Deadbeat parents don’t give a shit, keep doing you.

I have deadbeat parents twice over.

Let me explain.

I have a daughter who’s now 27, and her father has not been in her life since she was an infant. No physical or financial support came from him.

He’s lived a marginalized life yet went on to have two more children, with a woman who was just 18, and they are still a family unit living happily ever after.

When my daughter was 20 she connected with her half-siblings and they’re now a part of each other’s lives. My daughter wants nothing to do with her father.

Now for the other deadbeat parent.

I have a blended family, and my husband has two children from his previous marriage and together we have a 12-year-old.

One of his kids is severely disabled, and I mean severe. Picture a 23-year girl with the capacity of a four-month-old baby. She’s in diapers, she’s g-tube fed (because she cannot swallow or chew on conscious demand — something we all take for granted), she cannot sit up or stand on her own.

It’s always complicated and challenging to write about this.

I do my best to protect her dignity and that of her healthy and “normal” sister.

It’s also devastatingly sad.

She’s lived with us on a full-time basis for the last 11 years, and her mother is not involved; she’s lucky if she takes her once or twice a year for the weekend.

This isn’t about the events that led to the point where a mother says she can no longer be a part of her child’s life.

It’s about my husband and me, working, consistently striving and constantly finding ways to improve our lives.

I recently found out that her mother decided to drop her work down to part-time hours, even though she no longer cares for either child (the healthy daughter is now a fully independent 25-year-old).

No dependents right, so why not work part-time?

How do people in the same situation act entirely differently?

You have a child to raise and then decide not to.

One parent bows out. The other parent keeps going despite all the hardships.

This is a grand mystery in humanity.

I asked my favourite stoic warrior this question.

He happens to be my husband.

He said people don’t give a shit. You have to do what you’ve got to do, that’s all.

What drives him?

My husband has a deep desire for security for himself and his family.

We have a house and a cottage to upkeep; food and gas are necessities, we wish to retire comfortably one day and we have dependents.

This is the essence of what keeps us going. Pretty simple.

We have nothing and no one else to fall back on; we are our own safety net.

I can sit here, ruminate, blame and complain about these two deadbeat parents, and sometimes I do.

It doesn’t change a thing.

Do what you’ve got to do for yourself. That’s all.

And hopefully, you will be happy doing it, and maybe, just maybe, you can leave the world a better place in the meantime.

At least for the people you love.

People go about their lives with their heads in the clouds, have no inkling about their responsibilities or consequences, and leave other people (in this case, the other parent) to pick up their shit behind them.

It’s baffling.

Why, for the love of God, do I care so much about being a good human, living up to my gifts and my potential, when I too can make the sometimes tempting choice to check out, sell everything I have, live on an island and watch the tides rise?

Here’s the thing: there are too many people in this world falling into complacency and mediocrity, so therefore, it gives more bearing to those who wish to keep rising.

It gives us more responsibility, and guess what? We need to step up more than ever.

So as the apathetic decide that getting by is enough, the world falls prey and is ruled by the extractive and exploitive, and they gain more power.

And given the state of the planet, this is something we know for sure.

So for all the other parents doing it alone, keep doing you, do the best you can, make this world a better place — because too many people don’t give a shit.