I love my Dad – still. He died many years ago now, but I think of him often and wish he were still a part of my life, that he could see my family grow, could see my accomplishments and be proud of me. I still very much long for his approval.
My Dad had his shortcomings to say the least. When I was around 4, he traded me to our neighbors. Told me to pack up and head next door. As I was crying with my belongings in a suitcase walking to the door, he said that they didn’t want me and I had to stay. Pretty funny stuff there. When I was in my teens, he told me that even though I wasn’t much of a baseball player, I was the best dressed on the team. Hmmm, that was a huge shot of encouragement. In Dad’s entire parenting life, he never once told me he loved me. When I got my MBA, my wife invited my parents out to Denver for the graduation ceremony. They declined.
Ok, I’m an adult now and the sting of those things aren’t painful to me anymore even though the baggage was a drag on my self esteem for quite a while. I’m a father with three adult children and I understand my Dad a lot more now than then. When I was 4, he was 34. He had grown up on the farm with 4 brothers and an alcoholic, wife-beating Dad. As soon as he could he left and went into the Navy. He got a scholarship to the Naval Academy and entered the Air Force afterwards – flew F-100’s. His life was hard and not filled with lots of emotional development. So Dad had to figure things out on his own.
Was he trying to be mean to me? Of course not, he loved me. He was joking about the trade and the baseball “encouragement”. He thought it would toughen me up. Not saying “I Love You”? I don’t think he knew how to say it. The skipped graduation? He’d fallen on hard times and couldn’t afford it and wouldn’t take money from me. I loved my Dad then and thought he was a great guy and love him to this day, but he was…human.
Here’s the thing: The BEST parents in the world will make mistakes and inadvertently hurt a child’s psyche. In the best cases, children will hear something incorrectly or misinterpret something or make incorrect assumptions. Every child grows up in a different family than his siblings. Each child has his own personality, unique qualities, and birth order. These things make the family experience very different. So much so that two similar aged brothers can walk away from childhood with very, very different results. Parents say one thing and each child hears something different. Tough crowd sometimes. So what is a young man to do?
Re-parent. You gotta fix yourself.
It’s important that you recall your upbringing, keep the good, toss out the bad. Toss it all the way out and replace it with grace. If you’re stuck on something particularly painful, at some point you might bring it up and get clarity. But don’t hang on to bitterness or the feeling of being victimized by a horrible upbringing. No matter how bad it was, someone else had it worse. My buddy’s father told him “Marrying your mother was a huge mistake. I don’t want you in my life. How much money will it take to never see you again?” Pretty tough on a teenager. This sent him into a major tailspin with drugs, alcohol, and attempted suicide. But eventually, with God’s help, he overcame.
At some point in your life you have to accept the cards you were dealt, forgive, and move to improve. You can’t whine about it, just decide to be bigger, forgive, learn, and don’t repeat. The forgiveness thing is a pretty big deal. It helps the pain subside faster. Sure you may have truly had a terrible Dad and it would have been nice if things were different, but they weren’t. So by working on forgiving and letting it go, you can move on and not let it ruin the rest of your life. People aren’t cruel to kids because they’re mean. They’re that way usually because, given the circumstances, it’s just about all they can do. I talk about forgiveness a bit because it colors just about every waking perspective you have. Without it, good luck in your marriage, climbing the corporate ladder, keeping any success you achieve, and enjoying your kids. Forgiveness is huge.
Should you decide to confront your parents with something that’s bothering you, you might want to be prepared to be disappointed all over again, but at least you’ve got the courage to seek a mature engagement. Accusations won’t be a great plan, but seeking understanding can be worthwhile. “Dear Father, Dear Son” by Larry Elder is a great example of a black kid reconciling with his dad. Quick worthwhile read.
The real key in re-parenting is to figure out how you would have done it better and work on your heart. Your wife and kids will benefit tremendously from this heavy lifting. And it IS heavy lifting. The Father-Son dynamic absolutely affects who you are, how you love yourself and others, and how your life manifests before you. The earlier you dig into it and deal with all the issues, the better your life will be. I would put this as the number one factor in a healthy marriage since it is bound in your self esteem. This is a great topic in your Ironmen group and will certainly create a bond amongst you.
To your continued psychological success,
Dave Marr
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