Stepfathers and fatherhood
“Even some fathers’ rights advocates write stepfathers off as no good.”
Such is the lament of Tony Zizza.
Make no mistake – there are men out there who are unfit to have a pet cockroach, let alone be a father. But those are really few and far between. Too many good and decent fathers get short shrift for what they do, and the vast contributions they make are often invisible or ignored.
Stepfather is a tough job. BUT – if there is a Dad in the picture, a good and decent man like the vast and overwhelming majority of fathers, you are not a stepfather. You are the kid’s mother’s husband. And you’re encroaching on a good and decent man, by trying to be a father to HIS children. And unless she sprung those kids on you after you tied the knot, you knew that job was dangerous when you took it.
They have a father. And you are no more a father to them than you are to the kids across the street and down the block, and all the wishing in the world won’t make it any different.
I’ve been in both shoes. And until you have, as a father, felt the anger of some man being given your role by the woman who kicked you out of your family’s life, you may not understand. You hear one side of the story there, and are forced by circumstance to take that side of the dynamic, with the other side unheard. But trust me – being told by Mom to take Junior to the Father-Son Breakfast because his father won’t is going to earn you great emnity from the man who really would have wanted to go – if he had really been informed of it.
I don’t have an easy solution for stepfathers – but I can tell you this for sure – a father who loves his children is going to resent you for trying to usurp his role. And so will the kids.
You want Father’s rights groups to stop painting you as the bad guy? Stop joining the feminists and the ex-wives club in being their enemy.
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