Today is a day we honour fathers in our lives…”Father’s Day”…and folks all over the city are having brunches, breakfasts of dried out cold toast or limp waffles, and BarBQ’s.
The value of fathers in a child’s life cannot be overestimated.
Having a father to affirm your personhood, to celebrate who you are, to remind you that you deserve to be treated respectfully, to call you to behave according to honourable principles. Children long to hear their dads say, “I love to watch you play”. Daughters love hearing their dads say they find them beautiful, or to consult them on a gift for their mother. Sons love hearing dads invite them into the backyard to toss the ball, or into the games room to play video games.
I love a guy who loves his child more than his own dignity.
So…many men are being celebrated today for the invaluable contribution they make in their family’s lives.
It’s important to honour that contribution for the powerful impact it has made. Thank you, fathers, everywhere!
But not everyone is able to celebrate their father today…
- He that walked out on the family and disappeared, absent completely or in meaningful ways.
- An absent father–one who never existed beyond conception…from brief relationships, rape, sperm donation.
- He died. That’s painful, to be sure, but it feels good that he left unwillingly and would be a meaningful dad if he could. (Unless he ended his life by suicide, which often increases the sense of abandonment and rejection of the child.)
- He was present physically, but absent emotionally because of alcoholism or other substance abuse, workaholism, or some other numbing behaviour which not only kept him from his own pain but from meaningful connections with his children
- He was present, but abusively so. Children often look to their fathers to understand their worth, and when their dads tell them or treat them as though they are useless, a piece of garbage, a nuisance, a pain in the ass–well, kids absorb that and it hurts. Agonizingly so.
I’m a firm believer, for folks who don’t have meaningful biological fathers, to have folks who are father-ish. People who nurture kindly and tenderly, who are protective, who remind a child (of any age) of how they deserve to be treated, who value a person with time and energy, who listen to the stories…who love.
Who says fathers have to be biological…in fact, who says fathers have to be men?
Today, if you aren’t able to celebrate your father…spend some time grieving others have what you only wish for…it’s not fair or just that you didn’t have a dad. It isn’t right, and yep, you missed out.
Maybe spent some time reflecting on and remember father-ish folk who have imbibed the sense of being loved in the way you imagine you missed from your own father?
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