A child needs a father figure!

To be able to grow up a strong person a child must have two stable parents.

This post is long overdue and a tough one to write. Most of you who follow me know I lost my son Emile to suicide, and I will now share the road that led up to that.

First, I want to say this:

When children grow up without a present and loving father, the chances that they will choose the wrong paths on their journey through life are extremely high. Especially boys. They need a man, a real man, to guide them.
Single men, you can house, clothe, and feed a child, but without love, it means nothing.
A real man will be there for that child with love and support.
When you fall in love with a single mother, be prepared to love her child/children. If you can't do that, let them go, to find the man who will be a present and loving father. Don’t punish the child for your shortcomings!
Single mothers, choose wisely. Your children are worth so much more than only being tolerated by the most important person who will be part of shaping their futures.

My son Emile was from my first marriage. That union barely lasted 18 months. He was an abuser, a player, and a sick man. I was a young, stupid girl blindly in love. That changed very quickly when I was slapped around twice. I was six months pregnant when I packed my bags and left. Best choice I ever made! He was never present in his son’s life; thank God for that because he could never be a stable father. Unfortunately for his son.

This man was the first stupid choice I made in men. Extremely handsome but had no substance.

When Emile was two years old, I met my youngest son’s father. Yet again, very handsome but had no substance. I knew how to choose the bad ones. This man promised to be my son’s guardian and provider. He financially provided for us but he never could master the art of being a father. There was never any love or affection for my son, he didn’t know how. He never physically abused him, but he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, show affection, only hatred.

My son started acting out after his grandfather, my father, passed away. I have no idea if that was because I was going through the madness of grief or if something else happened during this unstable time in his life. He started stealing things, money, and other people’s possessions, and I didn’t know how to handle this. He also started using drugs and became even harder to control. The only option at this stage was to send him to boarding school, and that was again another huge mistake. My marriage fell apart during this time, and I was planning to leave my husband. But I soon realized it wouldn’t be as easy as I thought. My husband threatened to keep my children because I was declared mentally ill through the courts and landed up in a mental asylum when my father died. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place because I wasn’t going to leave my children in his hands.

Emile ended up in a juvenile detention centre after he and a friend built a homemade bomb and exploded it in a residential area. I had so much faith in the professionals that I went along with it. During his stay there, he was seen by a child psychologist. The psychologist said he was self-medicating and acting out because he felt rejected by the male figures in his life. My beautiful child’s life was off the rails because of my choices. I felt completely helpless because nobody supported me during this time.

He left school when he turned 18 and never found any stability in his life. He was a drug addict by this time and lived with his grandmother, who left him to his own devices. He jumped from job to job, living with a girlfriend, moving from place to place. We took him in several times over the years, but he could never get off the drugs. He would not admit he had a problem.

Finally, after years of fighting his demons, he took his own life in a weeping willow tree near our home, and I always felt completely responsible for that.

Please don’t make the same mistakes I did! I also have to state that not all children will lose their way in life because of the lack of a strong father.

Namaste

Emile, Marco, and me.