Diving into the past.....

My father and I don't agree on our politics. He's a Trump supporter and against unions. I am terrified of the violence and hate that stems from Trump's campaign and I am very active in my local teacher's association. After teaching up in Alaska without a union, I vowed never to teach anywhere where no one had my back. But that's a separate post I will save for another day....

And I don't need my father to agree with me. That's fine. 

You see, my father didn't raise me. My mother did. They split when I was 5. My father stayed in Connecticut and my mother moved back to California where she was from. Their story was an East Coast man meets a West Coast girl. What do you do when the story crumbles? Each person goes back to their coasts, licking their wounds. 

Most people think that I was born and raised in California. Not so, I was born in Connecticut and my parents moved back and forth from coast to coast having their babies along the coasts. They met and married in California, had me in Connecticut, my middle brother in California, and my baby brother in Maryland. Then it was back to California, where I was raised.

miss ruark in kindergarten

When I was six, my mother met my future step-father, Robert. He worked long, crazy hours and wasn't a strong presence in my childhood. But he's since retired and actually drove me to my oral surgery last week, waited 2 1/2 hours, drove me to the pharmacy, and then took me home. He's a good man.

But there's a whole chunk that I don't really refer to. I don't hide it because I'm not ashamed of it by any means...it hurts in a different way.

But more background is needed: my grandfather is wealthy. As in old money wealthy. But he comes from the beliefs that being given a large amount of money isn't a good thing. He believed that people should go out and make their own way. So when his daughters reached the age of 18, they were expected to leave his house, get a job, and start living their own life. He didn't think women needed an education, so he refused to pay for college. My mother never went to college.

When my mother left my father she had 3 kids ages 5 to 18 months, no education, no job, and nowhere to live. Her parents weren't an option. So, she went on welfare and rented a trailer in a trailer park in West Pittsburg before it became Bay Point. 

My father refused to support us. I've heard his different reasons over the years...he didn't have a job but he's also said that my mother left him to run back to her father, my grandfather. He expected my grandfather to support us.

My grandfather wasn't around much in my childhood. He didn't come in and rescue us. Someone else did.

After a year in the trailer park, my mother found out she was being evicted. We were going to move to the projects when my mother's new boyfriend (Robert) said that we could all come and live with him and his daughter. 

My mom learned a trade (medical transcription) and built up clients. She got herself off of welfare. We moved to Benicia. We weren't as poor as we were before but we never had a lot of money. I would say we were lower middle class. Instead of being able to afford a child getting the Star Wars Trilogy for Christmas, one year each of us got a movie and we put them together and shared. My movie was Star Wars: A New Hope. That's how we got presents like that. We'd get one big thing we wanted. 

My father sent gifts and called but he didn't pay child support. I didn't see him again until I was in the 3rd grade. Then he came out again the next year for a day. He was a "Disneyland Daddy". He would shower us with gifts and be super amazing and then disappear for long stretches. I saw him again when I was in high school. He was bad mouthing my mom to me and the boys so badly that the boys started being mean to my mother. I felt bad so a lot of the presents I picked out for my father to buy me were actually gifts I picked out for my mom. 

In stores, he never turned around when we called out, "Dad!" I started calling him by his given name just so he would know I was talking to him. I've never called a man Dad. If you notice, I never refer to him as my dad. 

me and my brothers around the time of the split

Dads are something special. Dads stay. Dads know you. Any man can be a father, but only a special man can be a Dad. I saw that on a card once, and it's brutal truth stuck with me.

I've tried to have a relationship with my father. There have been years where I didn't hear from him, both as a child and now as an adult. He told me once the reason he didn't call me on my 18th birthday was because he didn't have anything new to say. We really only connect through Facebook. My brothers don't have a relationship with him at this time. 

Lately, my father has been slamming my political posts on my page. It's been pissing me off. I saw a post on his page complaining about people on welfare....that was hard, doesn't he know his own children were living off of welfare? Has he forgotten? He posted that fathers and daughters are best friends for life on his page. But he didn't tag me or anything, or post it to my page. It was almost like it was for his friends to see it, to show what a good dad he is. 

Facebook is my only contact with my father and he's not making it easy. Acquaintances of mine will see his comments, see that he's my father, and think he's my dad.

So here's my truth. I need it out there. I don't want to hide it. My father was a dead beat dad who told me once that he wished my mom had gone after him and thrown him in prison for not paying child support because then he would have had the time to work on his novel. 

Not everyone has to agree with me. Not everyone has to support me. But he doesn't get to express himself on my posts. He has his own page for that. To pretend whatever thing he wants to pretend, and I leave it alone.

Geez, daddy issues much?