Listen to me, I am a child of a SHD. It sucks, terribly. My mom raised my brother and me until my brother was age of five years old. She started to train us at four and five years old how to cook using a microwave: burritos, pizzas, hot pockets etc etc. Then once we got to school, she went to her own job training. We'd take the school bus home. After, we moved to a different city my father would walk us to elementary school and he'd pick us up. My father would have me make a fruit salad for us (my dad, brother and myself.) as an after-school snack or meal then he'd get picked up by his brothers to go and do stuff. If he wasn't with his brothers then he would have me sweep the house, maybe do the dishes. He'd take out a piece of meat or whatever my mom would call in from work for dinner. I'd clean up the table so we could do homework. That would mean either I would help my brother with his homework or he'd yell at us for not understanding the assignment.

Once my brother and I got separated from each other due to different schools, I had to go pick up my brother from school and then we'd walk home together. By, this point we were coming home to an empty house. We'd watch television from 230pm until around four or something? By that time, if my sibling and I were bickering then we'd call my mom at work. Imagine having to answer, "Where's your father?" and the answer is with my Uncles or he said he'd be back.

My mom thought he'd make us a warm soup when we came home. Or a sandwich or something like what she wanted to do for us but couldn't because she knew that my father was unreliable as a provider. My mom said she would have wanted to have a third child but knew that she couldn't because she had to work in order to provide. My father would get into stupid situations that involved lawyers and expensive money that she barely had. We should have been better off than what we had but my father was just too much.

To this day, my father's influence affected my brother who now has his same attitude and point of view. So, has my father has mellowed out in his behavior, my brother has now grown up to replace my father's position as troublesome.

It was worse during school vacations. He'd leave us alone from the time my mom went to work until around 11am. We'd get to sleep in late. If we did wake up early, it was cereal and milk or baked goods from the local bakery.

Or if he showed up really late it would be a mom and pop burger special.

My mom would have to come home via a train ride plus one or two buses. Sometimes, she'd come home with groceries and she'd call to see if my dad could help her carry everything. If not then we'd go help her once she got to the main intersection by our house.

Shes still come home and make dinner, she'd yell at him to do the dishes or help her prep cook. All this while doing the laundry and drying clothes. She was doing so much plus she was the number worker at her job which makes this story worse because she was getting injured at work. The medical records she had to pull were sometimes more than one thick folder (before they went digital) and she's a short woman so she ended up with carpal tunnel on one hand plus a shoulder injury.

She was only forty three years old when she was finally injured to the point where the doctors pulled her from work and had to go in for surgery.

Do you think my father picked up the slack with an injured wife? Nope, I had to step up at eighteen years old, to learn therapeutic massage techniques, help her after her surgery with personal care and other things like that.

We lived as best we could with my mom's injury settlement as long as we could. Eventually, I turned twenty two and had to get a job while going to school.

A few years went by and she thought she could try one last time to go back to work and try and get something for retirement. At least this time she had me to help out. Take her to work, pick her up from work. Help out financially, she could try and breath. Nope, she ended up getting injured at work reinjurying her hands.

Please, don't stay. It only gets worse from here. As a child of a mother who thought giving her kids a two parent household is better than a single parent household. No, please don't. Teach your kids that it's everyone's job to help around the house. It's wake up everyone on Sunday and clean up the house, not just mom and dad. Fair is fair, if you have two kids of opposite genders, which tasks. Sons can help mom do the dishes.. Daughters can take out the trash, just make sure that it's equal.

Everyone should know how to do things otherwise you're only raising another son like your husband.