Our father was here, but he felt more like a roommate. He never made our meals, washed our clothes, or played with us – on the rare occasion he did, it was just with my brother. If Mum was sick and he had to feed us and take us to school, he had no idea what to do. He never took us out to give our mother a break.
Buy it: Original Baby It’s 2020 Covid Outside Shirt
Every now and then he’d read us a bedtime story but he inevitably got bored with the ritual and stopped for months to years each time, before he’d do it again for a few nights. Rinse and repeat. His involvement was discipline when my mother couldn’t handle us, and that was it. He was just someone we shared a house with. I don’t even remember him asking about school.