Fathers (and Mothers) Be Good to Your Daughters (and Sons)
Fathers, be good to your daughters Daughters will love like you do Girls become lovers who turn into mothers So, mothers, be good to your daughters too – John Mayer, “Daughters”
I never really had a Dad. I mean, I had a father. A father, who was in my life. One, who I even looked up to for a time. But I never really had a Dad, in the truest definition of the word. Which is why Father’s Day has always been so difficult for me. Even with the surrogate Dads and Dads-in-law that I had in my life throughout the years. Men, who although they were not my blood relatives, still acted in the capacity and in the way that a Dad was meant to act for his daughter. But, whose presence only made me miss what I was lacking more than if they weren’t there, in the first place. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciated them, and everything that they did for me. I loved them, and thought of them as Dads. I even celebrated, and still celebrate them every year on Father’s Day. Always explaining what they meant to me, and to my children. But there was always a void in my life; one left by the father who wasn’t a proper Dad to me. A father who let me down. And, these men; my surrogate Dads, were phenomenal Dads to me. But none were my own flesh and blood. None were my own Dad/Daddy or Father.
Not one was there to pick me up when I fell. To bandage my scrapes and bruises or kiss or hug my hurts away, as a child. None were there when my heart was broken for the first or tenth time. None were there to walk me down the aisle when I got married. None were there in the role that I so longed for my own father to be to me. Because they belonged to someone else. They were someone else’s father; someone else’s Dad. And, as much as they tried to be what they could to and for me, I always felt something lacking. I always knew that, try as they may, they would never be mine. And, this left a giant hole in my heart. Until Father’s Day, 2020. Until my son became a Father.
Last year, when my son became a Father and made me a Grandmother, that void seemed to go away. It was like a giant needle had come and sewn up the hole in my heart that had been there since I was a little girl. Like an outpouring of love over a hurt so deep that I’d never thought it could be healed. I can’t explain it but it felt like all of the pain of my past, and hurt of my childhood was washed away by seeing my son become a Father. This year, after a year of watching my Granddaughter grow. After watching my son acting in his new role; of Father, Dad, Daddy, protector, nurturer, superhero, suddenly everything was as it should be. It felt as though, I didn’t need a father of my own any longer. Because; I’d grown, nurtured and raised one who would be, to his daughter, what my father hadn’t been to me. Not my father. My son. As a father. A father, raised by a fatherless daughter, to become the father to his own daughter, that she had always needed. Like I’d raised him to become, to his daughter, what I’d never had. Just as I had mothered he and his sisters, in the way that I’d always wanted to be mothered, myself. But hadn’t been.
Seeing this, experiencing this and witnessing this miracle come to pass has made me realize that we sometimes, unconsciously, and without meaning to, repair ourselves. We love and nurture ourselves. Simply by loving and nurturing others. That the love that we seek from others, is often reflected back at us, by those we give love to, as we give it to them. That, by loving through our difficulties, instead of focusing on that love we don’t have in our lives, we often experience twice the love that we were so desperate to have been given all those years. The years we spent without the mother or father we so badly wanted for ourselves. That, by being the kind of mother, sister, friend, partner, etc. that we wanted in our lives, we unconsciously become, or create someone who becomes that role. Either to us, or to someone else that we love. Like me, with my son and his daughter.
And, although I didn’t have the kind of parents that I needed as a child; or even as an adult, I was able to be that kind of parent. And, in turn, helped to create one such parent for my Granddaughter.
Life really is a circle. One big, never ending opportunity for change, growth and evolution. A chance to repair past mistakes, and correct wrongs done from one generation to the next. Each generation, a chance to be and do better than the last. I was a pretty good Mum/Mommy/Mother to my kids; from what they’ve told me, anyway. But I know they can and will do even better than I did. I know this, because I know them. Like me, they will look back and see where I went wrong, and will correct those mistakes or bridge gaps that I may have left in their lives or hearts, with their own kids. I can already see my son allowing his daughter a little more independence and autonomy than I provided him with. And, instead of judging his parenting or suggesting he does it differently, I am watching him do better than I did. Just like I was able to do with my own children; with he and his sisters. Because, despite the fact that I was a decent Mother; even though I wasn’t parented well, myself, I know that I wasn’t perfect. I know there is room to grow and things to change in how I parented my kids. And, am not only content that he does things differently, but expect him to. Expect him to be a better parent to her, than I was to him.
So, as the song above implies; be good. Be good to your daughters, sisters, sons, brothers. Mothers and Fathers; be good to your sons and daughters. Even if; especially if, you didn’t have someone who was good to you. Because your relationships matter. They matter to you, and they matter to future relationships. Future generations count on how we treat earlier generations. Some, like mine, sought to repair the hurts of the past by being better than what I had been given or experienced, myself. Others, rely on the loving and nurturing given to those who will in turn, love and nurture others. Like my son, for his daughter – and her daughter or son, and their daughter or son, and so on.
Be good. And, be humble and open to change. See that, with each generation, there is a chance to do and be both good, and better than the previous generation. And, that is okay. We don’t have to continue the cycle. We have a chance to break bad ones, and improve good ones. And, like I am benefitting from watching my son be a good father to his daughter, we all benefit from these changes.
And, Happy Father’s Day to all of the Dad’s out there. All of those trying to be better than previous generations. The everyday heroes who hold the hands and hearts of the next generations.
“Dads are most ordinary men turned by love into heroes, adventurers, storytellers and singers of song.” - Pam Brown
Happy Father's Day;
To my son. To my surrogate Dads. To my Dads-in-law. To my Children's Dads. To my brother's-in-law. To my Uncles, and cousins. And, to all of my friends and family who are Dads. To the ordinary heroes out there who hold the hands and the hearts of their children. The teachers, the adventurers, singers and storytellers who make their children's lives more beautiful. The ordinary men who love, nurture and embody strength and wisdom; and who give their children and their surrogate children what they need to learn, grow and become better human beings because of their presence in their lives.