I can not start to describe how hard it was growing up with out a father. Not because I could not easily get over the fact that he had left me ( I can not say it wasn’t one of the reasons either), but because without him, the World actually turned out to be harsh.
I spent almost the whole of my life feeling sorry for myself for not having my father near me. For countless days, I watched the movie titled ‘What a girl wants’. It was always on top of my movie list. I felt a certain understanding for the female protagonist who was struggling to get closer to her dad despite the fact that he had separated from her mom and started a brand new life with a different family.
I was constantly plunged into longing upon hearing other girls speak of their close connections with their fathers in school. Not that I did not have anyone to make up for the love I never got from my dad but because I felt he was all I needed at that moment.
I always listened to ‘Dance with my father’ by Luther Vandross but not even the song could fill the empty void that was always in my heart. The World did not help at all. Society blamed it on me and made me believe I was not good enough to have a father. I was always considered incomplete.
The worst thing was society labeling me and saying things like
‘A child that has not been raised by its parents can never amount to much’ .
I lived my life believing I could never amount to anything good because I had an incomplete family.
Society judges us because we have not grown up like everyone else. We are looked down on because we never had the perfect family. But where was it written that all the negative was bound to reflect on our characters? Isn’t it also true that the children who have been raised in a complete family could turn out bad?
The mistakes of the parents that have abandoned us are blamed on us. We were not good enough, we must have done something terrible to deserve such karma, they say.
And as for the parents that have committed such an atrocity, all they get is justification. They conclude that they left because they must have had their own reasons. But why cover up such an atrocity? Nothing can ever justify a parent that abandons their own child.
In addition to growing up with a sense of loss of a parent, deprivation from a right you deserve, society also makes sure to nag at you and be on your back your entire life. Even more that on the backs of the parents that have abandoned their children.
Our achievements hit society like shock, as though they really never expected anything good from our existence. So it has always been upon ‘people like us’ as they refer to us to prove that many good things can amount from us.
To everyone out there, good luck proving everyone who doubts you wrong. The mistakes of those that did you wrong should never reflect on your character
