A Divorced Father’s Bill Of Rights

by Tracy Poizner for UnDeletableDad.com

1. You have the right to protect your child’s rights at all times. You don’t need permission to be the champion of your child’s physical, mental, emotional or spiritual development.
2. You have the right to meet or exceed your natural responsibilities as a father. No power on earth can force you to be a less responsible father.
3. You have the right to use all legal and ethical tools at your disposal to show your children that you love them. Third-party feedback on this is not required.
4. You have the right to parent with integrity, ie, according to your own deeply held values. It’s not important that your values be shared by the mother of your children however you acknowledge that she too has the right to parent with integrity.
5. You have the right to take full responsibility for the state of your current relationship with your child, regardless of distance, custody or anything they may hear about you from a third party. The quality of your connection with your child is no one else’s responsibility and nobody else’s fault.
6. You have the right to mess up as a parent and to try again without being judged for it. Making mistakes is integral to improving at anything in life.
7. You have the right to a supportive community to help you launch your child into the world as a well-adjusted, self-sufficient adult. In the words of Mister Rogers, find the helpers.
8. You have the right to delete people from your community if they fail to support you as a parent. Those who suggest that everyone would be better off if you just walked away can use that advice immediately themselves.
9. You have the right to keep upgrading your personal power until you become irresistibly magnetic to your children. No, it’s not cheating.
10. You have the right to bend time and space to accomplish this mission. The cosmos is expected to cooperate here, and it will.

Visit undeletabledad.com for links to more resources for the divorced and separated father.