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On the occasion of the holiday
Jun. 19th, 2016 06:08 pmFather's Day is interesting for me on social media. A lot of my friends post pictures or favorite memories with their fathers; those always warm my heart. Occasionally a friend will write about their difficult or outright abusive relationship with their father, which is always heartbreaking.
My relationship with my father is difficult, but in a way that's tougher to articulate. Normally I let this day pass unremarked, but recently a good friend of mine wrote about all the conflicting feelings he has around Mother's Day; it was raw and honest enough to inspire me to try and do the same.
When the subject of my father (and our lack of relationship) comes up, I usually make some reference to his self-centeredness, his penchant for emotional manipulation, his Peter Pan syndrome, his inability to see other people (especially his children) as separate human beings with their own agency. All of which is true, but which feels like an incomplete answer. We are culturally (and, likely, genetically) programmed to value parental relationships over all others, and while my father's dynamic with people he's close to is perhaps dysfunctional at best, he rarely tipped over into outright abuse or neglect (with me; my brother has a rather different story to tell).
For a while, as a newly-minted adult, I tried to maintain a relationship with him. Distance made that easier through sheer inertia; he would send the occasional email, I would tell him about my life, and invite him to follow my LiveJournal (which was then at its peak of use). He might mention a few things about his life, and that would be that for several months until the cycle repeated.
Eventually, however, I noticed a pattern of one-sidedness. For all that he asked after my life, he never seemed to have any real interest in it, never seemed interested in discussing anything I cared about in depth. And although I would ask after events in his, I rarely got any real answers; hence the petering out of our communications. It was pretty clear that I wasn't a priority for him, and frankly, it felt like he was asking not because he actually cared, but because he was maintaining form.
I thought for quite a while about whether I wanted to keep that line open. As I said, the cultural pressure to keep up family ties is strong; perhaps somewhat less so with me (the Pacific Northwest "family is who sticks around in your life" attitude is deeply engrained in my psyche), but enough that I was hesitant to lose it. But at the same time, I didn't really see the point in continuing this line of communication, especially given that I was basically just rephrasing stuff I'd put on the blog anyway. So at the next email, I sent him a response, worded as gently as my twentysomething self knew how, suggesting that he could stop emailing me for form's sake, and that if he wanted to know what was going on in my life he was welcome to follow my blog.
The exchange that followed, and its attendant outpouring of martyr complex, finger-pointing, and general drama-filled manipulative junk, doesn't really bear repeating. Suffice it to say that it did not inspire me to regret my filial ingratitude.
I've seen him a few times since then; I still keep in touch with my grandmother, and she occasionally organizes family dinners when I'm in town. The instance that really stands out is when Brian (who, if anything, suffers from an overabundant sense of family responsibility) got to meet him for the first time; as Brian commented later, it felt like the reverse of the usual father-in-law son-in-law dynamic. As for my father, he looked older, and just sort of...lost. Like his life had more or less passed him by.
I'm not sorry that we don't really talk; I have better things to do with my life than engage in one-sided relationships of any stripe. And I've never really been angry at him for falling down as a parent; frankly, I don't think he was ever really cut out for parenthood, and if my mother hadn't wanted kids so badly I doubt he would have had my brother and me. (I suspect our history is partly why I'm so strongly pro-family-planning; I've had the experience of being an unwanted child, and while I was fortunate enough to at least have one parent who loved me with the fierce, protective, unconditional love a child needs, many people I've known weren't even that lucky.)
But at the same time, when I think about that severed connection, I do feel...sad. Not regretful, but sorrowful. I suspect he got so wrapped up in feeling wronged and hurt and left behind that he completely missed out on connecting with a pretty awesome daughter. Or maybe he just never valued the relationship enough to fight for it, and that's what still stings, even all these years later.
So that's what Father's Day feels like to me. But threaded through it all is a very real warmth, as I see my friends talk about their fathers, or (more recently) embark upon their own fatherly journeys. Trust me when I say your children don't need you to be perfect; if you care about them enough to fight for them, they'll know and be grateful.
My relationship with my father is difficult, but in a way that's tougher to articulate. Normally I let this day pass unremarked, but recently a good friend of mine wrote about all the conflicting feelings he has around Mother's Day; it was raw and honest enough to inspire me to try and do the same.
When the subject of my father (and our lack of relationship) comes up, I usually make some reference to his self-centeredness, his penchant for emotional manipulation, his Peter Pan syndrome, his inability to see other people (especially his children) as separate human beings with their own agency. All of which is true, but which feels like an incomplete answer. We are culturally (and, likely, genetically) programmed to value parental relationships over all others, and while my father's dynamic with people he's close to is perhaps dysfunctional at best, he rarely tipped over into outright abuse or neglect (with me; my brother has a rather different story to tell).
For a while, as a newly-minted adult, I tried to maintain a relationship with him. Distance made that easier through sheer inertia; he would send the occasional email, I would tell him about my life, and invite him to follow my LiveJournal (which was then at its peak of use). He might mention a few things about his life, and that would be that for several months until the cycle repeated.
Eventually, however, I noticed a pattern of one-sidedness. For all that he asked after my life, he never seemed to have any real interest in it, never seemed interested in discussing anything I cared about in depth. And although I would ask after events in his, I rarely got any real answers; hence the petering out of our communications. It was pretty clear that I wasn't a priority for him, and frankly, it felt like he was asking not because he actually cared, but because he was maintaining form.
I thought for quite a while about whether I wanted to keep that line open. As I said, the cultural pressure to keep up family ties is strong; perhaps somewhat less so with me (the Pacific Northwest "family is who sticks around in your life" attitude is deeply engrained in my psyche), but enough that I was hesitant to lose it. But at the same time, I didn't really see the point in continuing this line of communication, especially given that I was basically just rephrasing stuff I'd put on the blog anyway. So at the next email, I sent him a response, worded as gently as my twentysomething self knew how, suggesting that he could stop emailing me for form's sake, and that if he wanted to know what was going on in my life he was welcome to follow my blog.
The exchange that followed, and its attendant outpouring of martyr complex, finger-pointing, and general drama-filled manipulative junk, doesn't really bear repeating. Suffice it to say that it did not inspire me to regret my filial ingratitude.
I've seen him a few times since then; I still keep in touch with my grandmother, and she occasionally organizes family dinners when I'm in town. The instance that really stands out is when Brian (who, if anything, suffers from an overabundant sense of family responsibility) got to meet him for the first time; as Brian commented later, it felt like the reverse of the usual father-in-law son-in-law dynamic. As for my father, he looked older, and just sort of...lost. Like his life had more or less passed him by.
I'm not sorry that we don't really talk; I have better things to do with my life than engage in one-sided relationships of any stripe. And I've never really been angry at him for falling down as a parent; frankly, I don't think he was ever really cut out for parenthood, and if my mother hadn't wanted kids so badly I doubt he would have had my brother and me. (I suspect our history is partly why I'm so strongly pro-family-planning; I've had the experience of being an unwanted child, and while I was fortunate enough to at least have one parent who loved me with the fierce, protective, unconditional love a child needs, many people I've known weren't even that lucky.)
But at the same time, when I think about that severed connection, I do feel...sad. Not regretful, but sorrowful. I suspect he got so wrapped up in feeling wronged and hurt and left behind that he completely missed out on connecting with a pretty awesome daughter. Or maybe he just never valued the relationship enough to fight for it, and that's what still stings, even all these years later.
So that's what Father's Day feels like to me. But threaded through it all is a very real warmth, as I see my friends talk about their fathers, or (more recently) embark upon their own fatherly journeys. Trust me when I say your children don't need you to be perfect; if you care about them enough to fight for them, they'll know and be grateful.
