The Paradox of Fatherhood

Love vs. neglect vs. greatness vs. goodness

I have long thought that “proving your father wrong” or “showing the haters” is a pretty pathetic reason to do anything.

If you achieved success by clinging to old vestiges of hatred and resentment, can you even call that success? That sounds more like a disease. That sounds more like what Gabor Maté would call unhealed trauma.

Even if you have a ball and chain that happens to be pulling you forward instead of backward, it’s still a ball and chain. It’s still you giving someone else complete control over your life.

But I have also seen time and time again that some of the most memorable, decorated, and wise people in human history (and in my own life) had fathers who didn't believe in them. Were hard on them. Belittled them. Even beat them. It’s clear that, sometimes, this resentment actually turns into jet fuel in the hearts of men.

And every time you read a story or watch a movie about a great man, he’s either an orphan or he resents his father. Every time.

Or at least that’s how it feels. Part of that I’m sure is my own memory problems, and part of it is that negative things are stickier in our minds than positive things. That’s one of those “human biases” people are always talking about.

But my point stands. I seem to have noticed a pattern in my life: truly great men (and great women) tend to have fathers who were prickly bastards.

There's a quote from Robert Frost I'll never forget: “You don't have to deserve your mother's love. You have to deserve your father's.”

If there’s one force in human life that’s strongest at motivating us or deciding our fates, it’s our relationships with our fathers. That’s not to take anything away from our mothers, of course. Because emotionally I’d argue they are even more important. Our mothers teach us how to love; our fathers teach us how to be.

A sad and twisted thing that often happens in childhood is that our mothers teach us how to love ourselves while our fathers teach us how to hate ourselves. And then we spend our entire lives trying to reconcile those two things, which is more difficult than most Olympic sports.

I have had the privilege of being something like a step-father at one point. It was the happiest I’ve ever been. I got to explore this whole fatherhood thing to an extent that I wasn’t expecting, especially not having kids of my own. I got to put myself to the test to see what kind of man I am and what influence I have on young minds and hearts that I'm partially responsible for.

And over the 15 years of my adult life I have developed what I think is the kind of character that would be a certain kind of father. Supportive but distant enough to leave room for experimentation. Unconditionally loving, but not unconditionally accepting of the quality of decisions.

Hands-off, but with firm guard rails.

And we all also know, based on incarceration rates, drug addiction rates, and suicide and divorce rates that growing up without a father is the single biggest weakness you can have. It leads to all of life’s worst outcomes. A mother can love us, and we need that. But without a father we do not figure out how to act in the world or how to prioritize anything. How to restrain ourselves or how to push ourselves.

The issue is, mothers often can’t (and usually don’t) run away from their kids. Mothers are simply better at being consistent parents, and doing their half of the job. Therefore fathers are the ones who cause the most problems.

Without a father placing expectations on us, guard rails around us, and demands for a certain level of virtue or value on us, we don’t know what to do with ourselves.

And I can't help asking myself an extremely unfortunate question:

Would it actually be better for my kids if I was hard on them? Or even, Christ, mean to them?

Would they be more likely to become the best and most driven versions of themselves, to reach higher and strive harder? To find more things to stand up for, to be better citizens of the world?

To give more generously to others after I failed to give properly to them?

Or am I supposed to just take the lessons I've learned in my own life, and be softer than that?

I don't have the answer. What is a father even “supposed” to do, other than “raise” his kids? What do these words even mean?

Part of being a father is disappointing your kids. And when I say that I don't mean "everybody is imperfect, you're bound to let your kids down." What I mean is, you must disappoint your kids. It's required. Because you have to give them something to be better than. In some sense, you have to give them something to reject. People don’t just need something to chase, they also need something to reject.

Part of growing up is rejecting your own father. It shouldn’t have to be like that, but it is. And for many young women, part of growing up is rejecting their own mother.

On one hand, a father who is never pleased and always vicious gives his kids something to beat: his expectations. But he will always be disappointed in them; they will never be enough. His expectations are too high.

On the other hand, a father who is always pleased and effective and does everything right and gives his kids the perfect example... leaves his kids in the same position. They will never be enough. Why? Because he was perfect. How could you possibly live up to that?

Perfect men are pretty rare, luckily (what an ironic thing to say). So usually the problem is the first one. Which means there’s much more of a one-directional approach to the problem.

I have known plenty of “good” men who had good, supportive, loving fathers. I have known plenty of men who can hold jobs. Who can treat people right and show up on time. Who don’t hit their wives. These are common (but still remarkable) characteristics of a good man.

But I don’t know if I’ve known any great men (or women) who weren’t in some way traumatized or hurt by their fathers.

As you often see in music, or art, or any other part of life, it seems that profound pain is the only way to unlock someone’s true potential, or perhaps who they “truly ought to be.” Most of the best things in life come through pain. Or, at least, they gain new depth and luminosity because of pain. Because of an altered depth of appreciation, an altered ability to see and cherish the good and meaningful.

Now the question faced by “good” fathers, or fathers who want the best of their kids, is: do I simply back off and let my kids experience pain? By letting them live their own lives without my interference? Or, darkly and counterintuitively, do I inflict it upon them myself?

I would bet you any amount of money that the subconscious tries to answer this question without our knowing. Especially in men who still have daddy issues of their own, and especially when a father sees incredible potential in his child.

At the other end of the spectrum, you have the spoiling of children by their fathers. Fathers will take every possible advantage (or rather, “advantage” in quotes, because everything is a trade-off) that they didn’t have, and bestow it upon their kids. Wealth, safety, order, stability, and an overall sense that the world is a fine place.

When this happens, as you and I both know, it leads to weak kids. Not strong kids.

If you give your kids a million dollars at 17, they’ll start making TikToks about how wealth works while simultaneously knowing absolutely nothing about money. (How embarrassing.) If you lead your kids to believe that the world is safe and fair, one day they are going to get absolutely fucking demolished. Because you prepared them for how life ought to be, not how it is.

In some sense, life is a race: whoever learns how to live with unfairness and pain first, wins.

Some fathers help their kids win that race directly (by trying to beat greatness out of them). Others just back away and let them figure it out for themselves.

Some fathers want their kids to be great. Others just want their kids to be decent humans. Those are two entirely different approaches to fatherhood, and can only be brought together by someone truly wise and deft-handed. Someone who knows how to push and shove while also being incredibly loving and warm.

Another question: how often do you see a great person who overcame their own father, then had kids and was a good parent, and then those kids became great or well-known too? Not often. Almost never. There are very few people who make names for themselves whose kids also make names for themselves.

Rough (or terrible) parents can lead to great men, but great men don’t often produce great men. They often produce “decent people” and that’s it. Why? Because they inflict comfort upon their kids, not misery.

And I can’t help thinking: maybe the reward for being a good parent is that you get to see your kids happy. But the price is that they are happy. They don’t hate you, they don’t reject you, they don’t have any jet fuel. They don’t have the secret ingredient of greatness, which is misery.

I don’t have it in my heart to be a rough parent. Partly because I’m constitutionally incapable of making someone suffer, and partly because, to whatever extent I am capable of that, I have explored that dark part of me and trained myself out of it. So I’m not going to be rough on my kids “just so they’ll be great.”

I’ve got no plans to be great, and I don’t expect my kids shall be either. We can just be good.

But the questions remain: what is being a good father? Or a great father? What are my kids going to reject about me?

Drink some water.

JDR

“There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots, the other, wings.” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe