kcastagnaro @kcastagnaro: Aloha from Hawaii! You write a lot about your children. Do they read those posts? What do they think?
ANSWER:
I write a lot about my kids in such a way that potentially they could feel unloved later on if they read it. For instance, “Is it bad I wanted my first kid to be aborted”. Or maybe they might get the wrong idea about important topics like in, “I want my daughters to be lesbians”.
One commenter even wrote me and said he felt my kids should be taken away from me by the government. This is fine with me by the way. If Barack Obama wants to raise my kids he can have at it.
My kids don’t read my posts. They haven’t even read my comic book, which I have repeatedly thrown at them and told them they would be tested later on. They ignored me and didn’t read it. One time one of them (I forget which) told me, “your blog contains inappropriate material for children” and that’s why they don’t read it.
WHAT!? I said. When I was 10 or 12 or 14 you couldn’t stop me from reading inappropriate material. I would fake vomit into the toilet, flush (so there was no evidence) claim sickness, JUST so I could stay home from school and read inappropriate content all day long. Which my parents’ bookshelves were full of. By the time I was 12 I had read the novels “Candy” by Terry Southern. “Boys & Girls Together” by William Goldman. “Looking for Mr. Goodbar” by Judith Rossner, “Wifey” by Judy Blume and the pop-psych sexual tease: “Don’t Say Yes When You Want to Say No”. I memorized the pages of every sex scene. I read the books over and over. Heck, I feel like reading them again now. I remember them so well I didn’t have to look up the authors even though it’s been over 30 years since I last looked at any of those books.
That said, my kids don’t want to read my blog but eventually they will. Eventually they will see how desperately I want to love them and want them to love me. How I hated being a father. How I grew to deal with it and while dealing with it, grew to love them.
But a post doesn’t make a father. With or without their knowledge of my darkest secrets, I tell them I love them, tell them they are beautiful, and let them know they are always safe with me, whether they like it or not. And often they don’t. Often they don’t like me.
My biggest challenge now is dealing with the moments they don’t like me. I’m sure after they read my posts at some point in the future they might be upset at me. But they will have to deal with it. Because they will know that I love them. And nothing I ever write will convince them that I don’t.