Tags
abandonment, anger, angst, anxiety, blame, child abuse, child rearing, childhood, crazy mother, denial, disappointment, dissociation, family, Father's day, grandfather, grief, guilt, people pleasing, PTSD, rage, repressed memories, shame, stepfather, tears, Therapy, transference
“I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father’s protection.” — Sigmund Freud
What does Father mean to me, what image comes to mind?
Historically, for me a father was someone that you did not see often. He popped in every so many months. He took you to a playground, a movie, or a fair. He thumped you in the forehead with a finger when you were too fidgety at the Kingdom Hall. He looked at you with approval if you read a scripture during service without stammering, or when introduced to people, they found you charming and adorable. When he got married and had his second daughter, he would let you know that the only reason he came to pick you up today is because the Chosen Child had begged him, pestering him incessantly that she wanted to see her big sister. You got dressed up for these visits; your mother prepared you as if for a date. Perhaps you wore her earrings or her cloisonné necklace. She put perfume on you and once even put mascara on you even though you were only nine years old. When you worked up the courage to tell him about the physical abuse, verbal abuse, and substance abuse he told you to pray and that when you turned eighteen you could leave. He let you know that it was your problem to endure or figure out. Then abruptly during your young adulthood, struggling as a young, single parent, he gets divorced and goes through a mid-life crisis. He ditches his religion and starts hanging out in bars, cursing, and carousing with women your age some of them are HIV + prostitutes. You become the confidante, you worry incessantly about him, and the roles reverse entirely. He constantly praises you and then discounts or disparages your dreams and aspirations. This is my biological father in a nutshell.
A father is also someone that provides for you. He buys you school clothes, birthday, and Christmas presents. He is dedicated to his job. He is dedicated to the kids even the one that is not his. He gets drunk, makes stupid remarks to the crazy mother, and sets her off thus putting everyone in danger. He takes a lot of physical and verbal abuse from the crazy mother until he cannot take it anymore and he snaps. Then he beats the crap out of her, while all of the children intervene partially out of concern but mostly for appearances so she does not attack later for your lack of action. He is removed from the apartment a lot by the cops for domestic violence even when it was in self-defense. He comes by every day even when he is thrown out and living at the YMCA. He brings loads of groceries in paper bags and lines them up in the hallway outside of the door so we do not starve. He replaces Tweeter speakers and stereo systems, VCRs and televisions that have been bludgeoned with hammers and thrown out of the second floor window. He patches and replaces a queen-sized waterbed stabbed by a butcher knife. He picks up all of his clothes off the front lawn that have been methodically torn to shreds. It takes almost two decades to break free of the crazy mother, establish himself, and take custody of his two bio children. Every now and then, he will admit to you that your mother is fucking crazy and you both are better off without her. He confesses that he actually pays her to leave him alone when necessary. He is still convinced that your mother is brilliant and there really is not anything wrong with her except she is spoiled. This is my stepfather.
A grandfather is a father once removed. He puts a roof over your head by buying a two family house and moving your mother into an apartment for which he will eventually no longer receive rent. He is also convinced that your mother is a misunderstood genius and once she gets herself together she will be just fine. He loves his grandchildren and pays for field trips, little league, and music lessons. Yet he ignores the concerns of his colleagues in the public school system that find his grandchildren’s truancy alarming and uses his influence with them to prevent any intervention from taking place. He sings silly songs and tells jokes. He brings groceries also; unfortunately he is the main supporter of the crazy mother’s prescription drug habit and pays for dozens of prescriptions a month. He also shares his Hydrochlorothiazide with her, a blood pressure medication that she forces us to take. He values education, eloquence, and wisdom. He will praise these attributes unless they differ from his opinion on things then he can become snide, condescending, and belittling. He walks around his house in saggy briefs with his penis hanging out the side. He will not entertain any pleas to maintain decency around his grandchildren or their friends. He becomes combative and belligerent whenever this is brought up. It is not unusual to knock on his door, be told to enter and find him fondling himself. Eventually you convince yourself there is nothing unusual about this. He treats his wife with disdain and disrespect. He will not support her desire to rescue you from the crazy mother and he does not change his stance until you are removed from the state and all parental rights are terminated. He hates white people, the fact you are half-white, and your tendency to befriend and even date white people. He vacillates between affection and disgust for you and your son with the white father. He is an adulterer and carries on a very public long-term affair that spans decades.
My husband is the first good father I have ever known. We started out polar opposites in our viewpoints and approach to life and crisis. Over the past eighteen years, we have become more apt to compromise and even able to understand each other’s thought processes and responses. In the beginning, I witnessed my husband displaying some of the traits that my other father’s figures had/have. These things would often drive me to despair and I would wonder what kind of example this was setting for my children. In the midst of this, he always righted himself. He would turn it around. He stopped being a bully and started affirming me. He began to value the vulnerable secrets I shared instead of using them against me. Once we married, he dedicated himself to monogamy. No matter how many dead-end, grueling, or demoralizing jobs he had to take he always made sure we were provided for. Even in the midst of a raging drug habit, that I had no knowledge of he worked 100 hours a week to pay the bills, feed us and clothe the kids as well as do the cocaine he could not leave alone. He went from leaving the entire burden of child rearing to me to taking our children and even the foster children to appointments, helping with homework, chauffeuring them around, cooking and doing household chores.
He apologized on his knees to my son for the dark years of alcohol and drug abuse when he was harsh, intimidating, and downright scary. He admitted he did not know how to be a father but he wanted to be a good one. He has been the sole provider (besides me) for my son. He has two daughters that know they are loved, worried about, and taken pride in. He tells them that they are beautiful, valuable, and worthy of respect. I would never trade him for another and I think I made a good choice. Happy Father’s Day to my husband, also known as Poppa Bear or just plain Dad. I love you and even though you do not fill that daddy void for me (which would be downright creepy), I thank you for not letting me down when it came to our kids. Thank you for becoming what they needed and being willing to grow and change.