The Wreckage Left By Fathers who Walk Out on Their Children

                            This article may very well be the hardest I've written yet. It's emotional for me because I am a mother to children  that long for a father. It's been nine almost ten years now,so they have  pretty much accepted our family for what it is....their siblings and their mom.But this societal image of the nuclear family bombards them from every angle......school,television,magazines,etc.As a parent it kills me to see my children hurt;especially when they hurt  for someone who sleeps good every night without a concern as to how his actions are affecting them. I worry for them all, but the most impressionable one is my daughter.For a while she internalized his neglect and translated it to mean there was something wrong with her;that somehow something  she did caused him to stay away. I have seen the end product of dead beat dads and I refuse to sit back and allow my daughter to follow suit. I have a dear friend who never knew her 'real' father.Because of this underlying longing for her father's love and attention, I have watched her bounce from one negative relationship to another.She dressed for attention (highlighting her assets) and pursued any guy that offered a wink and a smile.In my opinion,that behavior is not only sad,but demeaning and destructive.Seeing this play out before my eyes, I worry someday my daughter will grow up searching for her father's love in all the wrong places. As for my sons,it has crossed my mind what effect this phenomenon will have on them later in life. However, knowing the lifestyle his father lives,I wonder if my eldest son is actually better off without him.But who will teach my son to be a man? To play football,basketball,baseball? I've tried to be both mom and dad,but I can't do it.I can only be mom.It just baffles me,the audacity of these men who turn their back on their kids because they can't have the mother.To take it one step further, it's these same men who will go "play daddy" to another woman's child for a hot meal and a steady place to lay their head.I just don't get it.I suppose the men are able to leave their kids without a conscience, because they were not raised with their fathers.But it seems to me,that having lived the pain of abandonment in their own upbringing,they would want more for their own children.Maybe they seek solace in knowing that we as mothers will not allow our children to go without and will see to that fact,at any cost.But I still have to wonder.....is there any antidote to this epidemic?Will we see it in our lifetime, like we saw the miracle of our first black president?