Dear Future Child

2000's

New beginnings and disappointing fathers 

The year 2000 was really when we experienced our first real burst of social mobility. I was seven years old. Mom and I had already lived in three cities and moved home twice within this town in the last few years.

This move was different, it was no longer the two of us anymore. She had begun dating my stepdad a year earlier and we were all moving into a flat together in a better part of town as a new unit and she was pregnant with my baby sister. I was so excited!

For her part, she had been working during the day and taking evening classes for the past few years and had moved into a better job. It also meant that I would be permanently home as in order for her to study and work from Monday to Friday I previously stayed at a babysitter's during the week.

I was still seeing my biological father on a somewhat regular basis back then. I say somewhat because he would disappear for months on end and then I was still expected to (and frankly at that age was) happy to see him.

This year, I saw him on a particularly consistent basis, he finally had a stable job and he'd also recently re-married someone and they had a new baby and desperately trying to have a few more. They wanted it seemed, to play happy families.

His new wife, however, did not like me one bit. Don't get me wrong I was a clever, naughty child and thus not the easiest. But I was also desperate to be liked and until then, I believed everyone did like me.

So, after months and months of bubbling issues, she finally called my mother, and then me directly at home (who does that to a 7 year old?!) and asked me to stay away from her husband and family. She was pregnant by then (I think for the second time, I can't quite recall, they went on to have a few children in succession), not that that detail is important to this story.

Later that day I'd receive a call from my biological father. In that call he did not apologise or try to reassure me or say nothing would take us apart. He sounded sad and defeated. I recognised even at that age, that he was already distancing himself and creating excuses and I was heartbroken. I can't remember the exact words I used but something in me said you don't need this. So before even consulting my mom I told him if he was choosing someone over me not to bother calling anymore.

And he didn't (until he was drunk, and I was 16 but that's a story for another time). Don't worry, my biological dad didn't get off that easily back then; unbeknowst to me your grandma had secretly gone mental at him – hell hath no fury like a mama bear defending her cub after all.

I cried and my mum and stepdad held me, and he told me he loved me and would always be there. We may not be father and daughter by blood, but we chose each other, and I have been calling him dad ever since.

I had a wonderful childhood, he would attend my parents' evenings, take us to after-school activities and play football with us at the weekends. He would carry us, love us, and tell us off when needed.

We would move countries and he would hold me many more times as I cried and would walk me down the aisle on my wedding day.

He would did go on to cheat, disappoint, re-marry, and ultimately disappear out his daughters lives after said second marriage but again that is a story for another time. Mom and dad were together for around 18 years and have been divorced for 5 and I still call him dad to this day (and it is he who I refer to as 'dad' throughout this book).

Why am I telling you this story little one? Well the point is, sometimes as adults, we don't quite push ourselves to do what the child in us would have been brave enough to do. In this situation that decision to let it all go instead of forced visits and disappointments that would open wounds over and over allowed me to deepen a new connection and today, I look back happily on my memories growing up.