Dad

[Mango]

I'm so sad. My dad has never been there for me, but we 'got back together' for a year or so and then it all went wrong again. He doesn't love me like he should, i don't think he ever really did, he hasn't hurt me by doing anything, he has hurt me because he doesn't do anything. He is not bothered, doesn't love me, it kills me, i am so sad about it. I don't know whether to tell him where to go and end it completely because of the pain, or just take what he gives, accept him as he is. He hasn't spoken to me since before christmas anyway. I wish i had had a good dad who lived with me, loved me, held my hand, cuddled me, played with me, walked down the street with me on his shoulders. Dad's don't realise how essential they are in our lives do they.

[Chimera]

No, we don't! My daughter seems to feel very similarly to you. She suffers terribly, and is extremely bitter towards me for being such a wash-out as a father.

I have never had much idea how to be a human being, still less a man, still less a father.

I knew she must feel bad about it, I just didn't know how very anguished she was, and is. She can obviously hardly bear to communicate with me, and now only seems to talk to me when she has to, for one or another practical reason.

She just wants me not to be ... messed-up. But I can't just stop being ... messed-up. Merely acting, merely going through the motions, is no substitute for being a real person, which she needs me to be. In any case, it is an unbearable torment for me to have to put away everything I'm actually feeling and thinking, and then somehow have to find energy, from nowhere, for acting the part of being someone or something I'm not.

I did try, for many years, forcing myself to go on living for her sake, even though I could see no sense at all in living for my own sake. I don't know if I did my best, but I did try very hard indeed - but it was evidently not nearly good enough. She is full of hatred for me now.

(As usual: please ignore whatever of this is irrelevant or intrusive.)

[Mango]

I know it all pains my dad like it pains you. I feel sorry for him. When i was younger i hated his guts but over time i forgave him, this was with very little input from him, nothing changed in that sense, but i changed and i forgave him. But he's just gone and hurt me again and it is hard because i want to accept him as he is and have the relationship he can give me, but i want so much more, i want what he probably cannot give me now because it is too late. You cannot get that relationship back can you, but when i walk down the street with him i still feel proud to have him next to me and i feel like screaming 'hey that's my dad you know'. But i have a lot of problems because of him like i get too close to men his age at work and places like that, almost something like that whole oedipal thing, obviousley i don't have feelings like that towards my dad but i think growing up without him has given me all kinds of relationship problems and psychological problems and i am angry at him for that. I just wish things were different, i wish he was, well, i look at my psychiatrist and i have dreams of hugging this psychiatrist and dreams that he is being the father figure you know. I'm crying and he is cuddling me like you would a child. Not having a dad really fucks you up in that sense. My dad has bipolar disorder but he only really had one episode that was major. I think i being alive and not being with him contributed to that hospitalisation etc...

I don't know, it is hard. He has a wife and 2 other children and replaced me, he admitted that was his intention and that he didn't bother with me because he wanted a new family and had it and it was too painful to think about the family that he first wanted but didn't have. Cop out isn't it.

Sounds like you love your daughter a lot. She prob has a barrier up right now but she will bring it down eventually so just hang around, doing the right thing, especially christmas and birthdays! and be ready to be a good dad when she is ready to forgive you for that loss of not having a daddy. I'm sure my feelings are similar to hers, it must be the same thing pretty much mustn't it.

[bert tomato]

I am living back with my dad. Usually I get on with him however in the last two days:
1. He threatened to cut me out of the will.
2. He threatened to kick me out on to the streets.
3. He called me 'mental'

I called him an 'idiot' back.

God knows what will happen! Hopefully it will be ok - me and my big mouth!

[Mango]

Mine refused to let me live with him when i asked. I've been threatened with the will thing too. That's all he's got to use! we could say i will cut you out of my life how's that for you?

[stanogden]

No, we don't! My daughter seems to feel very similarly to you. She suffers terribly, and is extremely bitter towards me for being such a wash-out as a father.

I have never had much idea how to be a human being, still less a man, still less a father.

got ya back man......... I was acrappy dad and still think I am, its not easy and no one ever stopped and asked me what i thought

so for anyone who has a bad relationship with either parent, try not to be too hard on us, you might not know the truth.....

stan

[bert tomato]

My relationship is fractuous....

However life is a lot easier living with someone..

I dont have to worry about bills, and cooking etc... the less stress has reduced my symptoms..

I won't be here forever - but life feels a lot more normal again!

[Apotheosis]

It's not about blame. I do however feel that my real father walking out a short time after me & my bro were born; never to be seen or heard of again; & then living with an arshole step dad for decades; played heavily in my mental health difficulties. If you bring a child into this World; then your primary responsibility is to that child; I don't care what excuses there are; it's just not right how a lot of people are with raising children. There should be exams, certificates & laws before people are allowed children - it's harder to adopt a cat for gods sake; there is something terribly wrong with it all. A lot of people just simply shouldn't be allowed to have children - controversial I know; but it's how I feel about it all with what goes on. It's parents that fuck up their kids; to then be blamed by society as adults; & sometimes suffer the rest of their lives; because of the sheer irresponsibility & incapacity of their parents.

[bert tomato]

I agree. People should be prevented medically from having kids - and when ready - they should pass a test. If sucessful they get their fertility.

I am sure it is possible.

Bad parenting is to blame for most of the worlds ills.

[Chimera]

If you bring a child into this World; then your primary responsibility is to that child; I don't care what excuses there are

That's exactly how my daughter feels.

I agree with everything you say, except for the "not caring about excuses" part: a person's real difficulties are not necessarily "excuses".

However, people who do arrogantly and self-justifyingly make excuses for their behaviour as parents, and are not willing to listen to their child, or to look at the truth about themselves, are compounding the harm they have already done, and they should not be allowed to get away with it.

But that's much easier said than done! For instance, I still have no idea how to get my aged mother to acknowledge any responsibility for the way I am. Indeed, for many years, I have not even bothered to try, and I content myself with having a civil (and almost, but not quite, friendly) relationship to her. As far as she is concerned, my failings are my own fault, and my sufferings, insofar as she is even aware they they exist, are of little or no concern to her. (I refer to the sufferings involved in so-called "mental illness". She will be quite solicitous about vastly more trivial matters, of the "are you wrapping up warm enough?" variety.) My daughter takes exactly the same attitude (i.e. my failings are my own fault, and my sufferings don't exist, they are just "excuses")! "Shot by both sides", that's me. What's that saying about a father being a two-time loser?

I could rant a lot about the failure of psychiatry, psychology, and most of all, Kleinian and existential analysis, to take the abuse and neglect of children by their parents properly into account. I was well aware of this when I was still only a child (I mean, an adult, without children of his own). I am every bit as aware of it now that I am a parent myself, with a hurt and damaged child who is extremely bitter and angry at me. But it would be as futile to recriminate with, say, Kleinian psychoanalysts (or with R. D. Laing, who, quite incredibly, allegedly told someone I used to know, "I don't want to hear about your childhood") as it would be to remonstrate with my own mother. Denial of abuse and neglect goes very deep, everywhere. (The family is a microcosm of political power.) I still don't know to what extent I am in denial over how I have mistreated or neglected my own daughter.