, fathers have intuition too ladies. I knew he was clingy. I could tell by all the time needed on phone and how so many of the conversations seemd to go bad and have a bad effect on my daughters behavior.
I never blamed my daughter once and I felt bad for my reaction though I knew it was well controled and to the point, not something I did because I get my kicks out of it and she was not in damger once, I could have inflicted more pain with a simple spaking but whos gonna spank their 15 year old daughter thats in the middle of a fierce tantrum ?
Who I blame is the adults that were told the issues at hand and the stress myself as a father was under. The adults that saw and heard the boys suicide threats after they could no longer see each other becasue she was under "protective care" (double edged sword .. children!). He did a suicide attempt and called CPS constantly crying like a 4 year old. The wacky Grandmother called CPS constantly to see if she could adopt our "abused" daughter and told them how she had to help save my daughter from her "abusive father" ....... yarite ! Well these adults ignored all of that and went for the kill, they needed to teach me a lesson ......... which was what again ?
Its been about 2 1/4 years now and I am not the person I was, nor is the family. My will and enthousiasm is gone. Life takes enthousiasm you know. Im now on the list with drunks that beat their kids a few times a week just because. I wrote this in late fall around two years from the time this happened.
. . . . . . . . . Gone . . . . .
How could one begin to understand?
From where I stand, it all seems clear
Yet contradiction prevails
Leaving me hopelessly numb
A life built on pride and dreams
Swiped clean in one heroic moment
They’d never been there, they’d never seen
Yet had all the answers and rewrote my scene
Gone was the past, it carried no weight
Gone was today, it bore too much pain
Gone was the future, branded to damnation
Gone was it all, yet still I breath
All I’d done, all I had gained
Would pale by comparison
To this monumental moment
By which they would claim their fame
Now this, the monument of my life
Becomes the peak of my obsession
All would center on this day, the day
They took it all and threw it away
Scars on the skin … fade
Can’t get it back
Scars on the soul … control
Can’t get it back
Gone in a moment, branded the name
Gone into history, never be the same
Gone is a reason, life’s only pain
Gone in a moment … yet still I remain
First let me say: when a teenage girl aims for freedom of parental control regardless of the cost, the answer is only one action and a phone call away and all their wishes will be granted by perfect strangers, all of whom in this case never even raised a child and were clearly incompetent for the job had the opportunity knocked.
My daughter was at the time 15 and had a boyfriend that was 17 ... but little did I know he was a senior about to be 18 and graduating (by the skin of his teeth). My daughter was honor roll at school ... until this relationship.
MEMO : SCAN BOYFRIENDS WITH FINE TOOTH COMB, BEFORE ALLOWING A SINGLE PHONE CALL, DATE OR ANYTHING ELSE THE DEVIOUS LITTLE ONES CONCOCT AS A WAY TO GET TOGETHER
That summer, the summer of 04 when we were told about a graduation party was when Dad finally began to get the picture. We're at the boys graduation party which was mostly this boys family members and Im doing my observing, a fathers job, yea thats what fathers do, look around and see what going on ..... well ...... I was not happy in the least, the boy displayed strange behavior for a highschool graduate and his Grandmother from his mothers side of the family shocked the heck out of me by requesting that I allow my 15 year old daughter to do a few weeks away from home in the summer with her 18 year old boyfriend at their Long Island home. Well I don't know about you guys but I was raised in the 60's and 70's in rural America and this kind of thing was unacceptable. I politely laughed at the woman and simply said "you got to be kidding me, no way".
back to my observations of this boy : This boy as we came to find out had severe psycological problems. A mother that was legally diagonosed as manic depressive and he had similiar problems, maybe worse. Couldnt keep a job (after graduation), cried like a baby when he didnt get his own way, chewed his nails endlessly, staring up into the sky oblivious as to what was going on around him even in a crowd or event. I was freaked right out as I began to spend time around my daughter and this boy. The relationship had already began and I was just becoming wise to the age situation and his mental problems. I was horrified, we have all seen the movies about mental boyfriends, when their girlfriend finally has had enough and drops them. So my daughter in the true spirit of her mother and father was trying to help this lost puppy, something I understood because at one time when I was younger I was a bleeding heart and tried to help so many people any way I could ........ but time makes one wise to this and you become aware of patterns and understand when help is beyond what you can offer. Still and all I can think of no one that would be happy with their high potential child of 15 setting their life on hold to rescue someone with severe psycological issues. We all know that the world today is not as forgiving of lack of education as it was 20 years ago and frankly as a father of a 15 year old I didnt need the extra trouble this baggage was going to add to my fathering job.
I should make note now that I am and always have been blue collar labor of some sort. I ran and worked my own small logging and pulpwood business for 20 years till corporate and wall street aMErica did their usual stunt and moved all the paper mills to south america for cheap labor and higher dividends. Since then I have had this and that jobs, like carpentry, truck delivery, basic labor and shop labor. During the time this occured I had a job driving truck for blacktop paving of interstates which is done at night and in 12 hour shifts, so I rarely saw my family. I had about 20 minute from the time my daughter got home from school till I left and usually my wife ws not home from work yet. We had brief periods on Saturdays and Sundays but I crawled in around 8:00 in the morning on Saturdays and went to bed. Then Id be sitting at the kitchen table pondering the meaning of life late Sat night and Sunday morning while they slept. Not much of a life, a chrime in my opinion, it was driving me crazy. This was also when unknown to me I was loosing control of the family decisions. After seeing the behavior of this boy I wanted it stopped but felt you just cant or shouldnt tell your daughter who she can or can not see. My rule was they had one day per weekend to spend together, that was it. I wanted her to spend time with her girl/ girl friendships at that time in her life, thts how things were when I grew up, boyfriends and girlfrineds were secondary not primary. Well, while I was working her mother allowed them to see each other constantly and the relationship grew way to serious for a 15 year old girl.
So school came back around, my daughter was in her 10th year (sophmore) and I put an end to any week time visits and only allowed the one weekend day for them to spend time together. Well this was the beginning of the challenge. I could see right away that my daughter was not spending much time with homework.
Note: We never married, I have a feeling about marriage I'll keep to myself but let me just say, we never got devorced either. so herby Ill call my "wife ... spouse ... significant other " "her mother" because its more accurate and less syllables than significant other or any of the other terms and "girlfriend" is not accurate, a couple that spends nearly two decades together, raises a child and all the ups and downs of life is more than a "girlfriend"
Work was rained out one night and I could see she was up late on the computer talking so I ended that, then I found her on the phone and had to stop that. Then to my disbelief the phone rang at 6:00 in the morning and it was this kid giving a wake up call. I was about to jump right out of my skin, "what the hell was going on in this town? " I felt like I was living in a foreign country in another time zone .... yea ... like the twilight zone.
One day I was out doing some work before work and she didnt come home on the bus. Her mothers work shift varies, when their work is done they are done and sent home so some days are shorter than others. Well her mother comes home and after awhile says "Im going to get Kayla", Im already a bit wise to it all and say "where?" She replies sheepishly "up to Johns" so I have my say as strong fathers do "I said she was not to see the boy during the school week and was to concentrate on school and her work at home ........ PERIOD!" She was actually given permission by her mother against my wishes to ride the school bus to this kids house after school. Yea I was mad and not ashamed to admit it.
When Kayla and her mother got home I once again began to lay donw "the laws". "No week time visits, one day a week on weekend only, no late nights on computer or telephone and no morning wake up calls, this relationship was out of control and not appropriate for a 15 year old girl ... and furthermore if the school grades and assignemtns suffer you will be grounded and you wont see this boy until the marks come back up .... period !" at which point my daughter replied with the look of a witch on her face "you just try it" I thought at the time it was strange I had never seen her react like that and was wondering what she meant by "you just try it" ... well I found out! She only needed to keep her grades up, something that was never a problem in the past.
Sure enought the first report cards came out around Thanksgiving and she had two 50's and a host of missing assignments. Another stunt that was always carried on in the house was this first report card that comes before Thanksgiving week would always never show up until after, that way we dont get in trouble over the holidays. Well anyhow that was it, I was grounding her which meant their weekend day together was over till I saw improvement in test scores and work assignments. I should make note at this time this was the girls first grounding, she had been sent to her room various times during her live for bad behavior but nothing serious. this was the first grounding, this was the first time I ever had reason to ground her. This was the first time she came home with anything below mid 70's(math) and most classes were always high 80's and 90's.
So she was sweet as Grandmas apple pie all week and weekend, so nice and volunteering to help with all the projects her mother and I were doing on the weekend. It was unbelievable, it was like we had our daughter back. But Im no dummy, I know what butt kissin is when I see it, still I did not expect anything that was about to happen. Come Thursday night (I was back on days for about a month at this point) she came up to me after less than 8 day of her grounding and said "Ive done this and that and all my homework and my grades are great, can I go to Johns Saturday?" at which point I said "I know you have been good but there is no proof your grades are better, it takes more than a week to go from failing to passing let alone maintain a decent grade" Well she went into a tantrum and started wreaking the house and verbally abusing her mother and myself with words I never would have dreamed of saying to my father let alone lived to tell about it (joke). For whatever ever reason, shock and desire to stop what was going on imeadiately I stood up and poped her in the hard part of her head ................ Ok so now everyone reading this is buggin "this is the kind of guy that gets the rest of us in trouble" Wanna know how hard I hit her ? She didnt go down, not even sure if she blinked, her eyes got huge and her face already a rage got more intence and she began to pound on me, which didnt hurt either, her mother ran in and trid to contain her and we struggled till she was on the ground and stopped fighting. Her mother had her around the waiste/legs and I had her by the pony tail with my body back out of the way from her wailing arms. At this time I said "Ok thats it, Im going up to Johns house and talk to his father and set down some ground rules, this relationship is way out of control"
When I got back Kayla was not home and I asked her mother "wheres Kayla?" she said "she said shes going to the hospitol to take picture"
and that was the end of life, family, and relationships as I had known it, from here on I would live in a twilight zone governed by rules and laws that felt like a bad out of body experience, Only those who have been here would understand, the words to describe fail to be found because they dont exist in the real world, only that of the CPS superheros. Maybe thats it ... a comic book reality.
Anyhow judge me as you will, i never hid anything from anyone, perhaps had I lied I would have faired better. My daughter and "wife" are back at home. She is struggling with the reality of the damage she unknowingly inflicted on the family. After a year she came to the reality of her wacky boyfriend which as Daddy perdicted turned very ugly and violent. She tried to quit school last year around a year after the "intervention". We, her parents mainly me fought hard to get her back in school after she refused to get out of bed or move for over 21 days. The school worked with me because they were well aware of the boys problems and what it had done to Kayla as well as her former standing school record. She even abondoned her friends. Incase you all didnt figure it out yet, this psycotic boy used suicide threats and stimulation on my daughter if she would not help him and was not allowed to see him. I knew this somehow, I knew something was wrong with their relationship, fathers have intuition too ladies. I knew he was clingy. I could tell by all the time needed on phone and how so many of the conversations seemd to go bad and have a bad effect on my daughters behavior.
I never blamed my daughter once and I felt bad for my reaction though I knew it was well controled and to the point, not something I did because I get my kicks out of it and she was not in damger once, I could have inflicted more pain with a simple spaking but whos gonna spank their 15 year old daughter thats in the middle of a fierce tantrum ?
Who I blame is the adults that were told the issues at hand and the stress myself as a father was under. The adults that saw and heard the boys suicide threats after they could no longer see each other becasue she was under "protective care" (double edged sword .. children!). He did a suicide attempt and called CPS constantly crying like a 4 year old. The wacky Grandmother called CPS constantly to see if she could adopt our "abused" daughter and told them how she had to help save my daughter from her "abusive father" ....... yarite ! Well these adults ignored all of that and went for the kill, they needed to teach me a lesson ......... which was what again ?
Its been about 2 1/4 years now and I am not the person I was, nor is the family. My will and enthousiasm is gone. Life takes enthousiasm you know. Im now on the list with drunks that beat their kids a few times a week just because. I wrote this in late fall around two years from the time this happened.
. . . . . . . . . Gone . . . . .
How could one begin to understand?
From where I stand, it all seems clear
Yet contradiction prevails
Leaving me hopelessly numb
A life built on pride and dreams
Swiped clean in one heroic moment
They’d never been there, they’d never seen
Yet had all the answers and rewrote my scene
Gone was the past, it carried no weight
Gone was today, it bore too much pain
Gone was the future, branded to damnation
Gone was it all, yet still I breath
All I’d done, all I had gained
Would pale by comparison
To this monumental moment
By which they would claim their fame
Now this, the monument of my life
Becomes the peak of my obsession
All would center on this day, the day
They took it all and threw it away
Scars on the skin … fade
Can’t get it back
Scars on the soul … control
Can’t get it back
Gone in a moment, branded the name
Gone into history, never be the same
Gone is a reason, life’s only pain
Gone in a moment … yet still I remain