Two Parent Families

In the 1950’s, it would be safe to say that the majority of families were two parent households. To assume that, that this is the logic that is still employed today is ridiculous. The reality of the situation is that most families consist of either a single parent, or divorced parents that are remarried. This is not a bad thing because a family is a family regardless. For me, I had two parents up until I was ten. I believed that I was one of the lucky few who still had a quintessential family. But, being a kid you really have no idea what is going on. You have a smoke screen over what is really happening. In part, your parents attempt to shield you from what is actually going on, but there is also a small belief in the minds of children that everything will always be okay. You never think that your family is going to fall apart.

My dad use to travel, or what I thought was travel. I thought that he worked all the time and him not being around was nothing new to me. Honestly, I don’t think that my dad was around more than two out of ten years of my life. He was the guy that forgot your birthday, or Christmas. That may be, in part, why I hate Christmas so much. He made the choice to have other families. He made the choice that the one that he had was not enough. He was gone because he felt that he had obligations to the other people, even more than he had to my family

People survive just fine with one parent, but my one parent was dealing with more important things. My brother needed her and that meant that getting the attention that I needed was not a main priority. I put a lot of stock in the fact that my dad was going to come through for me because I needed at least one person to show some kind of care. He never did. I found out later in life that my dad suffered from addiction and depression. He never could actually be a parent because he was too consumed with his own demons to notice that anyone else was suffering. I always thought that he was selfish for just leaving all the time and never being around, until I became an addict myself. Once you cross that line, everything that he did made sense. It didn’t make it okay, or even better, but it did make sense.