Open letter: I read your message

I read your message.

The one that said your father doesn’t care.
The one that said he doesn’t parent.
The one that said he doesn’t show up.

The interesting thing about lies is that they usually require the people hearing them to ignore reality.

Reality is that parenting isn’t posting opinions in a text message.

Parenting is knowing who your child’s teachers are.

Parenting is sitting in emergency rooms.

Parenting is doctor’s appointments, school meetings, homework battles, forgotten lunches, permission slips, dentist appointments, field trips, sports registrations, prescription pickups, and being the person who gets the phone call when something goes wrong.

Parenting is showing up when nobody is watching.

For years, your father has been the one showing up.

Not because it’s glamorous.
Not because anybody applauds.
Not because it earns points.

Because that’s what parents do.

You accused him of not knowing things about the children.

The irony is that the people making those accusations often couldn’t tell you the names of their teachers, their schedules, their doctors, their medications, their friends, their struggles, or the thousand tiny details that make up a child’s life (p.s. I can).

The people who carry the load don’t have to advertise it.
The load itself is proof.

You know that.

That’s the part that makes your message so sad.

Because I don’t believe you actually wrote it for him.

I think you wrote it for someone else.

I think you’re carrying the impossible burden many children of addiction and chaos carry: trying to keep a parent stable by agreeing with their version of reality.

If I just say what they want me to say…
If I just take their side…
If I just make them happy…
Maybe they won’t disappear again.

Maybe they won’t use.

Maybe they won’t leave.

Maybe this time they’ll stay.

That is an enormous weight for any child to carry.

But it doesn’t change the truth.

The truth is that your father has spent years leaving the door open.

Years answering calls.

Years reaching out.

Years hoping for a relationship.

Years absorbing anger that wasn’t his.

At some point, even the healthiest parent learns a painful lesson:

You cannot have a relationship with someone who only contacts you to hurt you.

Love doesn’t require accepting abuse.

Boundaries are not abandonment.

And silence is sometimes the only response left when every conversation becomes a weapon.

One day, when the noise settles and the stories stop changing, you’ll have to decide what version of events you believe.

Not the version that protects someone.

Not the version that punishes someone.

The truth.

And the truth usually isn’t found in angry text messages.

It’s found in who consistently showed up.

Every single day.

Even when nobody was keeping score.

— Stacey