Happy Fathers Day to Us
This isn’t the life you imagined. It probably started with hope, love and the belief that your relationship was being built on strong foundations because from your side it was and it was genuine, you had it all planned out a future for your child which you believed was rooted in partnership.
Fast forward and somewhere along the way, things broke. And now I find myself carrying the weight of parenting on my own while silently wrestling with an even heavier burden: guilt.
I often look back and wonder, how did I not see the signs? or why did I choose him? It’s easy to pick apart past decisions with the sharp clarity of hindsight. In reality we all choose based on who we are at the time which comes down to: our self-worth, our needs, our fears, and the tools we had to navigate life. That doesn’t make you naive or foolish. It makes you human.
By forgiving yourself doesn’t mean you are excusing someone else’s choices or pretending things didn’t hurt. It means you can recognise that you did the best you could with what you knew. You wanted love, you wanted family and you hadn’t set out to be a single parent.
If you’re worried about the impact on your child, you’re not alone. That worry is evidence of how deeply you care, but children don’t need perfection. What they do need is presence and love. Thankfully, they have that because of us. You are the parent who shows up, the one who wipes the tears, reads the bedtime stories, packs the lunches, and holds it all together when no one’s watching.
You might be wondering how I can be so confident about this, so I want to share a moment I had yesterday with my son. It was a clear reminder to me that it’s about who shows up.
My son is six years old. He hasn’t seen his dad in two years.
Last year, despite his absence, we had made a Father’s Day card and included pictures of the past year of all the adventures that his dad had missed out on. We stamped it together, posted it off in the letter box together. In doing so it gave my son a sense of normality which at the time was what he needed.
This year looks marginally different. We were sitting in the car after swimming lessons, chatting about school and how his week had been. Nervously, I asked about Father’s Day and if they’d been making cards at school again. He told me they had… but that he had chosen to not make one.
Whilst I didn’t want to pry, I asked if he’d explained to the teacher why, and he shook his head.
“I didn’t want to talk about my dad,”
he said quietly, staring out the window and avoiding eye contact as he often does when talking about his dad.
I saw he was becoming emotional, but I told him we could still make one at home, the same as we had done last year, if that was what he wanted, but he said no. I left it.
A few minutes passed, and then he turned to me.
“I’ve changed my mind,” he said. “I do want to make a card, I want to make one for Bapou (his grandad/my dad).”
That one sentence broke my heart and restored it at the same time. It was a reminder to me that even in the absence of someone who should be there, a child’s heart knows where love lives and sometimes, it lives in the people who show up and who love them fiercely.
This is why I speak on this with so much confidence because children see, they feel and they are more than aware of who is present and who isn’t. So, never underestimate the wisdom of a child who simply wants to love and feel love.
When you’re sat punishing yourself and worrying about what people’s opinions, assumptions, even judgment at you being a single parent may be. They don’t know the nights you cried yourself to sleep, or the strength it took to walk away, or stay, or simply survive.
If you’re holding guilt, let it soften. Let it breathe. You have not failed. You are healing. You are growing. And every day you choose to show up, you are proving that you and your child are more than enough as two.
You’re not failing, but fighting and brave. Not alone, but leading with love. That is something worth forgiving and celebrating every single day.
Hi, I'm Emilia Isabelle 
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