At eighteen, she found herself alone with two children. And then the “father” appeared…
My parents married young—only sixteen years old. A pregnancy, the fear of judgment, pressure from their elders—all of it led to a hasty wedding. But no real family came of it. He left almost as soon as my brother and I were born. Vanished. No child support, no letters, no calls. As if he’d dissolved into thin air.
Then, fifteen years later, he turned up on our doorstep. Unkempt but self-assured, as if nothing were amiss.
“I’ve realised I’m a father…” he said. “I want to make things right. And I want one of you to come live with me.”
Are you serious?
Fifteen years of silence. Not a birthday card, not a single “how are you?” And now here he was, with some newfound clarity, thinking he could divide us like old furniture.
When I was five, Mum remarried. My brother and I started calling our stepfather Dad. He cared for us—walked us to school, read bedtime stories. He was there through hard days and happy ones, through everything. To us, he was our real father. Because the other was just a name on a birth certificate.
Still, no matter how much it hurt her, Mum never stopped us from seeing the man who’d fathered us.
“He’s your blood. The choice is yours,” she said.
We didn’t even let him finish. We just turned and walked away.
But he didn’t give up. He took it to court. Filed a petition—tried to claim my brother. Can you imagine? A man who’d never paid a penny in support, who’d never once been part of our lives, suddenly deciding to play the doting parent?
The court ruled against him. Mum filed a counterclaim. His rights were stripped.
Yet he kept lashing out. False reports, complaints. Inspectors kept turning up at our door, always baffled—his accusations never held water. Meanwhile, when they visited *him*, they found a filthy flat, drunken mates, bottles strewn across the floor.
And *he* wanted custody?
Years passed. I married, had two children of my own. My brother… well, he took a wrong turn. I won’t go into details, but he ended up behind bars. Mum and I did what we could to get by.
And then—out of nowhere—another summons.
He was suing *me* for support. Bedridden now, drink had ruined him—delirium tremens, full-blown consumption. Living in a derelict house. The flat he’d once had was long gone, sold for booze.
He wanted *me*—his daughter, the one he’d betrayed, abandoned, forgotten—to take him in, into a house with my little children, and care for him as if he deserved it.
*Me?*
Thank God Mum had the foresight years ago to sever his rights. The court threw it out. But the bitterness lingered. And you know what stung the most? People *judged* me for it. “He’s still your father,” they said. “However he failed you… you shouldn’t turn your back.”
Did *he* think of that when *he* turned his back on *us*?
I remember Mum feeding us plain pasta because there wasn’t money for butter. I remember Dad taking extra shifts to buy us winter boots. And him? A drunk who only remembered us when *he* was desperate.
He wept in court.
“I was a fool… I didn’t know how much family mattered…”
But was that *my* fault?
Families aren’t built on tears and guilt. They’re built on deeds—on love, on showing up. That’s what Dad gave me. *He’s* my father. For him, I’d give everything. For him, I’d stand firm.
But that man? I owe him nothing. And I won’t pretend I do.
Men—when you walk away from your children, when you trade your family for another pint or some fleeting fling—ask yourselves: will they come for you when you’re helpless? Or will they turn away, just like you did?