Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mother’s Day and Father’s Day arose from a desire to acknowledge the importance of parents, the people who guide, protect and care for the Next Generation. They deserve a day of recognition.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
You know who else deserves a day of recognition? Step parents. The people who fill empty shoes to guide, protect and care for the Next Generation, but without the natural authority of being a parent, and frequently while being undermined by both natural parents.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
When I was a divorce lawyer, I always felt sorry for them. They put up with backtalk from children who say, “you aren’t my parent,” visitation disputes that disrupt holiday and vacation plans, fill the budget gap that child support doesn’t cover . . . and get no credit from natural parents who say “Oh, you wouldn’t understand, you don’t have children.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Really? Which do you think is easier: to love your own child, or to love someone else’s child as if it was your own? <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
No, I’m not advocating for another greeting card occasion, or more days off government work with pay. But look around your children’s classroom and count the number of intact families which celebrate natural mother and natural father’s days. All the rest are being raised by unacknowledged heroes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Joe Doakes<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
I used to have a real trip on my shoulder about Father\u2019s Day. Not have any personal animus; mostly out of anger for the way so many fathers are treated in Family Court, and for the way fatherhood has been devalued in our society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But as a father of two, and a stepfather of one, I couldn\u2019t agree more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: Mother’s Day and Father’s Day arose from a desire to acknowledge the importance of parents, the people who guide, protect and care for the Next Generation. They deserve a day of recognition. You know who else deserves a day of recognition? Step parents. The people who fill empty shoes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family-law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=82522"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82523,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82522\/revisions\/82523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=82522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=82522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=82522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}