Happy Father's Day to The Single Mom...my 2012 version

If you are a regular reader of mine (hello all 12 of you..smooches), you know that on occasion I will check the stats of my blog. It's nothing fancy, I can't see IP addresses or anything like that, but it does show me how many people have checked in for the day, words they plugged into a search engine, what part of the world they're from, etc.  I've even had those search terms become the theme of a couple posts (my all time favorite was "big hairy hausfrau"). 

Today I just happened to glance over at that stats section of my blog dashboard, and for the first time (well actually the second time, if you count the first time I realized someone other than ME was reading this) I gasped.  Surely I was seeing things...the page views were way off.  Now, to give you a little background, my daily visits usually hit about 75 or so.  During my dry stretches, that number can dip as low as 40. 

Today that number was over 1000. 

Yes, 1000.  At around noon today. 

And 99% of those visitors were all reading the same thing.  My post about Father's Day, that I wrote last year.  You can read it here if you want. 

Now, the stats feature can't tell me much, and it doesn't show me how all these people are finding my blog.  I can only assume that someone, somewhere posted a link to that particular post.  I'm freaked out a little, I mean, I'm getting more hits on this one day than I usually get in a week. Two weeks, sometimes.  Makes me all flustered, like when someone drops by your house unannounced and there are dishes on the countertops and dirty socks in the living room and hair all over the bathroom sink.  Makes me feel like I should straighten up.  You know, be a good hostess and all.

But here's what I've got instead:  some musings about the whole "Happy Father's Day, single mom" thing.  Since my divorce, my kids have taken to the custom of wishing me a Happy Father's Day.  At first it made me uncomfortable, but then I got to liking it.  Enjoying it.  I felt as though I deserved it.  After all, who was the one who dried their tears, made their lunches and cleaned their underwear?  Me.  I did it all.  Dammit, I was both mother and father.  Or at least that's how it seemed.

But I've had second thoughts.  Don't get me wrong:  I do the work of two people, just about every day of my life. I was talking to my attorney the other day, and he said something that really hit home: 

"You take care of the kids 90% of the time, Jenny." 

90% of the time.  That's wild.  Can you imagine missing out on 90% of your child's daily life?  I can't. 

This Father's Day differed a little from last year.  This year, Big Daddy actually made plans with the kids, plans to pick them up.  "They're having a Father's Day pool party, mom!" the kids told me.  He picked them up, all four of them, at the time he said he would. I said, "Have a great day, guys" and then I prayed for rain (yes, I did.  Don't judge.).

It's been raining for several hours now, and that's given me a lot of time to think about things (the fact that I now control the weather is not the least of those things).  I've re-read my Father's Day post from last year, and I felt some of those old feelings again.  The anger at my ex, the disappointment I saw in my kid's faces...all of it.  But something is different this year.  Something has settled in me, mellowed. 

I'm not the father.  Sure, I do the jobs of both mother and father in my day-to-day, but the reality is, my kids have a dad.  Is he Father of the Year?  Hell no.  I'm fighting to get him to pay child support, and he's hiring a lawyer to fight me back rather than just pay up, but at the end of the day, he is still their dad.

And even though he's dropped the ball in the dad game, even though his choices and his actions have had a huge, mostly negative, impact on the lives of my kids, I now know this:  It could be worse.  It could be so, so much worse. 

All you have to do is read some of the news stories that seem to never end, the ones about men who are convicted of horrendous crimes.  Crimes against their kids.  Neglect, abuse, torture.  Murder.  When you compare my ex-husband to some of these turds, he looks like freaking Ward Cleaver. 

It doesn't take a whole lot of work to become a dad.  Hardly any.  Just one tiny little sperm cell drilling into a larger, but still tiny, egg.  Boom.  You're a dad.  But it's what you do after that little miracle occurs that makes you a father.

My kids have a father.  He was there when they were born, he held them when they were babies.  He changed some diapers and pushed the strollers and watched them while I was at work.  Something in him changed, and made him leave us, but he was there, for a little bit.

For a little bit, my kids did have a pretty decent dad.  And that is why I can't take any credit on this day.  Because even though I may do the work of two people, even though he is now more of an extra, a stand-in in their lives, he is their father.  This is his day.

Not mine.

But don't worry, I can still be a snark.  I'm going to leave you with a clip from one of the best movies ever made.  It's a line that made me cringe the first time I heard it, which was way before I had even THOUGHT about becoming a mom.   And it's a line that makes me sad now, but also makes me laugh.  Because I love what he does right after he says it...he kind of shakes it off.  That's what I'm doing, and I hope my kids can someday do it too..shake it off.

So, to those of you who may have stumbled here looking for ways to wish the single mom in your life a "Happy Father's Day", may I politely suggest that you find some other way to honor her today.  Save the Father's Day platitudes for the men, even those that may fall a little short in the dad department.  Single moms, like yours truly, we do work our asses off...every day.  We do the work of two people and we do it quietly, without (too much) bitching.  We do it because we know that nobody else is going to do it, and we do it because we love our kids. 

If you have a single mom in your life, do this:  give her a hug.  Hang out with her.  Go see a movie with her.  Buy her a drink next time you're out (Stella with a lime, or a big old dirty martini would be good).  

But instead of saying "Happy Father's Day", try something different:  tell her that she's doing a good job.  Tell her that you're proud of her, tell her not to give up.  Tell her that her kids are good kids and that they'll grow up to be good adults.  Tell her that what she's doing may be the hardest thing she's ever done, but it will be worth it. 

She'll appreciate it.  Believe me.

Now go give the dads in your life a big hug.  They deserve it.