generalparenting

In most cases step parents become parents by marriage but in my case that just isn’t true. See my kids never knew their real fathers. The men who fathered them were never interested in being a part of their lives. Occasionally they would show up and pretend to be a parent for awhile but it never seemed to last long, breaking my childrens hearts every time it happened. My son was the last straw to this pattern. See his father had not been in his life at all since he was 6months old and suddenly showed up without any warning saying “curiosity got the best of me”. I can think of many reasons to want to be in your childs life but curiosity never entered my mind. Anyway, he talked to my son a couple times on the phone (only when my son made the attempts to contact him first) but eventually the contact stopped. He forgot my sons birthday. That was heart breaking for him. Now through all of this and in the past 6 almost 7 years I had become friends with a man who also became friends with my children. They have grown to love each other and on more than one occasion my friend expressed his feelings of being a father to my children. After my kids saw what my son’s father did and how he acted with such disreguard for my son my younger children, who are 12 and 13 came to me saying that my friend was more like a dad to them. My middle child said she was going to ask him to be her dad. I had never thought my kids would reach out to him like this, most kids when they get to a certain age, don’t want bothered with step parents but here it was not only did they want bothered but they chose who that step parent was going to be. They, later that week, approached my friend with the idea that he be their new father. He of course agreed having loved them as his own for years. So now my children have a father of which they have chosen and they couldn’t be happier and my friend has stepped up to the plate being a part of everything in their lives. All of the decisions pertaining to the kids are decided by him as well as me. We have a unique family still with mom, dad, and kids but mom and dad aren’t together nor were they ever and the kids got to choose who their dad is. It may be unusaul but it works for us and my kids couldn’t be happier.

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