Letter to Absent Fathers

Absent Fathers:
You need to know how your children feel about you not being an active part of their lives. Below is a letter I found that my daughter wrote to her father a few years ago. I know she cried herself to sleep some nights but there was nothing I could do except hold her while she cried. She would ask me why does daddy hate me. My reply was, its not you he hates it is your mom he hates. Parents you do not have to be best friends, go out to dinner or socialize with your ex's, just REMEMBER there is a CHILD INVOLVED that needs both a Mom and Dad in their life.

Dear Father,
I know you are wondering why I am addressing you this way. Well I will tell you. When I was younger I though you were a daddy to me, Now I am older I look back and see you were not. Yes, you would take me hunting with you and we would do things you wanted to do, but did you ever do anything that I wanted to. No, you did not, you would say you had something else to do, but you had time for the things you wanted to do. Now as I grow older and we are not talking, actually we have not spoken in three years.

I have had time to sit and think about what hurts me the most, about our relationship as "Father and Daughter". The truth is we do not have a relationship, before at least you had a way to contact me but you had to be a smart and turn off my cell phone thinking it would hurt me. Now you have no way to contact me unless you call my step-dad and ask him if you can talk to me or maybe call some of moms' family. I know you have my step dads' number because he called you and left you a message with his phone number so that you could call me but you are to "macho" to call another man and ask him to let you speak to your own daughter. That really proves that you do not care about me or that you are not man enough, I really do not know which is it.