I know this isn’t the Pit, so I’ll take my warning (and I read FAR more than I post), but: Are you fucking obtuse? Get the fuck out of this thread.
My dad has become such a nonentity in my life that I didn’t realize it was father’s day (until I saw this thread, of course). My grandparents are all dead, so I don’t even have any father figures left to call. But I’m okay with that. I’m way too busy and happy these days to waste neurons mourning my lost childhood. And in a way, being raised by a sexually-abusive alcoholic was good, because I might never have met my current partner if I’d been raised in a loving and happy home. And I’m beyond ecstatic with my current partner. I wouldn’t trade my life today for anything. My childhood made me who I am today.
Happy daughter’s day!! 
I never said I didn’t like the topic.
My dad hasn’t spoken to me in about 10 years. My sister and I are not the dependent, married, listening-to-our-husbands types that he intended us to be, and he’s basically disowned both of us. A decade ago he called to say he would come see my kids, showed up on the wrong day, found I wasn’t home, and hasn’t spoken to me since. He was a jerk most of my life and got worse after I became an adult.
I figure maybe next week I’ll send him some photos of the kids. That’s about as good as it’s going to get, I think.
I think your post clearly explained your position on the topic.
Dude was trolling, and has been banned – but please don’t engage with trolls this way.
twickster, MPSIMS moderator
I think someone did, and if it wasn’t here, it was on another website.
Just to say that some of us who didn’t have shitty fathers understand exactly why this is the specific day of the year when those of you who did would most need to talk about it. Good wishes to all of you.
Thanks, guys, I really appreciate your understanding.
I did call him today. The reason is not because I’m feeling better, but because I make it a point not to make big decisions when I am emotionally upset. Calling him would be maintaining the status quo. So I did. It was a brief and cheerful conversation and I did not tell him I’m upset or that I’m coming into town this week.
Maybe with time this will all sort itself out.
I just want to say I agree with eclectic wench. It’s understandable for people to share their feelings and I hope talking about it helps even a little bit. Some people have not had loving fathers, or sober fathers, or involved fathers, and a day like today can only drive home the bad feelings for those people. It’s clear from the thread title what the thread is about, and the people posting here aren’t slamming all fathers, just trying to deal with their upbringings. Anybody who disagrees with these people’s right to commiserate don’t have to reply. Those of you who have risen above your parents’ abuse or lack of commitment to raising a family have my respect for striving to be better people.
What’s funny is I could wallpaper my house with threads I’ve started about my mother.
This is not the Pit…take your insults out of this thread.
Olive, I don’t think that wallpaper would encourage a buyer…
For the first time in my life, I did nothing for father’s day. I mean I didn’t really have a father. Just an angry, violent, sexual predator who lived in the same house as I did. People who had a good father who loved them is just so foreign to me that I can’t actually comprehend it.
It feels kind of weird to not have even sent a card.
Never sent my father anything on father’s day, or almost any other time. Why would I when he basically ignored the fact he sired me?
Some people should never have had children.
I know this is a response to a banned troll, but I feel I have something to add to the overall conversation.
Maybe next year I’ll start a ‘shitty mother’ thread.
My father is a good and decent man. I hold him in the highest esteem. My mother? Well, she’s a train wreck. Smart, successful in her field, but complete balls at being a mother.
I know that I’m the inverse of the usual story, when my dad was the better parent. So I celebrate Father’s Day. And I joyously texted three of my friends who have become new fathers this year, and two more who had become new-again fathers. My girls called and texted me with some very sweet sentiments.
But I know that far too many ‘fathers’ fall far too short. My eldest’s ‘father’ split when she was an infant. When she was a younger teen, there was more than a little ‘white knight’ fantasy in her her thinking–“once I turn 18 I can meet my real dad!” Now that she is 19, her thinking (appropriately, in my opinion) is “fuck him. He abandoned me and I’ve never known him.” The younger’s ‘father’ always had excuses as to why he couldn’t visit, promised to send gifts that never arrived, and left her waiting when she was certain that he was coming to pick her up. He’d put his new step-family above his own blood.
I’ve become a father to my girls. And a good one, I’d like to think. But I realize that I am 33% of the ‘father figures’ they’ve had in their lives. The majority didn’t give a fuck and left them. It’s damage I try to mitigate, and I try to facilitate healthy lives for them.
Moms fuck up and fail, too (as I can attest to). But dads fuck up much more often. Olives has every right to feel anger, hurt, and betrayal. And to post about it here. And she has the obvious right to feel sadness and deprivation.
And yes, feeling angry/sad/conflicted about a day celebrating something you never had isn’t unusual. Nor anything to censor. Mother’s Day will make me want to spit until I have grandchildren…
Rant away, Olives. I appreciate your perspective. In a perfect world, we could blend my awesome father/shitty mother and your shitty father/awesome mother (or do I assume too much?) and create a smoothie of decent fucking people who did their best for their kids. In a perfect world. That doesn’t exist.
Two years ago my father had a massive heart attack and had a quadruple bypass. I couldn’t even pretend to be concerned. I felt bad about not feeling bad until my therapist let me off the hook and told me I didn’t have to care if he lived or died if I didn’t want to.
He was an emotionally abusive, self centered, megalomaniac who couldn’t be bothered to pay child support because he had a ‘new family’ to support.
Has anyone ever been able to find a Father’s Day card that DOESN’T say "To the best dad ever/in the world? This is why I never send a card. The don’t have one for the dads that really of suck at parenting. I need a card that says something like, “Thinking of you on Father’s day, more than you ever thought about me ever.” Or “Happy Fathers Day! Thanks for the sperm donation.” Or “I sent your Father’s day gift to our old next door neighbor who taught me how to ride a bike, let me mow his lawn for $5, and glared at my dates from his front doorstep.”
My dad was a good dad when I was a kid. However, the older I’ve gotten, the more complicated our relationship gets. It’s nothing even close to what others have endured. So, I am all for threads like this, where those who missed out on having a real father can comfort and support each other. I wish there were more good fathers - biological or otherwise - in this world. We sure as hell need them.
The truth is I had WAY more Mom issues than Dad issues. But I have always had very strong feelings of affection and loyalty toward my mother, whereas I’ve never felt much at all for my Dad. It doesn’t help that we have so little in common. I really don’t want him to suffer, even for his own choices, but that feeling… whatever that feeling is that kids traditionally feel for their fathers… I don’t have it. I don’t recall ever having it. I remember when I was 6 or 7 years old thinking that I was more responsible than he was.
Ah, well. A day comes and goes. My feelings likely will change as well.
My real dad was essentially a sperm donor. The thing is, I found out much later in life that he had been seeing my mom for four years (!!) before they got pregnant. I doubt they had much time to have sex in 1970s India, so it’s possible they just got lucky or just didn’t have much opportunity. But as soon as she got knocked up he was out of her life - he was married.
My adopted dad…I am fairly ambivalent on. He’s better than a lot of dads in this thread, but he’s done a couple of horrible things too. Some of which I don’t even like to talk about - I mentioned them in another thread, but it involves molestation.
I have a working relationship with him now but I don’t feel a lot of fondness for him…just a sort of gratitude that we do have this relationship. I struggle every year looking for a Father’s day card for him because most of the cards in the store have such flowery, poetical words, about how much daughters love their Fathers etc. I just want one with simple phrasing that says “Have a happy father’s day”. surrounded by literalists, I found one this year that said something like “You don’t know how much we think of you every day.” Very true - you really have no idea how little we think of you, Dad!
I don’t wish him unhappiness or anything. But he was never there when I needed a dad and now that I don’t need or want one anymore he expects me to be Daughter.
And yet, he did give me his name, and raised another man’s daughter as his own, and no matter what else he did or didn’t do, he never once made any implication to the fact that I wasn’t his. It was my own mother who did that for me. Dad never ever said a thing, never made me feel unwanted like the rest of the family did.
Any wonder there’s major mixed feelings?