But I Don't Want the Boomerang to Come Back...

Boomerang child that is.

I had the unpleasant duty of evicting my son this past weekend.  He had originally left home (which was in another city) at 18. At the age of 22, he moved back in because he was ‘in transition’ from a city 2 hours north of me to a city 1 hour south. There wasn’t a formal drawn up agreement, so I couldn’t point to the particular clause he had violated, which is normally followed by reference to the termination of tenancy clause.

Please be aware the "Final Straw" I'm about to relate was not a one-off. It was the culmination of many months of trying to get him to take responsibility for himself. Trying to get him to get a job. Trying to remind him civilly about our agreement. You know, the non-existent one which was verbal only.

During his vacation stay at Chez Dad's he didn't have a job and worse, didn't contribute to the house by doing his dishes, helping out in the yard or even cleaning up after himself in the bathroom.

He orginally was going to stay for 4 - 6 weeks (in layman's terms - no more than a month and a half.) Sounds fair, right? Well, I thought so, until . . . 1 year and 2 months later, he was still here. At least I think it was him, or one of the Walking Dead who happened to live in my house. I say this because the similarities were frightening:

1. Shuffled around with a strained look on his face.

2. Grunted when spoken to.

3. (metaphorically) feasting on my life blood as he had no job and no ambition of getting one.

The last straw for me was when I tried to get him to talk to his sister on the phone. He was angry with her and said she go f—k herself, which I find odd because women aren’t physically built the same as men. When I chastised him for this, he told me I could do the same. Now it was getting personal. I let it go for the time because I was a little stunned. Probably more so because the zombie actually did more than just grunt. He said a whole sentence.

Sleeping on it, I decided it was time for him to leave. I wrote him a very nice email from work - taking extreme care to ensure it wasn’t inflammatory. I gave him two weeks to find a new place, then another 2 weeks for him to get his belongings.

After all my care choosing the right words, crafting proper sentence structure and trying to make him understand this was for his good, he replied with “You can f—k yourself”. My son desperately needs to find new material as I had already heard that one and quite recently. 

Feeling the need to stand my ground, I replied with “You can always leave sooner”. He must have been at the computer because the next response came almost immediately “And you can always f—k yourself sooner, you piece of sh-t” . Sensing a bit of hostility in this, I gave him the final ultimatum: “I expect you will be gone by the time I got home from work”. And like a good boy, he was. This may have been the first step on his road to redemption and responsibility. If it is, I have completed my duty as a father.  If it isn't.... I've still completed my duty as a father.

Yes, I make fun of what happened – but that’s the nature of my blog. Actually, no fun at all and I really don’t feel good about doing what I had to do.

When I related the story to a coworker who has known my son for 15 years, I added that I wouldn’t be surprised to have come home and found FAG spray painted across my garage door. I added this because I believe that my sexuality may be part of his anger. My coworker asked, “when he was telling you to f—k yourself, did he say ‘go f—k yourself, fag’?. When I said “no”, he said, “if he didn’t call you that at the time he was trying to hurt you most, then most likely it’s not part of his vocabulary. He’s angry at you yes, but at Dad, not at gay Dad.”

Gay Dad! Sounds like a superhero!!! And no one would question why I was wearing tights!

To all you other gay dads out there, you’re still the father regardless of your sexuality. Will my son ever talk to me again? Who knows? Maybe when he matures a little and realizes there was a reason Dad didn’t want the boomerang to come back. Dad was enabling, not helping.