Year One of the terrible father, I proceeded to get Camden's dad a Father's Day gift. A real gift at that. Not a gift that he made or just a simple card from Hallmark. I got him a $60 button down shirt from Polo. Really nice because I got Camden one too. Granted I received nothing for Mother's Day and all my hard work as a single mother. The year that followed we made him something. I think it was a picture frame or something of the sort. Nothing too major.
One of my friends is trying to decide if she should get her child's father a gift even though he isn't the best father in the world. I totally get the question. Shoot I walk around the store (alone because I would never say this around Camden) and bad mouth his father as I pick up all the materials to make the gift come every holiday. But I look at it a few different ways.
For one: Camden isn't old enough to make a choice on wether to make him a gift or not. He's not old enough to even know the holiday exist anyway. He doesn't know that he isn't the best dad or even what the best dad means. Camden loves his dad. Cries when he has to leave him, but that's rare! I like to think I'm his favorite :). Then Two: I don't even want to condone Camden to outright disrespect or not honor his father. He's still a child and regardless of what any adult does to you (within reason of course) you should honor your elders. I also don't want to teach him not to honor his blood. Family first! That's my motto. I don't care what his father may or may not do, you always show up for family.
If I raise him anyway different then he is more likely to turn into his dad than to not. Plus I'm pretty big on my Christian beliefs. So you reap what you sow. You sow hatred, you reap hatred. Now my friend has a daughter and I can totally see her argument. And it makes sense to some degree to me. She feels like you can't teach girls to condone certain realtionships with men. This will lead to further male relationship issues and that they will accept any old type of guy when dating. I sorta see that. But I don't have a girl (and thank God for that). Because I look at it in the general. Children are children. You raise them to be respectful to their parents regardless of what their parents do to them (within reason). Unless you are being physically or verbally abused there is a level of respect a child should have for their parent regardless of if they are good or bad.
Camden will surely grow up to decide on what he will want to buy his dad for Father's Day. We can't do hand crafted gifts at the age of 15. But I think come that stage in his life he will be old enough to make the choices on his own. He can decide if he wants to just get a card, take him out to eat, spend the day with him, or whatever. And I'm not going to be that mom that won't come out of my pocket to fund those things. We had a child together. And even though he's not the best, I'm the best mother. Just because he isn't everything he should be won't stop me from being everything I should be.
To this day I haven't received any gift from Camden's dad on any holiday. And I do think I deserve them. Lol plus I love gifts lol. But no really. I do feel like since he hardly does his part the least he could do is honor me for doing both of our jobs. But I just go on in silence and respond to his text that says "your the best mother in the world, your doing a great job with our son.." Blah blah blah. So after year one to say the least, I stopped spending my money on big gifts. Shoot until Camden can voice a real opinion on a gift we will be making something.