Have you ever considered having your own children?

I'm pretty sure you're not interested in having actual kids or adopting (correct me if i'm wrong) but do you think you'd make a good actual father? I feel like some people are just naturally kinda fatherly or motherly and I'm curious to know if that's how you would describe yourself or if others would describe you in that way.

I believe that to a degree being a ‘caregiver’ is both inherent and instilled in us to varying degrees. Some are more inclined toward being one, that much is evident, but anyone can learn to be at least a good parent even though the definition of such varies from person to person and comes with a mountain of expectations. What follows here is not to aggrandize or inflate my own ego, they are statements of fact because I know where the best parts of my caregiver side come from. 

In the course of my life I have always been a ‘caregiver’ and for me that title transcends ‘gender’ labeling. Some, quite seriously, call me ‘mommy’ as well as ‘Daddy’ or whatever variant they are comfortable with because it’s that kind of place I tend to occupy without trying. I don’t choose that, I don’t push to take the parental role or be the ‘alpha’ in a group. It just happens by virtue of who and what I am. I actually prefer to not be in such a role, to be behind the curtain or off to the side, because the spotlight isn’t ‘my’ place but I seem to wind up there time and time again.

I would not describe myself as a ‘father’ because I prefer parent. The idea of “Father” limits what I do to a set of stereotyped activities in most people’s minds and I will not be bound by such in my role as caregiver. I have, and always will, kiss booboos, sew buttons back on pants, cook meals, do housekeeping, tend the defenses that keep the ‘stress’ of the world outside the home and I will never slouch in my banishment of under-bed monsters. I am comfortable being everything as needed even when that goes beyond being just a ‘father’.

I have explored the options, in the past, of adoption or fosterage but not in a very long time now and I have innumerable reasons for that but most are excuses if I were to be honest. I feel that moment has passed some time ago and that to do so now would be depriving them of a lifetime I can no longer offer. Ironic how that very thought is one I scold other people for when it comes to their choice of partners.

I am not someone who ‘separates’ via titles: A parent is a parent, just as a child is your real child if you adopt them into your life and heart . To me being a ‘good’ father I really cannot speak because I don’t believe that any parent feels they are ‘good’ at it as success in parenting comes from progress ‘reports’ and results over time. At the time one never really knows how it will play out and so I can’t really say I would be a good father/mother/parent because the only experience I have had was one that I consider to be a failure.

Consider yourself warned: Truth lies beyond the here. Take your answer and be satisfied or read beyond it: the choice is yours but I felt like a warning was required. The story below is most definitely a trigger for some.

Everyone has their cornerstone, an event or series of events that changes their life and it’s often one of life shattering pain. In my early twenties I had mine because of a tragedy and it ended with even more pain than I could comprehend. To this day I am still processing it because it IS my cornerstone and I will live with it for the rest of my life: I was  a father of three and the experience shaped many of my feelings about the value of a human life and the importance each of us has even though we may never truly feel it.

The death of a dear friend, who only days before had me become an unofficial ‘god parent’ to his children, found me with not one, but three, in my life. He’d asked me to act in his stead should anything happen, and I’d taken a vow to do that very thing. I’d been a part of their life from the beginning and was the ‘favorite uncle’ because, lets be honest,  they weren’t my kids so I spoiled the hell out of them. For a very long while they had been part of my world and his question made me realize just how important they had become to me. His death led me face to face with the reality that it wasn’t a matter of what he or I wanted, but what the law would allow.

The details of the rest of the story aren’t important to your question. What matters is that yes, I was a father for a time, and instead of becoming jaded by the pain of losing them to ‘legislation’ because I was ‘unfit’ as a gay man, I made it something to deepen my compassion and caring for others. I was ready to close the world off the day the black vans came to take them, but for one shining moment one of them reminded me what it was worth even briefly: everything. As they forcefully pulled them to the van one broke free, not to flee but to run to me for one last hug. It was the moment my world ended and began at the same time.

Now they are grown, with families and homes all their own and I’ve seen none of it. The circumstances were such that it wasn’t possible or advisable in the wisdom of state agents. I quite imagine having an openly gay man in contact with your children would make prejudiced and ignorant people nervous. I understood and kept my distance. Now those days are distant memories for them, though for me they must remain fresh because for one shining moment I understood that I didn’t need to be biological to be a father. In that same moment I also touched the unfathomable sadness, and madness that follows, a loss that cannot be described.

The reason I say this is because there is a key point in the story. They had been left by their mother after the third was born and when their father died their closest kin took them in only to abandon them again which left them with no one to turn to. I saw them struggle to understand the betrayal, the loss and the feeling of worthlessness that gave them. I did my best to remind them these things only felt true but were not so, but there’s only so much one can do in the face of ‘evidence’ like that.
So when you hear me speak to the importance each of us has, to the value your life has in spite of such events and to the love we have in our lives that we can’t really see or believe could still be waiting for us, I have very good reasons for such things.

If it were not for these boys, and the tragedy surrounding them, I would never have known the door existed in my heart that they opened. I’d never remotely considered being a ‘parent’ or really a caregiver of any kind. I’d written all that off by virtue of being gay but in one parting hug that door was ripped from its hinges and I won’t put it back up again. The wake of this has not only changed me but saved lives.

For decades now I have been the ‘man behind the curtain’ the ‘secret santa’ who finds those in most dire need and then this old grinch rides up and drops off trash bags so that mom and dad can be the ones to put things under trees. I know the names of every angel in my home state and they know mine because when I call it’s because the need is greatest.

I’ve raised funds and hell to keep shelters open, food on the shelves for the community in times of crisis. I’ve helped organize disaster relief and individual response plans so that should something horrible happen that there could be a glimmer of hope to start the healing process. I have made my ‘free time’ into something that brings change and it is entirely because of them and the loss we all endured together.

I know what it means to lose someone that close three times over. I know what it means to lose a home and a parent because I shared that time with them. I know what it means to have nothing under the tree or on the table and I know how worthless you feel when someone you love or call family discards you. I know these pains because of them and so it is because of them that I have done as much as can be done to keep them from happening to another person in my corner of the world. I am no fool who thinks I can reshape the universe by spite alone but I do know that in my ‘home’ I can move mountains when the need arises and I learned all this because I knew what it meant to be a parent for one brief moment.

Would I be a good father? Who knows. I only know that what would have been the ‘best years’ to be one have passed but have not been ‘wasted’ because of the lesson I learned and what I did with that lesson. Even here, on this blog, you get to see that part of me when I speak to boys who have given up hope. So you can say that what you read here is due, in part, to three boys who never called me ‘daddy’ but helped shape the “Daddy” you’ve come to know.