The Post I Took Down

On Saturday, I came across a blog post entitled "Dumb-Ass Stuff We Need to Stop Saying to Dads."  I agreed with it, so I shared it along with a thoughtful post of my own.  I agreed with it so much, that after careful consideration, I even shared my post on Facebook for all to see.  It wasn't more than 20 minutes, when I deeply regretted my thoughts shared and deleted both the Facebook post and my blog post.  Here are my words from that deleted post...

I have never underestimated the role of a father in a child's life, especially my own. I was a product of being raised by a loving, kind, and active father (and mother too). I have so many wonderful childhood memories filled with games, jokes, and stories that revolved around my father. He was consistently there for not only me, but my sister and brother as well throughout our entire childhood (and now into our adulthood) so I never expected anything less from the father of my own child.

Dale proved to be as loving and as active as my own father was. He was there right with me... staying up late, changing diapers, going to Dr's appointments, etc. We were equals as parents. A team.

After he died and I adjusted to parenting on my own, I realized that I could very well do this thing on my own. I could raise Ewan to be a wonderful man (even potty trained him standing!) all on my own. But... I didn't want to. As much love, support, and experiences that I could give him, there would always be a piece missing from not having a father-figure in his life.

While John's parenting approach is unique at times, lol, his influence has made a positive difference in my son's life. Ewan has changed over the past year, and for the better. His relationship with John is very different than ours and John's provides him with games, fun, perspective, and knowledge that I didn't possess to share with Ewan myself.

Never, ever underestimate the influence of a father in your child's life.

I meant every word that I wrote.  However, seven little words in paragraph two are what made me take down the entire post.  "We were equals as parents.  A team."

Yesterday I shared how so many of my memories are tainted with negativity.  I can't say that my memories parenting with Dale are tainted.  We had disagreements as we learned how to parent, but nothing out of the ordinary.  Yet, I still had to take down that post because we were not equals in our marriage.  We were not a true team.  If Dale were still here today, we would either be still married or divorced.  And to completely honest, in either scenario, I believe to my very core that those words, "We were equals as parents.  A team, " would not hold true.  That is why I had to take it down.  Even though those words were all true in context.  I couldn't share that with the word because out of context, it was quite a different story.