I know I’ve explained the dad situation before. It’s scattered among dozens of posts, I’m sure. But I have new readers. And I’m still ranting. I don’t want to go through almost 1,000 posts to find the dad ones, so I’m writing a new one.

When I was about 12 my father was let go of his job. Long story. He did nothing wrong, he called out the company on something. He was handed a chunk of money and told to never speak of it to anyone. I don’t know what happened other than that.

My dad invested that chunk of money with the plan of starting his own business. He traded stocks online in the meantime while he started the process of setting things for his business up. Then his father died and left his mom in a ton of debt. My dad took his business nest egg and helped his mom out. But that left him with nothing but stocks.

He did awesome with stocks for a long time. He paid his bills with plenty to spare. My father is a genius when it comes to many things including the stock market. But then the market started to crash.

Right around the time of 9/11 dad attempted suicide. He was mentally ill. Had been for years, getting worse. Though he’ll never admit to it. What he would admit to was physical pain. There was a fall involving a ladder at the top of a set of stairs. Dad was in a lot of pain for a long time so he decided to end it. Clearly it didn’t work. We are all grateful.

Then the stock market got worse. And dad was on the verge of losing his house. Then it got even worse and dad for sure lost his house. During that time period we made the decision to move dad in with us. I was very pregnant with Luke, who is now almost 2 and a half.

I knew when we moved dad in that he wouldn’t be paying bills. At least not right away. We had a silent agreement that he’d take care of things like toilet paper, napkins, dish soap and house work. I was working full time, but money was still tight. My husband, Patrick, is legally disabled and brings in SSI. The help with toilet paper, etc, was a huge help. And the house work was a blessing. I could concentrate on work, Pat could concentrate on the kids and we didn’t have to worry about if the dishes were clean or the floor vacuumed. It seemed to be a good deal. Dad also took care of most of his own groceries. Some things were communal but the majority of what he ate came out of his own pocket. That part hasn’t changed.

All through this dad had no job, no luck with the stock market, no income other than the money his mom sent him periodically. This is still true though the money from his mom has slowed down.

Now…

Now we take care of the toilet paper, napkins, dish soap, etc. I’m no longer full time at work, I’m down to 15 hours a week. So this makes things… tough. And the help with the house work has slowed down. He still does the dishes, most of the time, but everything else has for the most part stopped.

Then there are the temper tantrums. Today’s for example was a good one. Pat and Thomas were in the middle of a conversation when my dad entered the room and kept repeating over and over, “Thomas. Thomas. Thomas.” trying to break Thomas’s attention away from his father. Pat finally told my dad, calmly, that he was interrupting a conversation. My dad huffed that Pat was being rude. We haven’t seen dad all day now. And I’d bet that we’ll be doing the dishes now for the next week or two. Because that’s how dad is.

Dad is disabled. He has mental health issues out the wazoo. The apple did not fall far from the tree in this case. He should be filing for disability, but he won’t. He’s a afraid that if he does, the bank he owes money for the house will hunt him down and collect. I don’t know if he’s right or not. I don’t know how that works. I also don’t know if there are other bills he couldn’t pay. I simply don’t know. But I do know he’s afraid to get SSI because then people will come knocking. He can’t get a job, because he can’t work. There is a reason I agree he’s disabled. So that leaves him with the stock market. Need I say much there?

So Pat and I support him. We’ve given him a room, that I wish a third born could have. We’ve given him 1/3 of our fridge, that I wish I could stock with fruit and vegetables, currently. We pay for his cable and the electricity needed to run both his computers. I will admit that we use the cable too (ands well the electricity), I mean duh, hello I’m using it now, but some help in those bills would be nice. Unless Pat works some serious magic, our cable and electric bills aren’t being paid in full this month. I don’t know about last month, I don’t have my doubts about next month.

But yes my father is living off of us. And he’s not doing anything to change that. He’s not doing anything to lighten the load. And I’m can’t kick him out because I’m not sure what he’s capable of doing any differently. So I’m left bitter. Bitter and like last night, pissy.