I am not sure what you are trying to say, but it seems to be some kind of slam about me and what you seem to assume I may have said or done to influence my son/children.
Why don’t you tell me all about it, since you feel you know the facts?
His father is no longer around, you are right. His father died 5 years ago at age 56 due to complications of alcoholism. His father chose to put his own social and partying lifestyle above the role of being a husband to me or a father to his children. He made that choice in about 1992. We divorced in 1994. He once was in a fight at a bar, and the police were called. He had the kids there with him, 9 and 5 years old. Then he moved hundreds of miles away to live with a girlfriend in a trailer in backwoods MO. He did not care that he would not see the kids regularly, because he was in love.
So you can make all the nasty comments you want about what you think must be my parental failures, without knowing any of the facts or of the heartache that we endured for years, and feel that you have somehow put me in my place. Hope it makes you feel good.
Ok, I now understand your situation. My apologies. Being an alcoholic, taking the kids to a bar and moving away to be with a girlfriend to me are all indicators of ‘it’s-me-before-the-kids’. The hallmark of bad parenting. But sometimes a bad parent is better than no parent. Other than his moving away he was still a potentially good example to his children. How so? Well, a bad example is sometimes a good example if the children learn the consequences of bad behavior. Yet, if a parent isn’t there there is nothing to be learned but that which is not.