Was Your Dad There for You?

[frodo82801]

This comes up because I'm raising kids. My son is an energetic little guy who looks to me a lot since he has 5 sisters and everyone is home schooled.

As I deal with turning him into a responsible Godly young man, my past keeps coming up. This is good in one way because I learned a lot about what not to do. But, it also stirs up a lot of stuff that I'm finding I have to grieve to move past.

There are moments in life that stay with you. These are times when life was taking a direction, only much of the time we aren't aware of them until years later when our (hopefully) increased wisdom allows us to see with 20/20 hindsight.

For example, I have a memory of a moment with a girl friend. At the time, it seemed like no big deal, but it was. She was looking for something and I had no clue. It wasn't that I didn't care about her, it was just that I had no idea about take relationships into marriage. But it sticks in my memory vividly because it was one of those moments.

I have a couple of those memories of my dad. One time, I got caught doing some graffiti and I had to go tell him. He said some words about hanging out with the wrong crowd and that was it. I was shocked because there was no punishment. The memory sticks. What I didn't realize at the time was the message he gave me in that moment. He'd given up on me. The consequences have been devastating throughout my life. It's definitely not something I want to repeat, and I won't no matter how much trouble my son gets into. A child really needs to know that someone is in their corner no matter what they face. It's amazingly important and I think men in prison, many of whom don't know their fathers, will tell you.

How about you guys? What was your experience with your Dad? If he wasn't there, was there someone who was? How are you there for your kids in general and your sons in particular?

[Comfort me]

It wasn't good. We are not close. Don't have hardly anything in common. The Lord has been a wonderful father to me the past few years.

[Just Dave]

My dad was a sarcastic bully. He adored my sister, would do anything for her but made my Mother and my life hell.

I love kids and badly want a good marriage and children. I'll never treat them the way my dad treated me, I want to be a Godly husband and father. I may have to seek help in learning how.

[Comfort me]

My dad was a sarcastic bully. He adored my sister, would do anything for her but made my Mother and my life hell.

I love kids and badly want a good marriage and children. I'll never treat them the way my dad treated me, I want to be a Godly husband and father. I may have to seek help in learning how.

You will need help in learning how most likely. Jesus is a great teacher.:thumb

[overcomer]

I feel sorry for those that have had, to say it nicely, a not so great relationship with their earthly fathers. Every time I hear about this I immediately want to be sensitive too those that are hurting, but at the same time I want people to know that there are awesome dads out there, like mine. Of course, no dad can match-up against our Heavenly Father, but who God blessed me with as my earthly father - I will always be thankful, grateful, and praise God for him (I'm getting all choked up, in a good way, even as I type this:crying).

I dont' have any kids at this point in my life (save a cat). But, if I can be half the man my father is still to this day, I will be a great man and man of God.

I thank God for my Christian heritage and my wonderful parents He chose for me. I thank Him for hiding me, for most of my life, in the shadow of His wing.

For those that have a chance to be restored to a better relationship with their father - I will pray into that.

That's my experience.

[XD Joe]

Yes, my Dad was awesome!

If I'm half the father my Dad was, I'd be proud!:thumb

[Justdust]

It wasn't good. We are not close. Don't have hardly anything in common. The Lord has been a wonderful father to me the past few years.



Ditto

[AnnaC]

Yes, I had a wonderful dad. I'll share my experience as far as the punishment scenarios you mentioned. My dad shared with me several times that it was his job as a father to show me who God was and to act like God as much as he could to help me learn about who God was and what he was like. I believe that much of what we think about God comes from how we were treated by our earthly fathers. Anyway, my dad was always very thourough with punishments, spankings, etc. We would always have a discussion about why what I did was wrong and why it was displeasing to him and to God. But every once in a while, when I did something wrong, we would discuss it and that was it. He wouldn't tell me to go get the paddle. I would ask, "why aren't you going to spank me?" (I knew I had done something bad) He would say, "I am showing you mercy. Sometimes when we do something wrong that should have big consequenses, God will cover for our mistake and nothing bad will happen. As your dad I want to show you the same kind of mercy." (Of course then he always reminded me that he wouldn't do this all the time and not to expect to be "off the hook" next time :) )

That was always so eye opening to me and reminded me how much my earthly and my heavenly father loved me.


Ok, another way that he was "there for me". He always took time to learn about the things that I was interested in. I was really into ballet for about 10 years. I was in dance classes all the time. He actually took the time to learn about dance, without even letting me know that he was doing that. I would come home from class and start talking to him about the new steps we were learning, and he would know exactly what I was talking about. He would always let me know how proud he was. It meant so much to me that a grown man would take the time to learn about ballet, just so he could talk to his daughter about it.

It's things like that that will really stay with your child forever. I remember that no matter how old I got, even through the teen years, we always had a close relationship. If you can keep that closeness, you will be able to work through problems because you trust each other. I hear so many parents and teens talking about the rebellion issues they are having. Things were never perfect, and I did a lot of things wrong, but I always trusted that my dad knew what was best for me because I trusted him. Trust is such a big thing. If your child trusts you, you won't have to worry so much about rebellion.

Ok, I have really rambled with this. :lol2 Sorry. One more thing though. I remember several times when my dad would come to me and confess something that he had done wrong in our relationship. I don't remember anything specific, but just that he had enough humility to confess to me when he did treat me wrong was huge.

[StarryEyedLad]

I barely knew my dad until my mom died when I was 10. Dad was the breadwinner, mom the housewife. My dad worked as a crane operator in a steel mill and worked construction on the side for extra money. He sometimes worked double shifts at the mill, would come home and sleep a few hours, then go straight back to work. Of course, I now understand that he had a wife and four kids to support. I hardly ever saw him, and when I did he was grumpy and aloof. He rarely showed any affection to anyone, even mom.

I was the youngest, 7 years younger than my closest sibling in age. As I got older, I began to wonder why out of all of us, my dad seemed to do the least for me. He helped the others get what they needed, maybe because mom made him. After she died, I was the only kid left he had to really provide for as a parent, the others were 23, 18, 17 and still at home but working. They had been fighting really bad right before mom got sick, and we were afraid they would divorce. All that changed when she was diagnosed, and she died within a year of the diagnosis. I wondered if he resented me for being born and in the way. He would have been free to do as he pleased had I not been there.

By the time I hit high school, I was seriously convinced my dad hated me. We had begun moving from place to place, I was in and out of half a dozen schools within 3 years, and my heart was breaking. It seemed as if he enjoyed hurting me. I even wondered if maybe I wasn't really his kid! He stopped buying my clothes, stopped giving me lunch money. I got 3 work/study positions in high school to pay for these things myself. I started college, and he promised to help pay what my little grants wouldn't cover, and then didn't. I never finished, because I had to pay back-owed tuition before they'd let me start back, but once I started working full time and moved out at 19 there was never enough time or money to go back. I was too busy trying to make ends meet.

Around 1996 we found out my dad had lung cancer and brain tumors. He most likely got them from asbestos at the steel mill where he worked. My mom had also died of lung cancer in 1983. She may have gotten it from him, bringing asbestos home on his clothes. They also had been heavy smokers, unfiltered Pall Malls, since they were teenagers. We were told he may have had those tumors many years, affecting his brain and therefore his demeanor and actions. If that's the case, it made sense.

His death affected more than I was prepared for, more than my mom's had even. I had made my peace with the fact that we were never going to have an ideal, or even a reasonable father-son relationship. But you only get one dad. And it hurt to lose him, and I mourned for what could have been, if he'd only opened up to me more. He used to say he let our mom be the affection giver, because his parents had been too possessive and domineering, and he wanted to not repeat that so he remained distant. I used to wonder what was so wrong with me that he couldn't love me? But one of the last things he said before he died was for my brother to look out for me.

I have come to understand my dad a lot more and try to remember the good things, like all the times we spent driving around, getting boxes of mini chocolate donuts and sodas, little things like that. My dad was forever going somewhere in the car. I always used to say the only discussions we could have were about history, politics, or religion. Nothing personal. I often didn't want him to know anything about how I felt. Our relationship was always strained, and very distant. But I learned a lot from him, both good and bad, and I will apply what I've learned and avoid the mistakes he made when I have my own kids.

I have always had a strong desire to be a father, and the desire has only gotten stronger since he passed. My brother has only stepchildren and none have our family name. If I have none, our family line ends. We have cousins with the family name but that's not our particular branch of the family, you know? It's just not the same. If I go much longer without marriage or kids, I would like to look into adopting some. I'll never get a baby, most likely...too many couples in line for them, but I'd be more than willing to open my home and heart to older kids who have little chance of getting adopted. My dad always said, "You don't pay for your raising till you raise your own". And I believe that.

Whew, sorry for the long post, but I felt the whole story was necessary to give an accurate portrait of my relationship with my dad. He may not have been there for me, but I still loved him, and I learned much from him.

[tom_roberts]

my dad rocked

he worked all the time but somehow still had time to be cool

Lord i miss him