Easter dinner, I got into a strange conversation with a friend of my step-brother. The short version is that he moved to CA from NY when his then-girlfriend was pregnant with their daughter. Two weeks after moving here, she dumped him. The daughter is a year and a half old now.

What a shitty thing to happen. There was some brief chatter, and I said, "That sucks man, it's only going to get harder." He replied with some small talk, and was trying to determine what I meant by that. I said, "Well she's 1-1/2 now, wait till she's older. They absorb everything... You have to manage your relationship with the mom really carefully..."

Even the best dads get the shitty end of the deal, if they didn't luck out and get a good mom to go with it. And shitty dads get away with murder that breaks their daughters hearts before they're even old enough to know why.

He cuts in wondering what the hell I know about it, so I continue, "I come from a mixed family, obviously, you're friends with my step-brother... and I've dated a few guys with kids. All my friends have kids, just because I don't..."

"So you only date people with baggage?" He replied.

At this point I stood up and was thinking "WTF?" so I said, "Do not ever call your daughter 'baggage.' Ex's are baggage. The kid is not baggage."

He says, "Yeah having kids is baggage." OK so maybe in the process of having a kid with someone you're not going to be with packs some baggage for the ride but by now I'm completely over this conversation, really. I think the look on my face said it all, because my step brother interrupts us and tells me come to the kitchen for something. "I wanted to get you out of there before you ripped him a new asshole."

He made it pretty clear he's got some bullshit with his Ex. But I told him straight to his face, "Why would you even say that? If you really believe your daugther is the baggage, not your ex, you don't deserve to be her father."