Augusta GA Divorce Lawyer - Single dads on Father’s Day
By MIKE GERRITY - Chronicle Staff Writer
As they sit around the leveled ruins of a flamboyantly colored Lego house, Chris Netzell and his 4-year-old son debate what they should do next with their Friday together.
“Miles, you feel up for a hike today?”
“Yeah,” Miles says, smiling.
“You think you can make it the whole way up without me carrying you?”
“No ... uh, yeah!”
About an hour later, three-quarters of the way up the “M” trail in Bozeman, Netzell trudges the last few switchbacks with Miles on his shoulders, seemingly oblivious to how big he’s getting.
“I’m really good at this!” Miles says.
“Yeah,” his dad reassures him through an exhausted gasp. “You’re REALLY good at this.”
‘Legos are awesome’
Netzell, 27, usually has his son from Thursday night through Sunday. The other half of the week he shares custody with the boy’s mother, Kim. He and Kim were divorced two years ago.
Single parenthood is not easy for anyone, and in most cases it falls on the mothers, whether due to court-ordered child custody arrangements or other circumstances that take fathers out of the picture. The most recent U.S. Census figures available estimate that, as of 2006, four out of five single-parent households were headed by mothers.
As a result, fathers who have as much time every week with their children as Netzell are a rare breed in Montana, much like the rest of America.
Becoming a father at 23 was decision Netzell made after getting married, and by the looks of it, is not something he thinks twice about.
After their long hike, he and Miles kicked back over lunch and an episode of “SpongeBob SquarePants.” Miles had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and apple sauce. Netzell had a bowl of ramen noodles and a grape Otter Pop.
Getting reacquainted to the simple pleasures of cartoons, toys and popsicles has been a refreshing aspect of fatherhood for Netzell.
“You spend your adult life doing mundane and meaningful things and then you get back to enjoying genuinely simple things like playing with Legos or watching ridiculous cartoons.” Netzell said. “Legos are awesome.”
‘Not an easy transition’
Charlie Soah, 79, knows the hardships that come from raising children alone. He’s done it four times.
“Except for marriage, I’ve been very lucky and successful,” Soha said.
He said he became the single parent of his first two sons, Charlie and Daniel, in the mid-1960s after divorcing his first wife while working in Fairfax, Va.
“It was very rough,” he said.
Back then, Soha relied on a neighbor to watch the kids after school before he got home from work.
For a little while, when cash was tight, he made an agreement with a Safeway grocer to buy vegetables due to be thrown out for 50 cents a bag.
“There weren’t any food stamps in those days,” Soha said.
Then in 1980, his military career took him to Istanbul, Turkey, where he met his second wife and fathered his youngest two boys, Gregory and Benjamin.
But after moving back to the United States, that marriage broke up, too.
When Gregory and Benjamin were 13 and 12, he retired and moved with the boys to Bozeman.
He said raising two boys the second time around was easier because they were older.
But Benjamin, now 24, recalled trying to adjust to his mother’s absence after she moved back to Turkey.
“It’s not an easy transition,” Benjamin said. “I just took the situation as best I could.”
‘Little dude’
Netzell believes that since Miles was only 2 when his mother and father split up he adapted more easily than an older child might to growing up in two homes.
But that change doesn’t come as naturally to a father, he said.
When they were still married, Netzell and Kim worked opposite nights and days while taking care of Miles in between. Since the divorce, the support that came with a co-parenting home has diminished and money has gotten tighter.
“You don’t have that partner to pick up the slack where you’re lacking,” he said.
When Miles is with his mother in Livingston, Netzell stays involved with a core group of friends that share his long-standing fascination with hardcore rock. One can bet on spotting him at the Filling Station whenever a decent band comes through town, though he said he’s cutting back on drinking lately.
Getting over the divorce took a personal toll, he said, and at the worst points alcohol became a way to escape the nagging thoughts of self-doubt and guilt.
“I’m only just getting to the point now where I’m not blaming myself for everything,” Netzell said. “I’m happy enough to move on and not hate myself for it.”
In the meantime, Netzell credits his friends for their involvement in his life and in his relationship with his son.
“They help me out a lot,” he said. “(Miles) loves it when people come over for a barbeque or whatever. He’s definitely got his mother’s social skills.”
Having his “little dude,” around, he says, is enough to keep the wind at his back.
“He’s my little god. I worship that kid.”
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