Dad Writes Emotional Post About Having To Raise His Daughter Alone Because Mom Took Off

I don’t think any of us need to be told that life can be difficult sometimes. We start out hoping for the best but unless we plan for the worst, it is likely that we are going to experience some trials every once in a while. That is especially true when it comes to raising children. Many of us find ourselves in a situation where we do not have the ideal lifestyle that we would like, and that is what happened to Richard Johnson. When he had a daughter in 2015, he had no idea that he would be left alone to raise her on his own. Even though his partner left him and Persephone, he decided to do what he could and he even got some help in the form of a Facebook group he joined called Life of Dad. Richard posted a thank you to the group that went viral. When Richard became the father at the age of 21, it was coming off a long stretch of time when he said he didn’t want children. “I came from a family where everyone is either divorced or a single parent. My father wasn’t in the picture, and I never wanted that for my kids, so I was dead set on not having any.” That is when he met the woman of his dreams and in his words: “We decided that we wanted kids, and I wanted to give them the life I didn’t have.” “The more I thought about it, the more panicked I got. I didn’t know what it meant to be an involved father except from what I saw on TV or movies.” That is when the mother decided to leave. They suspected that postpartum depression was part of the reason why she decided that she didn’t want to be a mother to her daughter. There was also a twist: “She took my little girl to California, but then called a week later and said if I didn’t come get Persephone, she was going to put her up for adoption.” Richard went to bring his daughter home. At first, it was difficult but he followed up in a post to say the following. “I spent more than a few nights holding my little girl as she slept weeping because I wasn’t sure I was going to be a good enough father for her. One night, in particular, was the night she first crawled. She came to me and laid her tiny little hand on my cheek and stared into my eyes. I took it as ‘Come on Daddy, we have a lot to do.’ So I told her no more crying for either of us and we were going to fight to be happy. We’ve kept true to that promise.” He did what he could to be a good father to his daughter and he learned as much as he could about parenting. He got some advice from those who were wise about the situation and he even learned how to braid hair before her hair was long enough. By the time his daughter was 10 months old, he felt pretty good about his lot in life. “In the first few weeks of it being just her and me, I stumbled upon your page by accident. I was so nervous and scared about being a father in general, but now I was a single father and had to fulfill two roles.” He wrote, “I wasn’t sure I could do it.” “I had read every ‘new parent’ book I could find and clocked in over 1000 hours in YouTube videos from everything to braiding hair and painting nails to theories on how to deal with common parental issues,” he continued. The support to teach them how to be confident. “I then started to watch your page more closely and saw that there were other fathers out there who were in similar predicaments as me. The page started to turn into a major confidence booster and really helped me through all of this. “I always look forward to photo submissions and reading the stories of some of the awesome dads out there in this community. You truly helped my daughter and me through a very difficult time. He concluded, “We’re both very happy now and continue to grow together everyday. She’s now 10 months, and I now get asked by my friends for parenting advice constantly. We’ve come a long way, my daughter and me, and we definitely owe part of that to this page and the people within it. So from both of us, we wanted to thank you.”