Dad

Dad  (E) Entry for Try Something New Contest #2105865 by Chris Breva

750 words

Some men are fathers because they have to be. They were involved with a woman and she became pregnant. Most of them love their children but none of them planned on having children until they found out she was pregnant. We have to respect them for having the backbone to stick around and take responsibility for their children.
Other men are nothing more than sperm donors who want the pleasure of having sex but don't want the responsibility of fatherhood. They are too immature, too lazy, or simply too irresponsible to take care of their children. For them one can have some feelings to but usually not pleasant ones.
Then there is a third category. "What" you ask. "How is there a third category?"
The third category is men like myself. We are the men who are dads because we want to be. Nobody forced the position upon us. We didn't take the position on because we got a woman pregnant and decided the right thing to do was be a man and take responsibility. We are dads because we saw a need and wanted to fulfill it. My ex-wife always had children around her. They were there the night we met. They were there during our first date and believe it or not, they were there sharing our honeymoon meal. They weren't her children and they weren't mine. They were a duke's mixture of children from various families for whom she was the babysitter. The babysitting however usually went on for days at a time. She asked me how I felt about it once. I told her "I don''t care if there are a dozen children here. In fact let's try to make it dozen and add one of our own to the mix."
Unfortunately the desired child never came. She and I eventually drifted apart and she filed for divorce. We stayed together under the same roof for nearly three years after the divorce. Then my wife's cousin introduced us to his new wife. Their marriage didn't last as long as it took the ink to dry on the license and it was annulled. His wife moved in with my ex-wife and I. She still lives with my ex-wife to this day.
Soon after she moved in she was pregnant. If the child was mine neither of us remember it. However she went on to have a boy. She was a young mother with absolutely no clue what she was doing. So to help her out I began taking care of the child. The way I figured it I had already potentially raised or help raise at least ten children. I was helping raise my ex-wife's adopted son as well. What was it going to hurt if I helped raise another one? So I took the newborn under my wing. I became both dad and mom to him for the next four years. Then in 2005, when he was four years old, his mom suggested I sign paternity papers for him. I jumped at the opportunity. The papers were filed with the state capitol less than a week later.
One day I received a phone call. It was the state attorney general himself. I couldn't figure out why a big wig like him would want to talk to me. When I answered the phone he said "Sir I have in front of me an affidavit stating that you are the biological father of .... . Are you the father?"
I told him that I was. (In my heart I have always felt that I am.) He said "Well we may have a problem. You see the mother was seventeen when she became pregnant and you were 39?"
Can anybody say 5 will get you 20? At that moment I really didn't care though! I loved that little boy enough to walk through hell in gasoline coveralls for him. If they wanted to lock me up for that then so be it. The attorney general however then told me that he had talked to the social worker who had given me the paternity affidavit to begin with. He said she had told him she was sure the child wasn't mine but that he had no established father. She told him it would be wrong to deny the little boy a father and me the right to be his dad over some red tape. His next words still warm my heart. "Sir my hat is off to you. Congratulations! You're a father!"

750 words