Should I celebrate Father's Day? This question has bothered me more than a hundred times. I know that whatever my dad has done to us, he says is just because he wants to save money but, unfortunately, this money doesn't go into the economy of my family, it goes into his own pocket.

We were used to being poor in China and I didn't think we still would be in the same poverty when we moved to the United States. Every week my father buys food, but all the vegetables he buys are terrible and cheap. Also, he always buys the same things. I hate to eat the same thing every day; I hate the way he treats us, his own children. Sometimes, he makes me think that I'm not his own blood daughter, and I feel very sorry for him, my mom and my whole family. In moving here, I did not think I would eat delicacies of every kind, but at least something different sometimes.

My father says it is very hard to be a big family's father, but I would say it is hard to be his family member. From his many ways, you might think my father is a frugal person, but if you know him well, you know he iso't. My father is a gambler. He goes to the gambling house every weekend. He usually loses, so he spends a lot of money on it, but he never feels distressed because he believes he'll win it all back someday.

My father has fallen into a dark way. No one could give him advice that would make him go back to normal. He would not listen to you. He would just think you were bothering him.

You would think that because my father throws his money away that he doesn't care about money, but he is always complaining that this month we used a lot of gas, electricity, and food. He is always telling us not to watch TV at night and to cook food for the next day. Do you think he is a competent father? My nearsighted eyes grow worse by not having good enough lamplight. When we ask him to buy some good food and to change the lamp, he gets angry and says we aren't making allowances for him.

He has even asked me not to go to college because it'll cost too much money, but going to college has been my goal since childhood. When I told him I still wanted to go to college, he treated me very mean.

Because of my father, I feel inferior in front of my friends and I'm not as confident as I used to be in my studies. I hurt very much but I pretend to have a happy life to cover up many ghosts of unhappiness. Can you see why I don't know if I really want to celebrate Father's Day like when we were in China? I feel he has changed a lot. He isn't a perfect father anymore. He has turned into a very mean man, and the distance between us grows larger and larger.

Dad, why should I love you? You used be a good father; you used to be a regular father. Dad, please show me your love, not your meanness. Life is for happiness and love, not sadness and hate. Dad, help me be able to celebrate Father's Day the way we used to. n