Single 21-Year-Old Father Richard Johnson Posts Emotional Facebook Post Documenting Life Raising 10-Month-Old Daughter Abandoned By Mother: ‘I Wasn’t Sure I Could Do It’

A single 21-year-old father’s emotional Facebook post about raising his 10-month-old daughter after his girlfriend and her mother abandoned her a month after she was born has gone viral.

Richard Johnson is the father to 10-month-old girl Persephone, and he decided to document his adjustment to becoming a single father and divulging the nerves and issues that he has confronted throughout their experience while also commenting on how they overcame these problems.

In the post, Johnson also speaks about how visiting the Life of Dad Facebook page helped him overcome his trepidation about being a father as he learned more and more from others in similar situations.

Johnson uploaded his post on the evening of Tuesday, November 10, and it almost immediately went viral. And reading what he wrote will give you a great understanding of why it did just that. Check it out below.

“My name is Richard Johnson, and I’m a single father to a beautiful little girl named Persephone. Her mother left about a month after she was born. We still don’t know exactly why, but we suspect post-partum depression played a part.

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. 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. 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.

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.

Sincerely,

Persephone & Richard Johnson.”

Unsurprisingly, the post immediately connected with other users, who started to spread it across the internet. Since then, it has been liked over 23,626 times, and it’s also been shared over 1,212 times too.

Richard Johnson was so touched by the response to his original post that he decided to create a follow-up that thanked everyone for their messages. He also has found room in his heart to defend the mother of Persephone, insisting that he only wishes “the absolute best for her.”

Richard Johnson also provided further information on his own background, admitting that he too is from a family of divorce, revealing that he was raised by a single mother after his father left when he was just 6.

Obviously, because he didn’t have a father growing up, he was never confident that he’d be a good one.

Johnson added, “So being that I never had a father it was truly frightening to become one. Even more so when I was going to do it alone. I didn’t have time to be worried though because that beautiful little girl needed a parent who could be her rock and would love her to pieces. In my mind there was no other option.”

“The days have been rough and at times I wasn’t sure I could make it another day. I spent more then 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,” Johnson continued. “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.”

[Image via Facebook/Life of Dad]