Maybe a lot of people are truly good fathers or had good fathers. I did not have a good father. He was conscientious, dedicated to being the breadwinner, saw to it that we never lacked for anything, tried his best to be a father, not having a road map of any kind. His own father had been a raging drunk, physically and emotionally abusive in the extreme, and my father had grown up in grinding poverty, and was not permitted to pursue his own way in the world. He ended up in business, as a labor relations negotiator, which fed his ego but did not feed his heart or his soul. He spent many years in the basement watching Kojack or other cop shows on television. He seemed to take great pleasure in the idea of justice, of law and order. His disposition was dour, negative, pessimistic, irritable, emotionally distant and resentful. He was given to explosive outbursts of terrible rage, physical abuse and unpredictable moments of total loss of control. But he especially excelled at the verbal put down, the sarcastic puncturing. the ridiculing and dismissive and belittling comment.
I was a sensitive boy. I had a generally sunny disposition, was prone to being wild and silly, was definitely hyperactive and probably had (or still have) a diagnosable attention disorder. I was not practical, I was not diligent, I was not serious. I was incredibly dedicated to practicing the drums, which my father probably thought was mostly frivolous and not important. He valued not one thing that I valued, over the years. We had nothing in common. As I got older, I became radically Left, and he was a diehard Barry Goldwater Republican who believed Nixon was a great President, even after Watergate. He may still believe that now. I'm quite sure he voted for Donald Trump. While he did enjoy good music, and music was often on in the house, we had nothing to talk about in regard to music after I turned about 12 or so.
He and I never had conversations about anything. He only took the time to swpeak at any length to me when I had made him angry or disappointed him. He really didn't do much fathering. He was an absent father, although his dark, crackling, angry, resentful, depressive and hateful presence was always felt. It was the worst of both worlds.
After years of recovery, step work inventories, meditation, loving kindness practice and letting go, he and I are on great terms now. I'm usually able to forgive and not carry resentment anymore. But it does surface from time to time, especially around father's day. I have been re-parenting myself, so to speak, being the father to myself that I wished I had when I was a kid, and that has been great work. It fills a long aching need in me and lets him totally off the hook. Most of the time now, he was what he was- and that's that.
But I definitely internalized many aspects of his world view and find I have to practice letting go and finding other perspectives. His critical, judging, dismissive voice is always with me, even after all of these years. The scorn, contempt, ridicule and hatred he showed toward any kind of perceived weakness, dream, goal, desire, intention, creative endeavor, whim or heartfelt commitment and passion of mine still creeps in from time to time. While working on the dissertation, I have had to wrestle with that excoriating demon a great deal. "Who the hell do you think you are?" has been a frequent companion. When feedback from committee members has been blunt and tough, the cascades of shame, the feeling of my father being right, that I am a failure, the sense of being totally incompetent- all of it has been immolating at times. I know I drank at my father for decades. It was especially delicious to get fucked up and send a huge fuck you you fucking fuckball out to the universe that was my father. Fuck you. And when I did have moments of success, how much I gloated inside, having shwon him that he was the asshole I knew he was all along—although that was also terribly painful and hollow, because all I really wanted was praise and encouragement from him, and I never got it.
I have since internalized the strange dynamic of wanting the attention, praise or acknowledgment of a single person in the world, who will not yield it. I can get all the accolades and recognition from all the people- but there's always that one person I want it from, and from whom it is not forthcoming. I wanted, for example, to impress A when I passed my comprehensive exams and advanced to candidacy. Her entire reaction was "I am proud of you." I have been drawn to cold, withdrawn, non-expressive, non-appreciative people quite often. People who seem to have difficulty truly taking joy in my success. Not everyone- my best friend is appreciative, always, my AA and recovery people are always appreciative also. But it's still true there is one person I would thrill to hear say "I admire you. You're amazing, Here are some of the things I think are great about you." And it's crickets.
Most of the good, functional, strong and useful coping skills, life skills and emotional intelligence I've developed, I've developed in spite of my father's influence. I have always been effusive, expressive, tender, romantic, generous, quick to forgive, appreciative of the success of others, enthusiastic about great art, great beauty, fantastic women and great wilderness. I have had to work to be at home in those natural qualities of mine, as they were damaged in many ways by my father's negative attacks on me, his disapproval, his exasperation and his flat out hatred of me. It took me years to admit that he hated me. Such a simple, plain fact. But the kind of fact we would not want to allow.
I hated him too, for years. I thought he was an asshole, a spiteful wretch, a resentful loser, a sad piece of shit. A sorry excuse for a human being without any values, goals, aspirations, ideals or sense of enjoyment of life. Emotionally abusive to everyone around him, supercilious in the extreme, a violent man in many ways. It took me many years to develop compassion for him- the oldest son of an abusive alcoholic father, no coping skills, no life skills, always afraid- a life lived in fear that was imprinted on his very cells probably from soon after he was born. Considering the moiling chaos out of which he came, he did a remarkable job. And he's a human being- I think forgiveness and compassion toward our parents becomes a lot more accessible when we take them down off the either idealized or Satanic pedestal. His whole life was a kind of catastrophe. No wonder he hated me.
I don't think he hates me anymore. When he hit about 75 or so, something seemed to shift in him almost overnight. He suddenly didn't give a shit what I was doing. He tried to be friendly and supportive. He mellowed out and stopped judging me. That helped me a great deal. He's been the only family member to support my being in AA 100%. He is the only one who expresses pride in my sobriety. He knows- he knows for real.
And so now he is a harmless 87 year old man, frail, with Parkinson's, unable to get out of a car without help, his driver's license taken away by the state, living his days out in whatever way he can. He watches Yankee baseball. He uses the internet.
I go visit pretty much every summer now. How can one maintain bilious resentment even toward a formerly raging, abusive, unavailable failure of a father, when one sees him gaunt, hobbled, a prisoner in his body? Whatever he had to do here, he did. He's free and so am I. That's the thing about letting someone off the hook- the weird side effect is that it let's you off the hook also.
May he be happy, safe, healthy and live with ease.
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