A Heavy Taboo: a Black Dad Chronicle (Part 1)

“You need to protect those girls.”

These were some of the first words my Sister told me after I had gotten married (for the first time) – words about my new stepdaughters that rang out to me very loud. Very clear.

My first marriage occurred while I was still serving time for a robbery I committed at 19. I was 25 and Muslim and despite my circumstance (and very much because of my spiritual transformation) I had been lucky/blessed enough to snag a gorgeous, devout, and intelligent woman who took an interest and liking to me. My wife had been a friend of a friend – a blind Pen Pal hook-up that quickly blossomed into matrimony.

Maybe too fast – because not long after I got a cautionary letter about my new nuptials.  Among a couple red flags waved at my marriage was this: my wife’s ex-husband was a suspected child molester.

Quite the bombshell, for sure, given that my wife had not been the one to tell me this herself. I guess I understood that this might not be high up on the list of things to talk about for her but one of the things that made this so disconcerting was the fact that this dude played a prominent father-figure role for Wifey's 4 kids – only one, her oldest son, was his - even during the course of their divorce and separation.

Some background info is in order here:  At the time I married my wife, she had been divorced close to 5 years from Ronnie, who was the father of her second child and oldest son. Despite their dissolved marriage, he remained a devoted father to his son and doted just as much on the other 3 kids (altogether there were 2 girls and 2 boys – and later my own daughter).

At best, my concern was that, as the old saying goes, “two men can’t rock the same cradle”. I understood the need and benefit for a single mother to have a male figure around, and it made sense that it would be her ex-husband – but we men posture, puff out and beat our chests over women and households and with me in the picture, there was only room for one Alpha, moi. 

And, then (more importantly) there was this molestation thing…

From the onset I took seriously my role as protector and head of household, even for the first year or so of our marriage when I wasn’t physically present. The last thing I was going to allow was any child under my charge to be exposed to any victimization. When I brought this issue to my wife, she was horrified that I had gotten wind of the scandal before she could actually tell me. The story, as she told it, was that the oldest daughter had informed someone (who, I cannot remember) about being touched inappropriately and this was brought to the attention of authorities, who were told by both girls that Ronnie was the perpetrator. However, to add to the confusion, the youngest of my stepdaughters also pointed the finger to her own father – given her age and most probably the ineptitude of the social service interrogators, this is not surprising.

As a result, no one was clearly pointed out as having done anything wrong – from the standpoint of the authorities, that is. Suspicion still cast a shadow over Ronnie, who vehemently denied even the slightest suggestion of guilt. Add to that the acrid resentment that the father of the youngest daughter now had for his baby mama, and sadly, for his own daughter, after having fingers pointed in his direction.

Let me clarify the picture that now lay before me:  I am 25, 2 years a Muslim convert (read: zealous and having something to prove), and married to a woman who has sex/child abuse bones in her closet that she has tried (in vain) to keep from me. I have one ex/baby-daddy who is so pissed at his baby-mama AND child that he will label mom an impious ho and pretty much neglect his child. And I have another ex/baby-daddy who doesn’t want to relinquish his daddy role and just might also be sexual deviant.

And here I was - in prison – acting like I am the one with issues and needing to keep my best foot forward and prove I’m worthy of a relationship/marriage and parenthood.

Ironic, no?

The one thing I could do – very clearly – is express to Wifey that I wasn’t interested in figuring out if Ronnie was guilty, the girls’ safety was paramount to me; Ronnie was going to have to be cut off from the amount of interaction with the kids (other than his own, of course).

My stance seemed reasonable, as was my expectation that my wife would convey it to her ex and take the necessary steps to implement my wishes.

Boy, was I wrong...

(to be continued)