Happy Father's Day 

Father's Day is a day I wish I could fully celebrate. I wish I had a strong bond with my father and be daddy’s little girl. I would love to have my dad walk me down the aisle one day but unfortunately, I know my wishes will never become a reality. It’s not that my father is deceased… he’s just an absent parent.

Our relationship was not always this strained, and I think that’s what makes Father’s Day even harder for me. Growing up I adored my dad. In my eyes, he could do no wrong, literally my hero. Even when he became incarcerated for the first time, I still adored him. I was incredibly young and if I remember correctly, I was around five or six years old the first time he left.

I wrote my dad letters every chance I had. But the older I got the less I remembered my hero. By the time he became a constant in my life again (nine years later) I felt like he was a stranger. We tried to resume the relationship we had but we both had changed. He still saw me as a little girl, not a teenager on the brink of womanhood with her own thoughts and opinions. When we would get into disagreements, he genuinely believed my mom was manipulating me to believe he was a bad man. That couldn’t be further from the truth, my mom never spoke bad about him. To this day my mom is very adamant about me having a relationship with him. However, our relationship has never been the same. I believe it’s because we both had expectations of who we thought the other person should be.

The University of Oxford research found that more than 300,000 kids in the U.K. have at least one incarcerated parent. The families need father’s website revealed that children with an imprisoned parent are three times more at risk of committing anti-social behaviour than their peers and three times as likely to suffer from mental health problems. I can personally agree with these statements, growing up when other kids would ask me about my dad, I would just say he’s not really around. After this interaction I immediately crawled within myself, not wanting to socialise anymore because of the sadness and feeling of something missing.

Father’s Day growing up became a day of longing and a little resentment. My mom would try her best to make that day as fun as possible but watching the other kids with their dads was a little hard or going back to school and hearing my friends talk about how awesome Father’s Day was created a pain in my heart. As I got older, I would tell myself I didn’t care anymore but those words couldn’t be further from the truth even to this day. 

I write this to those who have present fathers to cherish their relationship because a lot of children would love to experience a father’s love and celebrate Father’s Day.

RHONDA SMITH

I am a traveller, photographer and Neitiv blogger. I want to spread positivity and hopefully help others through my personal stories and experiences. I have always loved writing and expressing myself through words. I want to not only help others through my stories but finally allow myself to heal and grow.

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