If you have a dad, you're lucky.
I've always envied people with dads, especially this time of year when TV is full of ads for department stores and dad's day deals, and restaurants all over town offer discounts to "Bring Dad in for Dinner".
I imagine what it feels like to bring Dad that special shirt or requsite ugly tie, and yes, treat him to a good meal on Father's Day, but it has to stop there.
It stops there because I don't have a dad. Not because he died doing something heroic, or in an accident. Not because he "just doesn't come around". But because I have no clue who he is. Where he is.
I know his name and I have a few pictures, but I don't know him as a person. When my parents split when I was a toddler, he split, and I haven't seen him since.
My significant other is always complaining about his father. They have a strained relationship.
I always make sure to remind him, "At least you have a father. Be thankful."
My man's father comes around and calls often. The love between them is there, they just have issues like a lot of families do. But my man knows what it's like to look half of his history in the face, and see the same lips shouting back in an argument. Even for this, I would be thankful.
Where others have memories of their fathers, and all the things fathers are generally good for, I have blanks.
No one to keep me from getting jacked at the auto shop, no one to show me how a good man should treat me, no one to defend me when the bad ones occasionally got violent. No birthday presents. No calls. Nothing.
Article comments
1 - dietdoc
Cheryl Writes: "My significant other is always complaining about his father. They have a strained relationship."
Reply: Tell him to get over it. Eventually, he will (as I did) but every day it lingers, is time lost. Fathers didn't come with an "Owner's Manual" and, despite what shortcomings "your man" feels his father has, they are insignificant in the big picture. Trust ancient wisdom on that one.
I spent 10 years estranged from my father and, looking back now, I can hardly remember what it was about. I know my dad, as he approaches 80, won't be around all that much longer. And every chance I get, I remaind him that he is loved and appreciated. All the lessons he taught me, which may not have meant much at the time and may have been taught in the wrong way, are so very appreciated now.
I am a father now, also, and though my kids are grown, I see now what parents are supposed to do: the best they can. That's the only rule they can live by.
Parents are the product of how they were raised, as are we. And, all of the mistakes a parent makes are surely "the best they knew how at the time." Now, when my almost-octagenarian father scolds me as if I were still a teenager (I am 54), I smile and say "Yes, Dad. You are right. And, Dad, I appreciate the advice." Smiling to myself, I know he loves me and he cares.
That all anyone, in the end, should ask of any parent.
Cheers,
Ron
2 - Stacy L Harp
Great thoughts,I can relate having a father 'in name only' and never having had all the things you mention. This is why for me, God as Father is very important. He's the best Father in the universe and can make up for what my dad failed to give.
3 - parker
In our house, father's day is just another day. My daughter's father abandoned her - he writes her once or twice a year and has visited once. Of course he doesn't contribute to her upbringing in any way. You know what? We've gotten along just fine without him. He's the one who's missed out.
4 - Jamie L
How do I celebrate Fathers' day?
I drink.
I send hurtful thoughts...
I think about making a card... "Dad, you're a piece of s**t." ..."F**k you, Dad! Thanks for nothing."
I want for my father to come on Fathers' day, and beg...for my love, for my adoration, for my friendship...and I want to laugh a bitter, ugly, angry laugh...I want him to look me in the eyes and beg forgiveness, and I want to laugh in his face.
Of course he doesn't come.
I want him to hurt like I've hurt...but I have nothing he wants. Of course he won't come. He's probably gone through this s**t holiday like every other day...maybe he's forgotten all about it... and I'm the one drinking alone; I'm the one angry, bitter.
I can't take anything from him, and I spend this day wishing that I could.
--
I guess that our situations are somewhat different, yours and mine. I knew him, and he knew me...and I thought that he DELIGHTED in me...I guess that I was wrong? Something else was more worthwhile.
I grew up without someone with broader shoulders. I get that. Harder, though, is knowing that I wasn't _____ enough to keep him around.
Stacy...I've tried so hard to let God be my father...it hasn't worked.
If God is a Father, what the hell kind of father is He? I heard, the other day, about a girl whose biological father had given her mother aids...her mother died, her father lived. This twelve year-old girl became the breadwinner for her family. Her father would take her earnings, drink them away, then come home and demand sex...from his TWELVE YEAR OLD DAUGHTER. This omniscient, omnipotent God must have been watching. He did nothing. If God is the perfect Father, than this whole holiday, this whole patriarchal system is a big f***ing joke. A sad, terrible, oppressive, ironic joke.
5 - cherryl252washere
jamie, i think you just took the words right out of my mouth.
i can't for the life of me understand why any person who helped create someone would just up and leave them, which is why i wrote this artice in the first place.
and the crazy things is, i recently discovered the whereabouts of my dad, and since he left me...
he's had two other families!! with four more kids total...so he's been fathering up a storm lately...just not to me, which makes him leaving me really, really suck more.
i have to come back and post something again about this topic today.
i don't think ppl really realize how fatherlessness hurts children.
6 - Renee
My father left when I was 3. For me, I think I was fine with it, altho my mom says that I was depressed for a couple of years. But I grew up with friends without dads, so it was no big deal (I think). I met him when I was 18... he just talked about his wife's kids and showed me pictures of them growing up with him. What a moron!! God has been my father since I can remember. God does not control people's actions, we are not puppets. People get hurt, real bad. But God is in me, giving me the peace that this world can never provide. Ever. Even if life is perfect on the outside, you can still feel the hurt that won't go away on the inside. God is there and will never leave me. What hurts is when I see my own daughters who's fathers (different ones) either have hurt them deeply, or have been absent also. Even tried a step dad for my daughter, he hurt her feelings with rejection. I pray that my girls will know God as their father, as no earthly father can possibly be like Him.