Family isn’t a word, its a sentence 15 June 2008

We’re not totally disfunctional, my family.

I mean, there’s the stuff I mentioned about my father, okay, but that’s it.

Oh, and my wife not talking to me [send me to coventry]. And maybe we haven’t .. you know .. much. Since the baby. Actually, I mean, since he was conceived. And only once since he was born. He’s nearly two now.

I haven’t mentioned my daughter in this blog yet. She is struggling (make that refusing) to accept her stepfather, since her mother re-married last year. She still lives with them, but she really has made it difficult for her mother and her new husband. She’s just about to turn thirteen, though, so maybe she was going to be difficult anyway.

And, I’m not cool with her mother (my first wife) anyway.

Upside for me is that my daughter is keen to spend more time with us. As a result, she has really bonded with her baby brother.

So why was I so struck by the title of the post I saw the other day - family isn’t a word, its a sentence? It really struck a nerve with me.

I linked to Hallie’s blog in my last post, but just I read something she wrote a year ago [hard questions]. Hardly anyone seems to make a relationship work anymore. Even when there are kids involved.

Family relationships can be difficult. And sometimes it does feel like a life sentence, trying to make a marriage work. Trying to keep a family together.

I heard a little boy in a playground the other day, ask a little girl “What’s your step-father’s name”. She said “I don’t have a step-father”. And he said “Yes you do. Everybody’s got a step-father!”. How I wish that wasn’t nearly true.

About my father 10 June 2008

My parents live about 400 miles from us. Which is not a lot, as distances go. Less than a day by train or car. And my parents have recently retired, which maybe should have meant that I would be seeing more of them. But they seem to be too busy, too afraid of coming to the big city, too reluctant to to disturb the routine with their dog and their neighbours and their own friends.

I have a job, and a wife and three kids, two of whom don’t live with us full time but visit weekends. Somehow my folks are missing out on developing a close relationship with their grandchildren. And I’m not spending as much time as I’d like with my father.

A lot of it is about the dog. Dad thinks (and has said on more than one occassion) that the dog is his baby, his youngest child. He thinks that the dog, my brother and I are siblings. He won’t come to visit without the dog, and my wife is allergic to them.

I don’t know whether the dog is just an excuse though. My parents get the dog looked after maybe two to four times a year when they go on holiday. I don’t know why they can’t do that and come and spend a week here. I’d like to spend a little more time with Dad without the dog.

Part of me is surprised to find that as a grown man (and I’m now in my 40s !) I still feel the need for a parent. Its not that I was ever neglected as a child. My parents were close, family oriented. This distance has grown between us during the years of work, marriage and family. Strange, really. I’d have thought that having three grandchildren might have pulled us closer together, but maybe during that time we have been living such seperate lives. The breakdown of my first marriage didn’t help. But why hasn’t it gotten better?

It’s time we started a dialogue, don’t you think, reader?

What is it that I’m missing, and is it the same for you?