soapboxdiner

Mr. Big Head, I know exactly who you are.

As I mentioned in my entry this morning, I do have more to say on this.

Do you know, Saturday night I was mortified by being outed as an ex-stripper -- even if I only held the title for 6 hours and due to a lack of licensure never got naked. And perhaps rightly so, THAT isn't the point that people find offensive. What really bothers people isn't as much the "getting nude for money" thing as it is the making the moral decision that it's OK to do so. The "sin", in many people's eyes, is the moral choice that a woman makes in order to be OK with the decision to work in an industry like that. That is the fall and failing that causes a woman to go from a "good woman" to a "bad girl."

But I think the part that bothers me most about Big Head is that he poses the question in such a way to express his contempt, makes it clear that he disapproves, but never thinks to enter into a dialog about the situation or circumstances that led to it. You know, a lot of times there are very good reasons, redeeming reasons, for things. Big Head just chooses to be completely deaf to anything outside his own belief set. He CHOOSES to think the worst of me, and thereby thinks the worst of D00d's informed decision to date me.

Not that his opinion in any large way matters, but it would certainly make life easier to be accepted than dismissed, or even to enter into an open dialog.

D00d and I both became single parents by choice, and for both of us, the pregnancies were unplanned. We both made choices that led to "unconventional" childrearing -- though it still boggles me why single parenthood hasn't been accepted as within the limits of social normalcy. There are a lot of people out here like us.

Now, the two of us, coming from the perspective of people who:

1. Made questionable safe sex decisions early in our lifes;
2. Became parents;
3. Took care of our responsibilities to be the best parents we could be;
4. Educated ourselves in our chosen careers; and
5. Maintained steady, gainful employment to provide for our children . . .

... now we can joke about it. And Saturday night in the car with Big Head and his girlfriend, that's what we did. With a full knowledge of a person's obligation to their children, and with a willing heart to accept the challenges that decision entails -- AND striving every day to meet those challenges with vigorous success, D00d and I poked fun at how my child came into this world.

When I told my son's father than I was pregnant, he told me he was married. He wanted me to abort. I chose to keep the baby, went to school, got a job, and became a full-time parent without a social life.

And, in fact, the situation was less than ideal, and for a person less prepared for parenthood it could have had tragic results for the child. There is nothing funny about that situation, and it was fucking hard to pull off.

After joking around, Big Head says, "What did you do? Did you go after him for child support?"

Yes, I did.

"Hmm," says Big Head, "why, if he didn't want the baby?"

"Well, because I was an angry woman."

But that answer wasn't satisfactory for Big Head, and the whole car could sense it.

"But didn't you forgive him thousands of dollars in unpaid child support?" asked D00d.

"Yes, I did. And I wouldn't have gone after him for support at all if he had just been honest with me about being married in the first place."

And I spent all day Sunday worrying about this man's opinion because it affects my continued ability to have a relationship with D00d. This man is one of D00d's closest friends, and sustaining a relationship with a person whose friend doesn't approve causes a strain on the relationship. We all know this.

And I spent all night thinking about it. I just really wanted Big Head to . . . I don't know. Not be so judgmental. I wanted him to NOT jump to the conclusion that I started off as a whore, then moved down the ladder to opportunistic man-wrecking whore, down still further to the opportunistic, man-wrecking whore who decided to start preying on his friend.

First of all, why was I so angry at my son's father? Could it have had anything to do with the fact that from the get-go he purposefully and intentionally stole my ability to make an informed choice based on honest facts regarding his marriage?

We dated for nine months, all the while having increasingly serious discussions about our future together as a couple, including discussions about marriage and children. He knew I wanted marriage. He knew I wanted to be the mother of his children, his wife and his life partner. Not a single time did he tell me that the conversations we were having were ficticious pieces of bullshit he went along with in order to achieve his goal of continuing to satisfy his carnal appetites.

He lied about it all, and in doing so allowed me to believe that my desired life path -- with him -- was assured. Had I known that he was married and that he had no intention of honoring or sharing the path we talked about, I would have never been with him.

Because I was not given that choice, the actions that we BOTH undertook -- namely unprotected "monogomous" sex -- resulted in a pregnancy.

HE was unwilling to accept responsibility for his actions that resulted from conscious deception via omission of extremely pertinent facts. He consciously chose to completely disregard my right to make informed decisions for my own life.

I wasn't without fault. I made the choice to engage in unprotected sex. And I got pregnant, and I made the choice to keep the baby as a single parent. However, that situation would have never arisen had I known he was married.

All I asked from him at the time was to allow his child to know who he was. I asked him, "Give me a picture so your son will know who his father is. Be there for the birth, call him every once in a while. You don't have to live with us or marry me. Just give your son a face and a name he can know so he can grow up with a sense of where and who he came from."

And he called me "the stupidest, most evil bitch in the whole world" and told me I ruined his life.

So yes. I was angry. He stole my right to chose from me, then ran away from his responsibilities, then told me I ruined his life because I chose not to kill the child growin inside me.

And you know what? There are consequences to those kinds of decisions. You cannot act with blatant disregard for other people. If you refuse to be a decent human being, well, you don't get my sympathy. I understood his situation -- having an illegitimate child threatened his home life. My unwillingness to acquiesce to his machismo and shoulder the shame silently while hushing it up for him caused him considerable disruption and loss of face to his friends and family in his culture.

But that was not my concern, and had he been an honorable person, he wouldn't have ever found himself in that uncomfortable position.

So I took his child support payment every month. And he remembered every month that he fucked with a woman and did her and his child wrong, and he would have to live with the consequences of that for the next 18 years.

Just like me. And just like the child he created only to abondon, who was innocent of any responsibility but to know every day of his life that his father didn't want to know him.

Consequences.

And yes. I did forgive him $7000 of back child support. I did it because I wanted to have faith. I did it because he asked me too, and because he promised that he WANTED to be a part of his child's life. He REMEMBERED when I told him that he was going to die old and alone with no one to love him, and that his choices on THAT day would be the cause of it. He remembered that and he cried. It haunted him. And I wanted his son to be a part of his redemption. I wanted them to put it all in the past and know each other now. I wanted my son to know both his parents, and to know what it was like to have both his parents love him.

But I knew it, too, was all a lie he concocted to get his way. Again, even after 10 years and being that much wiser, I recognized his bullshit this time. He hadn't learned a thing, except for how to apologize. But there was still no humanity in him to understand how his selfishness trickled down to everyone who would love him, and who hurt so much because he acted selfishly with no regard to how it would affect them.

So yes. I did those things. Once upon a time I was naive. Once upon a time I was angry. Once upon a time I exacted retribution.

Once upon a time when I was 19, I was one week away from getting kicked out of my apartment because I couldn't find a job for a couple of months. Once upon a time I didn't want to become homeless, so I tried WORKING in a sanctioned, protected establishment doing something other people might not do so as to keep a roof over my head. I made that choice so as to avoid having to beg and sponge off of family members or the welfare system.

Twice upon a time I made mistakes that had consequences, and twice upon a time I paid the consequences.

So I tell you now, Big Head, I'm not a perfect person. But I'm honest, I work hard, and I take ownership of my own actions. I have faith that people are good, and I do my best to treat others with respect and dignity. I don't lay down and sacrifice myself for the selfishness of others anymore, and more often than not I chose to walk away rather than call people out on their bullshit ways.

But sometimes I stand up and I fight. And you know what? I fucking win those fights -- more often than not because I'm right, I'm smart, and I'm sick and fucking tired of seeing some people purposely and calously take advantage of other people to those people's detriment. And I'm sick and tired of being judged as morally inferior or weak because of that.

5:51 pm - 02.09.09
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