A wee note for Father's Day
Another parental holiday is upon us! This time, it’s Father’s Day. Another day that can bring a lot of feelings - grief, sadness, longing, wistfulness, hope, even happiness.
There are so many things I could write about fathers, and my relationship with my own, and all the complications it entails, but I’ll leave it to one of our great writers instead.
wrote this brilliant column as Sugar, all the way back in 2011, answering a letter writer who’s husband was distressed because his adult daughter wouldn’t speak to him. I think it says everything I ever could say on the subject and more. She was estranged from her father and, after her mother’s passing, her stepfather as well. She knew all too well what to say.Such as…
…only once he relinquishes the voice of the father who didn’t do right by her and addresses her as the father she deserves. Even if it scares him and hurts him and compels him to acknowledge parts of himself he loathes and remember things he’d rather forget and explain choices that are beyond explanation and forces him to stop holding his ex responsible for a fair portion of his own bad behavior.
Which, he totally has to do, by the way. And so do you. I get it that some people are just plain nuts. I don’t doubt your partner’s ex was a crazy bitch. But we’re responsible for ourselves. Not blaming our own bad choices on others is a basic principle of functional mental health and emotional maturity…
Until William is able to own his choices, to ask for forgiveness without tangling up his ex in his apology, he’s not ready to speak to his daughter. This has to do not only with taking responsibility for his actions, but also with trusting this young woman who’s been through so much. She doesn’t need anyone to explain to her the precise ways in which each of her parents fucked up. She knows. She alone witnessed how it was they played off each other, who goaded whom into what.
I remember reading this piece over and over again the first time it was published. Whenever I have any doubts about my decisions, or feel alone, I read it. And I always cry when I get to this sentence:
How worthless, how weak, how vanquished, how hollow it is to have a father who exists but cannot reach, who says but will not be, who thinks but doesn’t dare, who plays and plays and plays, but only, always, forever in the minor key.
Once more for the cheap seats - No matter how shitty your wife or ex-wife (or partner, ex-partner, situationship etc) is, was, or can be - the child you brought into this world bears no responsibility for that. Everything that child does or becomes is more important than your feelings about their mother. They didn’t get to choose either of you. Make sure you choose them every day.
For all the good dads out there - you’re killing it. Thank you for being kind to your kids. Thank you for being a good partner and/or co-parent. Raising tiny humans is hard. Raising one to be a functional adult is even harder.