Fathers are overrated

I am the product of a once angry man. I am 36 years old and still harbor a grudge over my father’s frustration at life. If I could sum up him up in one word it would be: provocable. It didn’t take a lot to stir up his fragile emotions and get him riled up enough to yell at me and my 4 sisters. Including my mother, there were 6 women against 1 man where the man dictated everything.

My father was the patriarch since he was the only one who worked. He was a military man who used his words to curse us and his hands to abuse us. His belt was his weapon of choice and it caused so much trauma that it stopped being so harmful. I grew up with a hatred for authority and still silently flinch when men are near me. My mouth and my inability to stay quiet were what got me bruised. I had this innate sense of rebellion that so easily triggered my father. There was a lack on control over me that resonates to this day. My father was angry every day it seemed. He would go to work just to take his frustration out on his wife and daughters when arrived back home. I don’t know what the Navy did to him but whatever it was, I suffered from it.

My favorite word then and now is, “No.” Whatever I was commanded to do, I would retort with a blasphemous No. I knew what the result would be and I still did it anyways. I would receive a beating from the belt with hands that were 3 times the size of mine. I would cry tears of shame and guilt that would follow me for decades later. My ears would go deaf from the yells and tantrums thrown by this man who was supposed to be the epitome of shining manhood. I didn’t grow up with a loving and nurturing father. I grew up with a father who had resentment towards me and a mother who simply allowed all of this to occur. She was a beacon of silent motherhood. My father, on the other hand, was so loud that he could splinter your eardrums before he even entered through the front door.

I became a feminist when I was a teenager. There was no equality in my house growing up. 1 man decided everything and I always wondered, “Why?” What gave him this superpower over me? What gave him the right over my body and sense of freewill? Because I was stripped of my own autonomy, I took it from others. I began beating up boys from my class as early as the 4th grade. I would bully them when I was younger but I began to actually abuse them later. They wouldn’t fight back against a girl so I had all the power. I grew up with a sickening feeling regarding boys and romance. I refused to view them as potential mates because that would mean I would have to give up the power I had obtained.

I was scared of the opposite sex for most of my earlier years. I hadn’t kissed a boy until I was 18. I didn’t have sex until I was 21. Even holding hands was something too intimate and too intense for me. Boys and eventually men were too intimidating for me because I feared how they would treat me. I would have to show submission to them which is something I absolutely refused to do with my father. Discovering feminism was a way for me to heal from the patriarchy I had been forced into.

I discovered I had undiagnosed bipolar depression when I was 25 years old. I found out mental illness ran in my family so it made me wonder if my father suffered as well. By that time, I was already a mother and about to be married to the father of my child. I have had only one sexual partner in my life and he is now husband. He makes me feel safe simply by keeping his voice in a moderate range. I do not suffer under his tyranny or his emotional immaturity.

My son is 13 years old. My father is a better grandfather than father. I refuse to ever be as violent with him as my own father was to me. I still struggle with mental illness and my own sense of control over chaos that cannot be controlled. I still have my own frustrations and anger outbursts that erupt out of the shame and guilt that plague me to this day. I will never get over my own insecurities and my lack of self esteem. I don’t know how much of that comes from my father and his own sense of insecurity. I resent him even still.

My father may not be worst parent ever but he was never the best version of himself. He is now retired from the Navy and still living at home with my mother and my 4 sisters. I was the only one to ever escape. I wanted my independence and my own freewill. I am still searching for it. I am still on the hunt for adequacy and being worthwhile. I feel like my father has given me his own inner turmoil and I may never be as deserving as the peace I so crave. I may never be the daughter my father wanted but I am doing my best to improve everyday. I don’t want to come home everyday as angry as he did. I don’t want that emotional baggage on my doorstep. I choose to be a better parent that he ever was to me. Sometimes the lessons we learn from our fathers is to do the exact opposite. The world may have simply been too harsh on my father growing up. Whatever plagued him is on him. Blaming myself has achieved nothing over these last 36 years. I am the matriarch in my own household and I refuse to budge. What is a Father? Is he the sum of all his parts or is just being there enough? No. A Father is meant to be more than just his lingering presence. A father has more of a psychological influence over his children than he will ever realize. He has more power in one hand than I will ever have in both. A Father is more than just a provider. Sometimes a father needs to evolve and be the father a daughter deserves. Sometimes a father is a decent man but a terrible parent. Sometimes a father is simply overrated.