Responsibility and Reward

I recently had a short conversation with Wyatt's dad. And per usual, I hung up the phone full of frustration and resentment.

Before going any fursther, I need to say that I in no way resent Wyatt. I made the choice to give birth to him and raise him on my own. I knew what I was getting into from the moment I saw those two pink lines. And I don't at all regret the decision, it's probably the best thing I have ever done.

My frustration comes from the fact that it seems so easy for guys to let women be the ones to deal with all the responsibility of children. This is by no means a sweeping sterotype, there are some guys who will step up, who want to be fathers. But it seems like a majority of men who end up in situations of accidental pregnancy are so willing and ready to just abandon the responsibility. Who want to act like they had no part in what happened and it can't possibly be up to them to help out.

This particular conversation was once again about Wyatt's father signing papers regarding custody. To give some back info, I never put this man's name on Wyatt's birth certificate partly for that reason, I don't want to be scared all my life that someone is going to come try and take my son away. He agreed that was fine and stated he had no intention of ever doing that. But to give myself insurance I asked him to have a document drawn up stating he is turning over all parental rights to me and will at no point in the future try to make any custody claims on Wyatt and he will not at any point contest and adoption by a future spouse of mine. I asked him to do this pretty much as soon as I found out I was pregnant. I told him if he was not interested in being a full time father he needed to have this document created and signed as soon as possible.

Needless to say, my pregnancy came and went, the day of Wyatt's birth came and went, as did his first 6 months now. So for over a year I have been contacting this person and hearing him tell me he'll get right on it and he's sorry, he totally dropped the ball, etc etc etc. And up till now I have continued to be nice and tell him to just keep me in the loop and call and email when he knows anything. I want to be able to be on good terms with this guy, he is Wy's dad and if he wants to get to know Wy at some point I would like to be able to be ok with that.

So when I talked to him the other night he PROMISED (again) that it would be done soon. And this time I plan to hold him to it. See part of the agreement was that I would refrain from asking him for money as long as he signed these papers for me. Well now a year later I'm a single mom, dealing with all the entails, mostly the fact that I am always going to be overworked and broke to make sure I can provide for my son. As far as Wy is concerned I really don't mind this. I would do anything for him, ANYTHING. But on the advice of several friends who understand my reasons for not trying to milk this guy for all he's worth, if I don't have these papers soon, I do plan to pursue legal action to get child support from him. Paternity test and all. I understand him not wanting to be involved, I have come to grips with that already. But to be so uninterested that he can't even be bothered to make his uninterest legal is past what I can handle.

One big part of my irritation is that he is off having a grand ole time, telling his friends and new girlfriend all about what happened and nobody seems to mind that he could care less about having a son. And I am now a single mom who has to work hard just to have a couple days of fun a week with my child. If that. Most of the time I am coming in for over time so I can continue to have a job. Jami actually had to remind me what a great reward I get though. I get to come home every day to a smiling happy wonderful baby who loves me every bit as much as I love him (until he's a teenager and it's all slamming doors and glares lol)

So I take on all this responsibility so I can have the wonderful reward of being a mom, a job that really I feel is the job I was made for. It's the most amazing thing I have ever done. And somehow in the middle of that, I have to find a way to not hate the man who didn't want to get to know this fantastic child. Not to mention prepare myself emotionally for the day he shows up out of the blue asking to meet Wyatt.

A lot of the time it feels like I got the short end of the stick, I get stuck with all the hard work, but I need to keep remembering that I got the good parts, I got Wyatt.