Although she’s struggled with the notion of leaving him, Drita D’Avanzo is still married to her bank robber husband Lee D’Avanzo (with whom she has two chidlren: 9-year-old Aleeya, and 3-year-old Gizelle) but it hasn’t been easy being in a marriage with a man who has been locked up the majority of the time they’ve been together.
The first time Lee “went away” for bank robbery and related crimes, Drita told their daughter Aleeya (who she gave birth while Lee was in jail) that her dad was away at work. When Lee came home the first time Aleeya excited told her friends “See, I do have a daddy.”
But then he went away again, and Drita had to tell Aleeya the truth. She even recently brought Aleeya to see her father in jail, and Aleeya had mulled over the situation, and had some choice words for her father. One of the most painful and important parts of growing up is dealing with the moral and ethical dilemmas you find within your very own family unit. It’s probably particularly difficult when a parent is a convicted bank robber, and his life choices have taken him away from you for the majority of your life.
Drita told Hollybaby.com that Aleeya didn’t hold back: “She went on a visit with him — she gave it to him. She literally sat there and gave him a speech that was so unbelievable that it will never leave me. She gave him a speech like what’s right and wrong and how do you live with yourself. Crazy.”
Although all this has been tough, especially opening up their lives through reality television, Drita says this honesty and openness has actually helped Aleeya make friends at school. Since the show has aired other children with fathers who are in jail, or away in the military have opened up the Aleeya because they now know she’s in a similar situation. Offering up your lives through reality T.V. really is a mixed bag, and it’s often easy to focus on the negatives, but the pendulum swings both ways. Sharing a piece of yourself in any way makes your vulnerable, and you could get hurt, but it can also help others if they can relate to your situation.
On tonight (May 8’s) episode, Drita’s castmate Carla Facciolo also struggles with telling her 8-year-old twins Joseph and Carmen where their father is. When Carla’s dad went to jail, she was in her 20s, but her own children are pretty young, but her own children were too young to understand. Now that they’re getting older, she feels like she needs to go ahead and tell her children the truth.
