Cats in the cradle

Every Friday night that passes without the phone going gives me a feeling of relief tinged with sadness. No guilt, strangely enough though.

Long-time readers will know the relationship I have with my father. A man who told my mother that he’d be a much better father to me and my brother once we were older as he knew how to related to older children as opposed to babies. We have months and months of (often upsetting) drunken phone calls (his favourite whilst I was pregnant being the "still pregnant? Never mind then" line) and then nothing for a long time, usually until he wants something again. The last time I heard from him was just after his birthday in February, nothing since. Generally this isn’t a cause for complaint, quite the opposite in fact. I am resigned to having little to no relationship with the man, which is a shame as he’s quite easy to talk to and we’re quite similar in some ways, when he’s sober. But when he’s drunk (which is every Friday night and most of the weekend, let’s face it) it’s another story. It’s like talking to someone with dementia, repeating the same conversation (usually faintly nonsensical) over and over again. Like trying to tell him that Duncan’s birthday was March 2nd not February 2nd. That went on for months. "Are you sure it’s not February?" "No, Dad, and if it is, Duncan’s unaware of it or lying to me, one of the two." "OK." Ten minutes later. "Duncan’s birthday is in February, right?" You can see how infuriating this can get week in and week out.

And yet I do feel some guilt, which is why I continue to accept the calls. OK, there are some weeks when I’d unplug the phone but a girl needs a break. But I do, mostly, answer the calls. Which is more than my brother does, he’s virtually cut all ties with that side of the family, which is sad. I mean, the man’s my father, surely I should have some relationship with him? I don’t know where this stems from really. I can’t have been a daddy’s girl as a child, he was never there.

But I’ve (mostly) learned to live with this man as my father and to take advantage of the parenting guilt that sometimes overcomes him. He seems to think that to make up for not being there, he should spend money on us on whatever we want. I admit, I do take advantage of this and I know it winds my brother up that I get more from my dad than him but at least I’m making some effort here. What is now my new worry is that Zoe should have a much better relationship with her grandfather than I have with my father.

I mean, yeah, OK, he wasn’t overly enthused when I told him I was pregnant. And yeah, he did get some bee in his bonnet about how Duncan didn’t call him until 1am on the Sunday morning when Zoe had been born just under 2 hours earlier on the Saturday and he now seems to think Zoe’s birthday is the 10th not the 9th. But I don’t want her to spend her life wondering why her granddad seems to show no interest in her and wondering whether it’s something she did, much like her mother does now.

So it’s been 3 months or so since I last spoke to him and I can’t help but think he should be showing more interest in Zoe. He has no idea she has teeth, that I’m back at work and she loves her nursery. He doesn’t know about my retraining plan or our constant battle to get Zoe to take a bottle and sleep through. I’d bet money he hasn’t even looked at the new photos I put on flickr last week. OK, she might not have grasped the concept of grandparents yet, let alone know who they are and remember them when they come to see her, but I don’t want him to mess this relationship up like he did with me and Chris. (On the other hand, why should I care about his relationships, it’s not like Zoe will lack love from the rest of the family.)

Fostering this relationship between them will mean I have to work to improve our relationship and I’m not entirely sure I’m ready for that or that he is prepared to do that. I guess, maybe, for once, I shouldn’t wait for the phone to ring on a Friday night but instead make his phone ring on a Saturday lunchtime.

Until there is a next time…

xx