On Fatherhood, by a Millennial Therapist Who Has Seen it All

Maybe you aren’t sure if you want to be a dad. Maybe you’re 35, 40 or even 50
and don’t know. But you understand the speedy sperm reproductive cycle you
possess as the gift that keeps on giving… and that theoretically you can keep
pumping out potential babies until you die.

Let me be honest with you because I respect people and their unique time on this earth: just because you CAN doesn’t mean you SHOULD.

Men who have sex with women often get very pressed when a woman starts talking about their reproductive rights. When do you want to have kids? Well, I don’t know if I DO want kids. Oh then why don’t you get a vasectomy so you can have sex without worrying? Well, because I’m scared it may not be reversible.

So you’re ok with wearing condoms for the rest of your life until you know? Well, no, I date mostly women who use their own birth control.

Bingo! That’s outsourcing your body’s reproductive capacity to another human: the woman.

I just want to say on the topic of all men who think this way and act like this: you are lazy, entitled and unethical.

I am considering sperm donation for my own pregnancy one day so that my baby never has to wonder why the man who fathered them isn’t in their life. It’s baked into the paperwork, she’ll know, she’ll understand that he wasn’t ready to be a dad but he wanted some spending money and the temporary altruistic high of helping people create life knowing that life would be unconditionally loved, supported and cared for in a family they designed exclusively and explicitly without him.

The alternative: women having children with men who fall into role of father who just aren’t ready and then harm their children’s lives. I see it everywhere I look. The strong women are grateful when this weakness is revealed, kick him out and live a good life with their babies. But unfortunately, in these fragile times with a rampant pandemic and hardly any good child care that isn’t designed to support single moms without gauging them blind, women can’t always be strong with the deadbeat dads of their children. Sometimes, they are weak and prefer to accept the unacceptable because they fear the alternatives.

I want to let every woman reading this know that the alternatives that might seem terrifying in theory, are actually pretty awesome in practice.

Women are inherently stronger in several domains when it’s revealed Dad
shouldn’t have just assumed he could do fatherhood without learning about It or training in parenting classes. Women know how to keep it together for their
babies when men just assume they’ll be better dads than THEIR fathers and fire away.

But sometimes women falter. Women become heartbroken too, traumatized by abuse and betrayal by the men they lived with, cared for and believed in enough to have children with. I have seen men betray women by floundering their savings, having unprotected sex with multiple other partners without consent to an open marriage, not getting checked for STI’s before carrying out these affairs and then infecting the mother of their children with these illnesses. The horrifying fact is the second group of people most vulnerable to HIV infection in the world are women of color because of their partners cheating on them in this callous and unethical way, disregarding their right to good physical sexual health. There is also the issue of stealthing, which has been registered as a form of sexual assault in the United Kingdom and Germany. I am very happy it’s been catalogued as such due to the PTSD I have to treat in women who have survived it. Stealthing is when a man agrees to wear a condom during sex then removes it while still thrusting inside of the woman. Stealthing is an evil act of betrayal that removes a woman’s sense of safety from unwanted pregnancy and STI’s without her knowledge and leaving her with the potential choice of having an abortion or being subjected to STI treatments, sometimes for the rest of her life if the man infects her with HIV.

Sometimes the shock of all of this leaves women paralyzed, dissociated from
reality. Sometimes they overwork, sometimes they over-drink, sometimes they over control their kids to make up for this massive gaping hole of emptiness they don’t want to work on yet.
Please take care of yourselves and treat your addictions and depression by
attending sober meetings with other recovering addicts, trauma healing groups including sexual trauma recovery groups, see an individual trauma counsellor and if you want to jumpstart your healing, consider taking herbal remedies or antidepressants while you do all of the above. Please don’t waste anymore time.

While it may not be apparent for many months after a deadbeat dad walks out of your lives or you have to kick him out for everyone’s safety, know that eventually it will feel to you inside the way that the rest of the world feels and sees it: it was the best thing that could’ve ever happened.
You will regain yourself, your self confidence, your happiness and your children’s belief and faith in themselves and the strength of their mother.