Daddy Issues

(Please note, when I refer to the initials of someone's name, it is to protect the identity of those I'm referring to. )

What is a father?

That isn't something hypothetical, some deep "hey think about this" tactic a blogger may deploy on occasion, it's a question I genuinely don't know how to answer. To create a child with a woman a man need only supply one ingredient, but that equates to the title "sperm donor". I don't know or understand what a father is. 

 I can't remember when I was told this information, but what I'm about to tell you is just a given fact, something that has no real emotion attached to it because it's just a part of who I am. The sky is blue, 1+1 = 2, and my father threw me against a wall when I was two years old. It's just a fact, I don't get upset or angry when I type or speak that to people. I also remember various tales of him beating the absolute shit out of my mum. Growing up my mum was very provocative in arguments, knowing all the right buttons to push to just piss you off and she would use them with often little to no provocation. I would never use that as an excuse to bring her physical harm (though in my teenage years, I'm ashamed to say it came close) I can see how a man with a short fuse partnered with such a provokateur could have explosive results. The bizzare, if not, depressing  result of this one was that I don't think my mum ever fully fell OUT of love with my father despite what he did to me, to her, and to my younger sister (who she had been carrying when the notion took hold of him to beat his pregnant girlfriend).  

I spent my earliest years with my mum and my grandparents (who we would live with on occasion). All I knew about my father was that he was in prison because he had "hit somebody". That was all I was told until the age of around 10. Although I remember a few of my mums boyfriends growing up, I still remember in the ages of around 4-7 going to see my dad in prison. Me and my younger sister would go and play with some toys in the corner of this expansive hall. I can remember the toys being old and the lighting being dim and depressing. I remember all the prisoners wearing light blue shirts, and I'm not sure if it's memory or an imprint from movies whether or not I saw the prisoners wearing coloured bibs. I can also remember seeing my mum kiss my dad, on the mouth, passionately (mixed messages?). Me and my sister would be sent away to play so they could "talk". The details of the amount of time and frequency of these visits I must confess is a complete  blank to me and I don't care to ask my mum for the details. But I bring them up here because that was pretty much the only memory I had of my dad growing up.

I can remember other kids at school would talk about their dad and what they did or were going to do at the weekend or in the evening. I just had no concept of what they were talking about. I can remember being round friends houses and how the presence of a man always put me a little on guard. Around Christmas and a few of my birthdays me and my sister would receive a phone call from daddy. I can't tell you a single thing about any of the conversations we had but I can probably assume it was very general chit chat to the effect of "you ok? how's mum? are you behaving yourself? good boy". Sometimes we'd receive hand-drawn pictures. I'm not sure how many but I do remember being really impressed with this picture of sonic he'd sent, also a jewellery box he'd hand made of match sticks. I can remember bits and bobs of these interactions with the man who was my "father" yet, I still have no idea what a father IS.  

After the phone calls (I have very, very vague memories of this but my mum has filled me in over the years) I would turn violent. Violent toward my sister and generally aggressive toward anyone else. A degree in psychology isn't necessary to see that that little blonde boy expressing such aggression was just a sign of a scared and confused child. Looking back, I think it was all just too strange to comprehend, I didn't "get it".(as if I do now?)

One of the later of mums boyfriends, an old friend of hers sort of moved in with us was kind enough to help my mum give me the gift of two more beautiful younger twin sisters S & K. But as my mums luck with men struck again, the relationship went foul before they were born. Toward the end of the pregnancy my mum got close to DM . He was only about 10 years older than me at the time. A cocky, blue eyed 18 year old who was a school friend of my uncle. Shortly after S & K were born their biological father committed suicide, which left DM an opportunity to slip right in and become a father to S & K, but not quite to me. 

DM was a saint. He loved football, 80's movies (which were a little before his time) and attractive women. A pretty good companion for a lost young man. My mum wasn't an easy woman to live with, she was demanding and a little lazy, she would always mean well and be sincere with her excuses as to why she couldn't help "tidy up more" but all the same, not much gets done on her initiative. So growing up, whenever DM would have a day off work, when I came home from work the house would be spotless, the music would be playing or the football would be on and the council estate maisonette we lived in would really feel like a home. DM gave me more than I can ever thank him for, he was kind and patient with me. We always got along, even, when reaching my teens, I genuinely despised watching/listening to/ talking about football, giving up my team (Tottenham Hotspur) in favour of rock music and Playstaion. We'd still go to the cinema and he would still be a great shoulder to cry on. He was so generous and giving that though he could be emotionally distant, he was always warm and friendly with very frank and often stern advice always ready to dispense. He did a lot for me growing up but... Maybe it's an age thing, maybe it's because I always used his first name instead of "Dad" (which he was always fine with) but he was never my "dad" or my "father". He was more of a brother figure. A fucking good one. He gave me something very key to my understanding of my real father too. I'm just sorry him and my mum couldn't work things out and still be together. He was good for her. 

I can remember around the age of 10, I overheard DM and my mum saying something to the effect of "he needs to know" and my mum submitted "fine", and didn't seem happy about it. Up until this point (and pretty much ever since) my mum had painted my dad in quite a positive light. What I was shown by DM that afternoon (I picture myself in school uniform, but I could be wrong) was a womens magazine "Take a Break" or "That's Life" or something like that. A cheap, trashy women's magazine not unlike the ones my mum to this day has around the house. In them, readers send in their personal tales of woe including plastic surgery accidents, rapes, life threatening incidents (usually to do with domestic abuse) etc. and they receive money for their story once printed. One such story (the one I was allowed to read that day) was one of a woman, her baby, and her boyfriend. The boyfriend living with her was not the child's father. The baby's name was Jack, and as I remember the story, this lady who had a flat above a shop went out to get some shopping one day. As she was walking back she could hear her baby crying. Crying really loudly, and then suddenly... not crying at all. She rushed back to the flat. I don't remember if the baby was in the boyfriends arms or whether he had been put back in his cot, either way, he wasn't moving. 

The baby was not dead. He was, in fact  severely brain damaged. The type of brain damage one acquires from being shaken by a full grown man. The man. The boyfriend. My father. One of the most important and freeing things DM gave me was that real, solid insight into who my father really was. What he had done, and why he had been in prison.

So, how about grandad? The loving, gentle man who was my Nans second husband (therefore not my biological grandfather at all) who I love with the entirety of my heart? Was he my "Father"? I'm not sure. he would always take me and my sister to school, walk to the shop for us (mum didn't work or anything but if she can get someone else to do something for her, she's ok with it going down that way) and he would always sit and listen. But after I reached the age of around 11-13 I came to the realization that he just couldn't offer me the kind of emotional support and guidance I perhaps needed. I really don't want to come across as thinking myself better or smarter than any of my family (as I sincerely believe that not to be the case) but I started taking interests in science, news and religion and no-one (including my mum and grandparents) could really engage with me on any meaningful level on those subjects. They were always talking about  the council, the lives and affairs of other people on the estate, lots of "he said/she said" banter about other people in the extended family. I have always felt loved, but just not engaged in a way I needed. I love my Grandfather.

With this mish-mash of "sort of" male adult figures and insight to my real father, I got on with life. I never once stopped to feel sorry for myself. As the years rolled on those things were just facts, I didn't brag about them or use them to emotionally blackmail people. Many a friend has heard me say "my father threw me against a wall when I was two" but it's not said with malice. Just as a fact. Let's go to the age of 16, and as a semi-adult I meet my father face to face for the first time. He was friends with a family that live two doors down from my grandparents and was helping his friend fix his van. I had said since his release from prison "I think I wouldn't mind talking to him". I'm not sure what I wanted from any conversation but... I don't know, I think I had this urge to come face to face with him. 

The build up:

The description I had of my father was thus; He was a tall, muscular man with long, dark brown, slightly curly hair. he had dark skin for a white guy (as do my mum and sister. I'm Casper the easily sunburnt ghost). He was the kind of guy that wore size twelve boots (one of which he once stomped on my back, I actually remember reading a police file to verify that) and that he was a funny, smart, charming guy. 

Who did I meet standing by a tool box? 

A bald, goatee'd chubby guy with 5 gold ring piercings in each ear, even at 16 years old I looked over him ( I was probably around 6"2 foot at the time). He spoke like a real London boy, a lager and football loving "geezer". He was absolutely not what I pictured at all. All through my childhood, family friends and my mum would be very quick to say "you look so much like him" "you're the spitting image of your father" "your dad used to do/say that" "don't do that, you look like your father". I Saw it. I saw it around the eyes, I saw the shape of his nose and mouth, the very same ones I see in the mirror. I also saw my sister. but I did not see ME

.My heart was pumping like you wouldn't believe. At this time I'd started to question things my mum had told me over the years, I'd heard her tell different versions of events to people where I was THERE for the event and knew she'd distorted the truth or remembered the details incorrectly. So I thought it'd be fair to ask for his side. We talked for a while, I can't remember the bulk of the conversation but I remember mum, and later DM walking by behind me and into my Nans house. Mum asked if I was ok, I don't remember turning to look at her. I can remember DM saying "everything alright?" and I reply that it was, and P, my father, talking to me once DM had left asking, agressively "what's he gonna do?". I replied

"he's only trying to help"

The bit of the conversation I can remember is P saying to me "you're not going to listen to me, you've got your mums side of the story so you don't want to hear mine". I had expressly said I did. We talked for a while about how tough mum is to live with, about how hard it is talking to her, we even cracked a joke or two, but I concluded saying "I don't hate you. But I don't love you, and I really don't feel as if I need you in my life". I'd gotten by without a "Dad" for so long that I really didn't need him. Especially knowing all that I did. The conversation finished and we shook hands. He looked me in the eye and told me how proud he was and to look after my mum. I took no pride in watching, from my Nans window, him lean onto his friends car and weep. It gave me no satisfaction, but it didn't inspire sympathy either. This was the bed he made because he couldn't control his temper. 

I lived in fear for a few years worrying I was going to turn into my father. He was 15 when I was conceived  and 16 when I was born. My mum was 23. I try not to pass judgement on the age gap because I don't know any of the contextual or emotional circumstances around it. I know that growing up, when the age of 15-16 were far, far away that it seemed like that would be the turning point when I would become this monster. He became the Mr Hyde to my Dr Jekyll. It took another 5 years or so for me to come to the conclusion:

 I'm now in my twenties and I'm a pretty decent guy.

 I'm sometimes quick to anger but as my friends will attest, I become a bit of a sarcastic nob, but I hurt with my mouth. Not my hands. Also I'm very quick to over-think and apologise. P has fathered 6 children that I know of, and because he is on the child offenders register isn't allowed to see his youngest two (after prison he gave me something I wanted for years. A little brother. 20 years my junior. Whom I may never meet) without adult supervision. This led to a break-down in the relationship with the kids mother, I work with the kids grandfather and he's told me of how P likes to play the victim And how nothing is ever "his fault". I've spoken to mutual friends a family members, people who know him, and that really does seem be the consensus. He can never see when he is in the wrong and he's currently going from girlfriend to girlfriend doing his thing. His facebook page has a little part in the "about me" section saying he's tired of being the bad guy and is trying to be good. Trying to move on. 

The child he gave brain damaged to died some years ago. I hold the personal philosophy that hatred requires giving energy equal to love to someone you don't really like, I really tend not to hate anybody. He will not get my efforts, my emotion or my energy. But as far as I'm concerned, there's a mother out there without her little boy. A mother whose last years with her son were with him in a wheelchair, in and out of hospital. 

Try to imagine my anger and surprise when I found out about 2 years ago that my sister had made contact with my father and that she, he, and my mother had been having the odd catch up. I told my sister she was an adult so I wouldn't tell her how to live her life, but that I didn't like the situation. I could have spent years insulting him, spreading lies and rumours or... hell, spreading truths to try and convince her he was no good. But true to form, he did that for me. He hardly calls now and she seems to be persistently annoyed with him. I'd rather she cut contact completely but I'll take her having a general dislike for him over an adoration for him, which she bordered on.

Sub-consciously, who knows where a life not knowing who my father was is going to get me. Has it affected me at all? I don't know. Based on my last relationship it was revealed to myself that I seem to have quite a phobia of commitment, I could love and laugh with this woman but I have/had no urgency or want to have children or get married. Is that dad's fault? mum's? I don't know, but I'm working on it.

Consciously, how do I view my sperm donor? He lost his mum when he was 13 so, to an extent I give him some leeway on how his anger manifests. Perhaps he's still a scared lonely and angry child. Apparently his father was really strict and authoritative but his mother was a saint. A sweet, kind lady, whom from the sound of things, would have been an amazing Nan. Does any of this excuse his actions? toward me, my mum, sister, the lady who's child he stole away? The two children he's left to grow up fatherless like me? 

No 

He's an adult. He has made decisions along the way, and he still hasn't learned what the right and what the wrong ones are. Whoever he is, or whoever he thinks he is, I hope he finds a way to contribute in some way toward the children he has left a little broken. By that I mean the literal children. I think I'm doing ok.

Whatever I do in the future, and whoever I become I know one thing's for sure. I'm not my father.