MidReal Story
Raising Emily: A Father's Journey
Scenario: I am at home with my 18 year old daughter.
Create my version of this story
"Emily, get your ass out here now!"
I yell as I walk through the front door.
I know she’s home because her car is in the driveway.
She’s been skipping school again and I’m not going to put up with it anymore.
I’ve given her enough chances to straighten up and fly right.
This time she’s going to get a good old-fashioned ass whooping.
She knows better than to skip school, but she does it anyway.
I don’t know what else to do with her.
Her mother would be so disappointed in her if she were still alive today.
Chapter 1
"Emily, get your ass out here now!"
I yell as I walk through the front door.
I know she’s home because her car is in the driveway.
She’s been skipping school again and I’m not going to put up with it anymore.
I’ve given her enough chances to straighten up and fly right.
This time she’s going to get a good old-fashioned ass whooping.
She knows better than to skip school, but she does it anyway.
I don’t know what else to do with her.
Her mother would be so disappointed in her if she were still alive today.
I can’t believe my wife has been gone for two years now.
I look around the living room and find my daughter Emily sitting on the couch with her shoes off and a pair of long, black leggings on.
She’s holding her phone and texting.
She’s a pretty girl who looks like her mother with long dark hair, green eyes, and a slim body.
Her hair is always in a ponytail or braid and she always wears dark clothes with heavy eyeliner.
She’s a beautiful girl, but she acts like a bitch.
The way she’s sitting on the couch texting while I’m yelling at her pisses me off even more.
She should be more respectful to me, but she’s not.
I was at work when I received a call from Emily’s school that she had skipped again today.
This is the third time this month that they’ve called me about her skipping school.
The first two times I let it go because I thought she’d get the hint, but apparently I was wrong.
I’m not going to put up with this shit anymore.
Emily looks up at me and smiles for a second before she realizes that I’m really angry with her.
Emily tries to avoid confrontation at all costs, but she knows that it’s time for her to face the music now.
"I don’t know."
She answers meekly as she looks down at her shoes.
"Damn it, Emily! You know that you’re going to get in trouble if you skip school again!"
I yell at her.
This isn’t the first time she’s skipped class, and it needs to be the last time.
I don’t know how much more of this I can put up with.
As a single father who has raised two children on my own, I know that there are already enough challenges that come with raising a teenage girl, so why does she have to make my life any harder by skipping school for no good reason?
I’ve been getting calls from the school every single day this week about Emily skipping class when I know for a fact that she’s the one driving herself to school in the mornings.
"Damn it, Emily! You know that you’re going to get in trouble if you skip school again!"
I yell at her.
This isn’t the first time she’s skipped class, and it needs to be the last time.
I don’t know how much more of this I can put up with.
As a single father who has raised two children on my own, I know that there are already enough challenges that come with raising a teenage girl, so why does she have to make my life any harder by skipping school for no good reason?
I’ve been getting calls from the school every single day this week about Emily skipping class when I know for a fact that she’s the one driving herself to school in the mornings.
"Sorry. It won’t happen again."
She says, but she’s not really sorry.
Emily doesn’t care about school.
She knows that she can just go to college and get a good job, but she doesn’t want to do that.
Why should she?
Life is full of opportunities, but they’re not guaranteed to come if you don’t work hard for them.
Emily has never had to work hard for anything before.
She has always been given everything that she wants on a silver platter.
She doesn’t even thank me for all the things that I do for her.
Chapter 2
My wife passed away from cancer, and it has been a tough adjustment for both me and Emily.
I’m trying my best, but it has been hard on both of us.
I am not a woman; I have no idea how to be a mother.
I am not even close to figuring out what it means to be a mother.
The grief is still hard, and it hits me hard every single day.
This is why being a parent is hard.
I have to be both mom and dad to my daughter and sometimes I wish that there was someone else out there who could help me out with this.
Someone who could tell me what to do and how to raise my daughter without her mother around.
It feels like the weight of the world is on my shoulders, and I don’t know how much more of this I can take.
I’ve been doing my best to provide for my daughter, but the bills keep piling up, and the money just doesn’t seem to be there.
I lost my job at the factory a few months ago, and now I’m working as a mechanic for less pay than before.
I took this job because I thought it would provide me with more time to spend with my daughter, but it hasn’t made parenting any easier.
I am always late or missing school events because of work, and it makes things harder on both of us.
The only thing that is keeping us going is the love that we have for each other.
I love her with all of my heart, and I know that she loves me too.
Emily has always been a social butterfly; she has lots of friends at school, which makes it hard for me to keep up with where she is at all times.
I know that she’s going through a tough time right now, but I can’t let her get away with everything all the time.
She has skipped school before, but this time is different, and I know that if I let her get away with it now, then she’ll just keep doing it over and over again.
I can’t have that happening.
I love my daughter with all of my heart, and I want what’s best for her.
I don’t want her getting into trouble and getting herself into something that she can’t get out of.
I need to set some boundaries and make sure that she knows that skipping school is not okay and will not be tolerated.
