A father by choice, not obligation
'She taught me that love and family transcend any type of traditional definition'
I am grateful to a man I’ve never met.
He is 37, a second-year law student living in Southern California.
Rather than use his birth name, he asked that I use his middle name: Eli.
Eli and his 14-year-old daughter are inseparable.
Eli is not her biological father. In fact, Eli has no legal tie to the child.
He is in her life because he can’t imagine not being in her life.
He has been the only father she has known since birth.
The young woman, who I’ll call Kay, has lived a life filled with challenges and trauma and uncomfortable realities for so many families in America that involve substance abuse.
Eli met Kay’s mother during the pregnancy.
The two began dating before Kay’s first birthday.
But wait, let’s back up and start at the beginning.
Because the road had been rough.
From drug addiction to law school
Eli was born in Boise, Idaho, and grew up mostly in Des Moines, Iowa. He hopped a bus in 2010 after finishing community college and breaking up with a girl. He ended up moving in with a friend and, after two months, had a job at Cheesecake Factory waiting tables. And a drug problem.
Then he met Kay’s mother.
“I was doing meth and we were living with my ex's parents,” Eli said, between law classes. “I … was spending much of my time on the San Gabriel riverbed doing drugs. But I was almost always sleeping at the house. The three of us shared one bed.”
After spiraling a decade, Eli pulled himself out.
He parted with Kay’s mother nearly three years ago, but he couldn’t leave Kay.
“She has called me dad her entire life,” Eli said. “I mean, I was there for her first steps, her first words, her first day of every year of school. Obviously I had some tremendous problems in my own life, but then I got sober and was even more consistent with her. (Kay) not being in my life was never a consideration.”
Eli got sober a few years before leaving Kay’s mother. He has run (26.2 mile) marathons in Long Beach and Sacramento, plus half marathons in Long Beach and Surf City. He cycles. He already has job offers from law firms.
His fiancee, a mental health therapist and L.A. native, is in recovery, too. While they haven’t exchanged vows, they already have a family unit.
When they purchased their home, a third bedroom for Kay was top priority. She spends every weekend with them.
Father/daughter homework in the kitchen
Eli drives 15 miles to Kay’s house to pick her up on Fridays and then drop her off on Sundays. It can be a two-hour round trip in traffic.
The father and daughter mostly spend time at the house, on the beach, out to dinner or walking around the shops in Little Tokyo in downtown Los Angeles.
Kay loves anime and Japanese culture and Hatsune Miku, one of Japan’s top pop stars that is actually a hologram. Kay is also in her third year of violin, which she loves.
“A lot of what we do is just hanging out at the house,” Eli said. “I obviously have homework to do, so we sit down at the kitchen table and do our homework together. I don’t think she does much during the week so she has catch-up to do.”
What ‘family’ really means
When Eli started dating again, things were complicated. He decided he would be candid about having a daughter. If someone wasn’t open to the non-traditional dynamic, then things wouldn’t work out. Eli maintains a relationship with Kay’s whole family.
“I mean, I love her,” Eli said. “She has taught me that love and family transcend any type of traditional definition we have … of what love and family is supposed to look like. I think that I feel all of the protective instincts and everything a biological father feels about his child.”
And while Eli can imagine having a child one day with his fiancee, he said he’ll always look at Kay as his first child. She has never known her biological dad.
‘I’m responsible for some of the trauma’
“I think it’s hard for her,” Eli said. “To her, I'm her dad. It is what it is. Other people say nice things, but I guess the way I talk about it is, I'm really grateful and happy that I'm in a position today to be a stable, consistent father in her life. That wasn't always the case. To the extent that I deserve a pat on the back, I always recognize that I'm responsible for some of the trauma and hard experiences she's had in her life.”
In recent days, Kay decided not to open her birthday gifts in front of visiting family members. She gets embarrassed and self-conscious and shuts down. Eli said he knows she’s needs to get therapy but she’s not ready yet.
“There’s stuff that she needs to work on,” Eli said.
When Kay is ready, he’ll be right there by her side.
Parenting has a ripple effect
Eli downplayed the significance of his actions.
But they are notable.
Dr. David Rosenberg, chair of the Department of Psychiatry at Wayne State University and a child/adolescent psychiatrist, said that adult break-ups often leave children devastated — whether it’s and end to marriage or long-term dating.
“In spite of all the chaos around us, what children, particularly teenagers, crave is constancy and normalcy and some sense of certainty. People often leave without saying goodbye,” Rosenberg told me.
Staying in the life of a child who isn’t yours, being a healthy role model, is invaluable.
“When you’re talking about someone a child has known their whole life, sometimes a child doesn’t recover from that kind of thing,” Rosenberg said. “It depends on a child’s resilience. Teenage years are impressionable. They can feel the rug is pulled out. And while many teenagers recover just fine, even those who go on to lead productive and healthy lives will point to pain that causes.”
The actions of Eli — and men and women like him — are consistent with what the “eminent” Rabbi Hillel said: He who saves a life saves the world, Rosenberg said.
“People who step up like this, they’re making an impact,” he said. “The imprint that goes into a child’s mind, body and soul is incalculable. It’s not just immediate, it’s long term in how the child feels about relationships when they grow up and their children and their grandchildren. We’re really talking generational impact.”
Every child matters.
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Fatherhood is an intentional act, not a biological accident.
What a story, so beautifully told.