Holidays are tough for alienated parents — especially holidays like Mother’s Day and Father’s Day that are designed to honor a place in our childrens’ lives that alienating parents and our alienated children refuse to recognize.
So with Father’s Day coming up, we wanted to post part of an article that Jeff Opperman wrote a few years ago for Lifesherpa.com. The article is called, “A Father’s Day wish for the alienated dad.”
Happy Father’s Day to all targeted fathers from A Family’s Heartbreak: A Parent’s Introduction to Parental Alienation. We know you’d rather celebrate Father’s Day with your children, and we hope one year soon you will.
Here’s the excerpt from the article:
… My most heartfelt Father’s Day wishes go to the Dads who are victims of PAS. So Happy Father’s Day to the alienated Dad:
In the airport, may someone meet you with a big hug.
In the mall, may a toddler look up at you from a stroller and smile.
At a ballgame, may you catch a foul ball and enjoy giving the ball to the kid sitting closest to you.
At work, may you enjoy your job.
At the supermarket, may you get a group “thank you” from the Scout troupe for buying something you didn’t really need.
At home, may you have the information you need to order your child’s school picture; and the strength you need to keep the photo where you can see it.
On vacation, may you get through an entire chapter of your book without thinking about the child who refused to come with you.
Holding the remote control, may you come across actor Rick Schroeder in a rerun of NYPD Blue rather than The Champ.
Volunteering as a Big Brother, may you see signs of your positive influence.
Listening to the radio, may the station play Harry Chapin’s Cats in the Cradle and Will Smith’s Just the Two of Us when you’re out of the room.
Cooking dinner, may you have a reason to increase the ingredients of your favorite recipe.
Picking up the ringing phone, may you have a wonderful surprise on the other end of the line.
You can see posts from Jeff Opperman at our A Family’s Heartbreak Facebook page — http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/topic.php?uid=61789494087&topic=9887
You can read the complete article, A Father’s Day wish for the alienated Dad at http://www.lifesherpa.com/magazine/life-journeys/2003-06-opperman-alienated.htm
Happy Father’s Day to you too.
Mike, this is a great article and addresses survival points for the targeted parent, something it is tough to find information about anywhere. I have found that focusing on creating the image for myself and the life that I would want my daughter to experience when she eventually decides to see me again, is so incredibly important. Day to day is tough. There ARE those days when it is overwhelming and I allow myself to grieve on some of those days. Then I really grieve….I look at old pictures of happier times and old notes and artwork of my daughter’s. The next day allows me to move on and get back to my building a life that I (and eventually my daughter) can be proud of.
Where do you get all of your ideas from? I love your writing style. I just hope that I could write something like this someday.
its quite a lot that money can’t buy, I am a target on a trash can in his mind. I’ve never even had the chance to betray his trust. Still he views me as someone best left alone, unworthy, he has never even met me. How can he be so superior in true knolage about me? Trained, conditioned, and moulded by the ones who raised him? Or was he born like that?