This one is a bit long as you need background, so bear with me...
A few weeks ago a very good friend of mine was listening as I complained to my wife about her lack of planning when it came to my step son's college education. As some of you may know, if you die and leave behind a minor child, they get your Social Security Benefits until they are 18 or they graduate high school. So it was with my son's father.
I may have alot of things that I can knock the guy on...he was a drunk, did not care for his health like he should have even though he knew he had a heart condition, maybe did not provide as he should have for my wife/his girlfriend/fiancee/mother of his child, did not push her to achieve at a time that had he done that I would have maybe had a better/easier time of it, oh and he hid that he was married for 8 years from his live in girlfriend....I can cite all that but the guy was not lazy and left behind a nice monthy check for his son....for his son.
Now 14 years later, I will give NQRW a break on the first few years alone when she needed that check to make ends meet, he is looking to go to college. He is not looking to go to Harvard or Yale or Duke, but to a nice small community college near home.
Tuition is in the $4,000 a year range before books. There are parents reading that number that just passed out at how little that is next to their tuition bills, I know !
But want to guess how much is put aside for him to go?
NOTHING
Now I know that many here will say that it is as much my fault as NQRW's that this happened, and you may be correct. But since I met her I have said that he gets this check with his name on it every month, we should put some aside. I was told it was being planned and I would say OK. I then would ask again a few months later and I was told the same story. This happened for years until I finally gave up. I put a little aside myself for this but an emergency three years ago wiped that out so that $ 2000 was not available now. And I was not getting a check with his name on it put in my bank account every month. One of the many reasons I kept our money seperate was that check and the fact that putting it in an account with my name on it might have brought about some sticky situations.
If she had put but 50$ of a check that at the start was about 900$ a month aside every month he would have more than enough to go to college without even factoring in intrest! 13 years, 50$x12 months comes out to 7800 dollars ! But there is nothing !
So when I brought this all to the attention of NQRW I am told that she knows she should have done better but she can not go back now...translation as far as I can tell: I did nothing and now you need to come and save the day and take out loans and make my bad planning go away!
*Said with her hand out*
So this is the discussion my friend happened to overhear when he was over doing some work that needed to be done to an outlet.
This friend knows that NQRW and I are not doing well and after he was done we went out for a quick beer and he looked at me and asked me if he could comment on what he heard about the college situation.
I said feel free.
He asked me the question that is the title of the blog: Do I want the title of dad and nothing else or do I want the job?
This got me thinking about fatherhood
Now this hit me hard as I love being a dad, in fact one of the reasons I think I jumped into a marriage with NQRW was that she made a point to say that she did not introduce anyone to her son until she was pretty sure that they had a future of some sort. Then when this lil boy started calling me dad I was sold, and when I got cold feet I kept saying I could not make this kid not have a dad again so I stayed and figured I could work out the isues that I then saw as minor in NQRW.
I also HATE that I can not have kids of my own due to a medical situation.
I am constantly torn up when I see men that will not make half the father I am have kids while I can't ! Recently I found out that with alot of work and pain and tests and chance and expense I could be a dad, but NQRW is at that age where she can have kids but it is not smart for the child or the mother, plus I have a neice that was a "a baby will make this all better" baby and I do not need a child that is one ! A baby solves nothing and at best patches a few holes in a bad marriage and at worst makes the holes bigger !
But am I good dad ?
I put my heart and soul into a boy that was not my flesh and blood. I treated him like he was my flesh and blood. If the worst happens and NQRW and I split I made sure he already knows that as long as he wants me to be, I am still dad.
So is it bad of me to say that I am sick of making up for NQRW's poor planning, that she needs to look her son, her flesh and blood in the eye and admit that she did not provide a means for him to go to college? Is it wrong that I do not think it is my sole responsibility to put myself in further debt to make up for her mistake? Am I being selfish? Am I not doing the job of dad while still asking for the title?
There is a solution that I have considered, that being that I stop fighting the tide, divorce NQRW, that way the household has less income by alot and he can get the finicial aide that my income now prevents. But is that solving a problem with a problem?
I look around and I see many types of dads.
I see the new dad of thoughts.com Geordiedreamer and I smile as I know he gets it. I know Stan is one lucky boy to have him.
I look at my own dad who is a great man that gave me some great foundations to be a good person and more of a blueprint on how to be a good dad than my sone wishes he did. My father had a saying that went
"If you you want to do something you will do it !"
My son has more than once wished he never taught me that saying as I use it on my son constantly.
Was my dad perfect? No, but he tried, especially with me as I am not sure he ever really got me or gets me now.
I look at one of my sisters' boyfriends. He left his wife while she was pregnant with triplets for another woman, that woman being my sister.
There is a lousy dad !
I would give him the Father of the Year award but that is taken on this site.
So where does this all put me?
I am not sure
Yes I want the job of dad as well as the title, or I would not have got into the freezing cold tub that Christmas Eve night with my son because he would not get in unless I did and he needed to get that fever down or have no Christmas. I just wonder where the job "ends" in a sense. I know it never ends, but it is not a sentence either
I am not sure what there is to comment on in all this waffling but feel free.
I was going to save this for Father's Day but I wanted to get this off my chest now, Thanks
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