Dear Baby Daddy,

I can't with you. I simply can't. It's been 15+ years, and at the rate we're going - it will be either a lifetime, or no life at all.

Let me try to say this clearly without rambling. I'll try. We'll see how successful I will be.

A long time ago, June of 1994 to be exact, we conceived our son. I was informed of this fact four months later, when my inconsistent period finally disappeared completely, and a pregnancy test came up with the wrong result. Wrong, for all the right reasons. We weren't a stable couple. You were abusive. I wasn't sure where this relationship was headed. You weren't ready.

And despite my misgivings and reservations, despite my intuition and intellect, we pushed on. Decided to have a child, together. You promised to love, honor, cherish, etc. I promised to be a good mom.

And here we are, 15+ years later. Joined by history, pain, blood, anger, violence and desperation. And joined by our 15 year old teen-aged son. Our handicapped, 15 year old teen-aged son.

I have to be honest - I long for the day that I can push on and say, frankly, f*ck you. But I need you to frankly understand why.

The long and short of it is that you're now destroying any notions I have of my son having a decent father, or male role model. And in that destruction, you're also destroying any notion of my son continuing to know who you are. It's time for me to make a decision that I've desperately not wanted to make for some years now.

Why, you ask? No, it's not the philandering. I've known you for 16 years - I don't expect much more than that from you in the relationship department.

No, it's also not solely your narcissism. I know men that are great fathers, and manage to do that while also being incredibly narcissistic.

It's that - the gene, or characteristic that makes a man want to be good, so that their son has a better example than the one he had...well, it seems you're missing that chromosome.

I cried today, not because your child support payment is late (it pretty much always is). And not because I'm broke - I've been there before, I'm ok with that. I cried because I saw an example of a good father. A man who is making it a point of teaching his 11 year old child the sacrifices, pain, compromises and courage it takes to be a good man (simply for the sake of being good - not to impress a woman, or get something out of it). I saw this example, and realized that you will never be that person for your son. And that truly, more than any other thing you've done to me in these last 16 years - that makes me feel like absolute shyt for picking you to be the father of my child. It breaks my heart and tears me up inside. Your son deserves better than that.

A picture, if you're still reading: a little girl about 7 years old, pulls on a one-piece bathing suit in the dark, and jeans and a t-shirt over it. She naps in the truck on the way to the riverfront, and dozes sleepily as her father pushes the boat out into the water. But when the sun rises high into the sky, so high that the world presses bright yellow against her eyelids, she wakes up. Her father smiles sweetly at her, hands her a sandwich bag filled with rice krispy treats her mother made the night before, and points at her fishing pole dangling over the edge of the boat. And in that moment, she knows she is the most special, most loved little girl on earth.

That moment, 37 years ago, can never be returned or recreated. It can't be bought with an $XX/week child support check, or biweekly visitation. Once the moment is gone, you can never get it back. My father has been gone for 33 years, and somehow now, in this moment of my trying to explain this to you, the pain of that loss is as sharp as the day I found out he was gone. My memories of him, still so vivid. My missing him, still at once wonderful and terrible.

I can't make you be a good father. Apparently, I can't even guide you in that direction. Even if I have some parenting experience, or might know what it's like to be close to my dad - the phrase involving horse and water comes to mind. I've tried to accept that fact.

However, I can't accept that you'd continue - after over a decade of our being apart - that you'd continue to fight my efforts to get you there. To "good fatherhood". Silly me for thinking that's a destination I could actually help you arrive at. Yes, that's my fault, my folly, my arrogance. I'll accept responsibility for that. But the suffering that's come from that? That I can't accept.

I had a lot of fight in me when we met. I was "feisty". Sassy. Apparently, that feistiness and determination were the things that made me attractive to you.

Now, that fight's gone. I'm tired. Exhausted. I've had to fight so many battles, on our son's behalf, on my own behalf, on our family's behalf (because despite the fact that you're not in it - your son and I are still a family). Fighting diagnoses, fighting doctors and specialists. Fighting social workers and teachers. I don't have any fight left to continue to fight you, too.

You win. After all that's been said & done, at the end of the day, you wanted your 'freedom'. To be responsible for you and only you, and hold your son & I on a string. No longer in your life, because we're not together - which I admit was my decision. But using your son as a pawn in that game - as a way of manipulating me, to try to control me? "Watching him" when it suited you, as long as it didn't conflict with your social schedule? Opting out when it didn't? Not stepping up to the plate when clearly, I needed help? For no reason, other than - you don't "want to"?

If you're not a part of the solution, you're part of the problem.

Meanwhile, your son emulates your negative behaviors. Curses when he's frustrated. Calls me names when I upset him.Throws tantrums and gets violent when he doesn't get his way. If I had ever imagined that this would be the result of the last 16 years of trying to make this situation with you work - I would have spent my energy finding a more suitable replacement. He needs a strong male figure in his life. Obviously, it cannot be you.

Please understand, this is not out of spite. Or conceit. Or superiority. I know I'm not the greatest mom in the world. I'm flawed, but I'm trying. No, this is solely because I can't continue to expose our son to the incredibly flawed example of fatherhood and manhood that you keep presenting to him. I can't. I don't want my son to think that your example is acceptable. It's not. And the only way I can't make him understand that, is to stop accepting it.