This has been one of the over-arching questions of my life, always looming, never answered.

Why can't men step up?

Why do they think it's not their job to be a presence in their children's lives?

My own dad was the same. Disapeared. When he had us for the summer, he ignored us. Why did he think parenting was exclusively my mom's job? Why, as I grew, did he think it was MY job to reach out to HIM? When we were estranged for years, he whined about me not ever calling him. Honey, the phone works both ways!

And now, we do have a decent relationship. Guess who made that happen? Guess who did the work? Guess who soothed HIS hurt feelings? Guess who said, "I'd like our relationship to be better than it is. What have I done to get us to this place, and how can I improve?"

He didn't ask me the same thing.

I fixed it because I knew having a rift with my father was causing me to suffer (him, too) so I put the work in to make it right. Because I'm an adult now. Because I've made it my business to figure out how relationships work.

Why, oh why couldn't he have made that effort?