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So here we are on another Father’s Day. And as always my social media feeds are overcome with the usual array of greatest dad and greatest loser dad photos and posts. It’s a like a “Dad of the Year Contest” at every turn balanced only by the posts of pain and hurt by the neglected. The variety of Father’s Day shout outs are as vast in my world as the types of birds you’d find in the Amazon and it’s a chaotic mess.
It leaves me pondering the same question I’ve tried to solve since I was a child, what makes a good father?
I have had numerous experiences with fathers and I’ve seen them in all shapes, sizes and attitudes. Each with their own unique style or lack thereof leaving you exhausted with confusion.
Some people I know would gravitate to the idea that what makes a good father is someone who is responsible for their children. They go to work, put in great effort and produce a monetary contribution that is both timely and ample. The praise they are rewarded is based on their ability to meet the physical needs of a child. I’ve known fathers who have never missed a child support payment and always went the extra mile to buy additional things. Some would say this is a great father.
But can we really put our stock in that kind of idea? I can tell you from personal experience my mother never cashed a child support check that met my emotional needs. Not one time. That monthly allotment never showed up at a basketball game, watched me in a recital or celebrated my accomplishments.
So what about that other father? The father that can’t seem to get his life together to pay the bills but does what he can to show the child love and attention. The dad that everyone talks bad about because he doesn’t help the mother financially yet shows up at every soccer game and uses his time with the kids to teach them to ride bikes, play at the park and love on one another. A good father? Probably not perfect but a father who attempts to fill the emotional bank so many children find empty into adulthood. What about this guy? Does he deserve to be called a good father? Does he meet the bill?
I would assume one would think the best father would be the perfect mix of the two. The man who successfully supports his family financially while providing endless opportunities for love and learning. There is an onslaught of opinion on fathers and the quest to achieve the perfect one and I’ve finally come to what makes a good father for me. Shockingly, it’s not the fairytale bullshit we are all searching for.
The amount of pressure we put on any man to meet all these needs perfectly is unrealistic and often unachievable even for the best of men. Having watched so many fathers in my life, with such a mixed bag of skills I have finally found peace. For 40 years I’ve searched out this fairytale, tried to mold the men in my life to it and come up empty every time, disappointed and flailing for love. All until I stopped setting the bar anywhere, stopped being a victim of the conundrum of searching for a good father and realized something quite simple.
It is in my own life that the blessing of a good father is evident, whether he was or was not. A father gives us a chance at life, DNA and biological ability to be conceived and born. We have the opportunity to live a life that reflects that values and ideals we choose to stand up to, we shape what happens from our experience. In owning our lives, finding thankfulness from the father who gave it to us and acting on experience to find good, is the blessing of a good father.
All fathers make mistakes and some of them are atrocious. Some fathers make choices that leave us broken and hurting; feeling incapable, but we are not. Each of us has a plethora of lessons that life is teaching us. In learning to look at the mistakes of the fathers in my own life I can see now the many great lessons that my soul has learned. I can see now that the successes and failures of the fathers in my life were precisely the journey necessary for me to grow and expand into the loving person I am. In some cases my father’s greatest destruction was a catalyst to my greatest freedom. Finally stepping back and seeing great opportunity instead of dwelling on pain, is life changing.
Find a new set of eyes to see your father through. Each of us were given the one we needed to cause the reaction in our lives to become who and what we are to be. May everyone find the peace and motivation to use whatever experience you’ve had with your father to propel yourself to a better place and a better reality. A good father to me, gives us a life and then empowers us by their actions, be them positive or negative, to learn in our own life adventure and create something better.
Thank you to all the dads and all their shortcomings. Happy Father’s Day.
~Rachael