Belated thoughts on Father’s Day
// June 28th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Blog
Before Father’s Day, I was listening to the Diane Rehm Show and discovered Father Fiction, a book by Donald Miller. Miller — who leads The Mentoring Project, an organization that helps churches start mentoring programs for boys, and is on Obama’s Task force on Fatherhood and Healthy Families – uses this quick read to ruminate on his life after his father abandoned his family. Father Fiction really made sense to me and shed light on ways I’ve dealt with not having a dad.
I never had a relationship with my father growing up. My parents divorced when I was an infant, and I never saw much of him growing up save for a brief stint in my middle school years. A few of my mom’s boyfriends served in a temporary role, but my mom was my only real parental figure.
Bailing fathers is systemic in my family as well. My grandfather abandoned my mother and uncle when they were kids in the 1950s. My mom never really developed a relationship with her dad save for awkward Father’s Days when she would force me to visit my grandpa at his house and hand him a $10 Brut gift box while she sat in the car. Also, my great-grandfather and great-great grandfather abandoned their families, creating four generations of fatherless children and leaving me the only male surrounded by women.
I never really applied much thought to the fact that I grew up without a father or any male family member. My mother did an amazing job raising me and working hard to make ends meet. In my mind, I just accepted that I was just a statistic – one of the 62 percent of black kids raised by a single parent, according to 2009 census data – and honestly repressed any negative energy about not having a father. It was just the way it was.
Miller’s book really helped me realize that I’d been subconsciously searching for a father figure all my life. It’s why I was an annoying brat in high school with a know-it-all attitude who lashed out to get attention. It’s why I poured myself into extra-curriculars to win arbitary awards and some type of affirmation. It’s why I spent $12,800 buying friends in a college fraternity I neither fit into nor enjoyed.
It’s why I was always very good at small-talk but found it difficult to really open up to people. It’s why I stayed in years-long relationships that were unhealthy, hoping to get some kind of affirmation from that girlfriend or that friend.
To quote Miller:
It’s odd to be talking about this as an adult. But as I’ve processed the ramifications of growing up without a father, I’ve realized the increadible hole in my heart this absence has left. I wish my father and I had a friendship and that he would call once every couple weeks and tell me I was doing a good job. I hunger for this. I don’t actually like thinking about this stuff, but I have a sense wounds don’t heal until you feel them.
What I mean is, I could lash out against the world for the rest of my life and never stop to do the hard work of asking why I’m angry or why I feel pain, then come to the difficult truth that the pain is there because I wanted to be loved, and I wasn’t. I wanted to be important to my father, but I wasn’t. I wanted to be guided, but I wasn’t. And then, honestly, to feel whatever it is that hard truth creates—to respond in the way I need to respond.
Life has a way of presenting you ways to respond. My father, who I hadn’t seen in over five years, called me out of the blue late lastyear. I ignored his calls for a few weeks, not knowing what to say, until my mom urged me to call him back. He was in North Carolina for business and wanted to get together.
For the first time since I was 12, my dad and I hung out. We got lunch at Waffle House, he played with my dog, we got coffee at Whole Foods. He apologized for not being around, and I forgave him. We decided to forget the past and move forward with a relationship, no matter how non-traditional it had to be. He promised to make himself available, and I promised to pick up the phone (as long as he didn’t try to tell me what to do… I hate that).
Most importantly, we promised to end the sad family tradition of sons and fathers not having any relationship. I made a promise to myself to end some destructive behaviors and to prepare for fatherhood myself — not now, unless someone knows something I don’t know, but whenever that day comes.
