Role models lack presence
THIS is tough to write.
It’s Father’s Day as I write this and, as luckwould have it, I listened to Raising Boys and Manhood author Steve Biddulph last week. He gave me some valued insight into these creatures we call dad.
He said of 100 people, 30 were completely estranged from their father, 30 had a significantly strained relationship and 30 maintained a relationship with the man out of a sense of duty. That leaves 10 people out of 100 with a close and positive relationship.
Much as I’d like it to be different, I am not in that small minority.
I am indebted to the man who raised my brother and me on his own, when that was not the “done thing”. I recognise now the struggles he must have gone through. But, truth be told, I am also hurt by his mismanagement of our childhood. But then again, who isn’t? Childhood hurts have a way of sitting with you through to adulthood, reappearing in your adult relationships and making it that much harder to crack out of our calcified issues and find forgiveness.
I have watched braver souls than me try to tackle their “daddy issues” by approaching their fathers with questions that likely sound more like accusations.
I have watched the disintegration of those relationships like it’s Fantasia in The NeverEnding Story.
But never before had I seen it the way Mr Biddulph painted it. How, throughout society, the father figure has become entirely separated from the family unit.
How, by sending men to work during the industrial revolution, it started a ripple effect that begot the first generation of boys who lacked a steady stream of male involvement in their everyday life.
And here we are now, with so few of us having a close relationship with the first male role model in our lives.
Of course, feeling sorry for those farmers sent to factories in the 1800s doesn’t really assimilate with the turbid feelings I have for my father today.
Nor do I expect it to.
But if there are 89 other people struggling with Father’s Day and all it entails ... this might offer small consolation to know just how common it is to have a dysfunctional relationship with your dad.
I have shared more here than I’ve ever shared with my father about our relationship but I wonder if he read it, would he feel a part of this community too?
■ Peta Jo is an author, mother and high-fiving the mummas who are also the papas.