Divorced Kid Humor

You know, since the birth of this web log oh so many months ago, I have experienced a range of emotions when considering it. It’s interesting how something so seemingly trivial can spike thoughts into your brain when you’re plucking out your contacts at the end of the day.

Like Divorced Kid Humor. I was trying to explain to my good friend Becca that my description line, “Everybody leaves…just like my dad,” is an example of Divorced Kid Humor and not a direct cut toward my father. She did not find it amusing and I thought about it later and I came to the conclusion that it would be hard for her to relate to that kind of humor. Not because she doesn’t have an excellent sense of humor, because she really really does. But Becca has an awesome relationship with her father. Additionally, her parents are still happily married. She has an incredibly loving (and sickeningly attractive) family. She is not jaded or cynical about father-daughter relationships, as I am, and so her comment to me about the appropriateness of that description line speared through the fuzz and resonated within me. Not just because I value her opinion, but because she was right. She was objective enough to see that and call me on it.

Though I still find it side-splittingly hilarious, as it was when I first said it (to Kelly, and I started laughing even before I finished the sentence because I knew it would be a hilarity bomb), and I reserve the right to express myself in any way I choose (especially regarding my parents’ divorce, as it has and continues to have such an enormous impact on my life), out of respect for my father, and the surrogate fathers in my life, who are right now – LITERALLY – fighting for their lives, the description line will be changed.

For those who have never experienced a divorce, it’s hard for them to imagine being able to find humor in it and to poke fun at it. Humor, for me, has always been my go-to survival mechanism. Without it, there are times in my life I would not have been able to bear breathing, let alone going to school or work, etc…

Divorced Kid Humor is a special blend of cynicism, self-deprecation, passive-aggressiveness, reluctant tolerance and forced adaptability. Once you’ve stood at the front door of your new house with your mom and your brother and watched your father drive away with the last of his things (except his record collection – muah-ah-ah-ah!!!), and heard your mother say, “Well, guys, it’s just the three of us now,” – even at the tender age of five, you’re going to start trying REAL hard to get the smile back on her face and divert your own attention from the fact that it really IS just the three of you now. Whence Divorced Kid Humor is born.

I love my dad. But the fact that he left my mom is not a secret. And though I’m sure it might not go over well were he to see that description line, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s true. He did leave. But Becca’s right. I’m wrong. When so many of my dearest friends are right now living in fear that their fathers could be gone at any moment, it’s selfish and insensitive to leave it up, especially when I am blessed enough to have a father who is healthy and financially secure.
See? That’s one of the great things about getting older: Being able to admit when you’re wrong.

Of course, for those of you who are acquainted with my family, I will now have to write a glowing Tribute to Loretta in return for dedicating this entry’s subject to my father and fathers in general.