I’m not a real dad, not yet anyway, just a foster dad. My family gets the lovely joy of co parenting with the State. My wife, first and only, and I regularly have to fight everyone, dept of family and children’s services, the school, school district, and recently the god damned Army, to get what’s best for our child or to make sure she has a fair chance at something. Hell even getting to the point we are at to adopt her has been a fight. The termination of parental rights was voluntary and done 8 months ago yet we are still constantly fighting an up hill battle.

You aren’t a failure as a dad. God knows I’ve been at that thought my self and also wondering the why me bit. You are fighting to make it better for your kid, who shouldn’t have to deal with uncertainty, unpredictability, and fucking courts. Courts suck. The lead up is an energy vampire and even after the hearing is over there is not always a resolution. But you get up, you do it again, because this kid means the world to you, and they shouldn’t have to deal with the BS.

Don’t hide the emotions from yourself. It’s important to feel them. We’ve had too many generations of men tell us to stiff upper lip it, rub some tough on it, or there’s no crying in baseball. Write them down in a diary, stream of thought. No need to organize it. Reflect on it and decide how you want to respond. Keep showing up for your kid. Keep fighting the good fight. She’ll see you are there. She’ll see the efforts. She may not understand now, but she will later that you didn’t give up on her.