What is a Father?

I find this is a question that a lot of abused or neglected children ask.

Our fathers are our first experiences with men. But they are also often our first bullies, the first ones to induce terror, and the ones who have caused us the most grief.

After being abused by my father growing up, I-like so many-am highly distrustful.

Ilearned from a young age not to rely on dads (and by proxy, men) for security, safety, and protection. I had to take care of myself.

A deep desire to protect myself runs through my body like the blood in my veins.

It overpowers every other instinct.

Call it fear, call it self-preservation, call it survival.

Whatever name you attach to the underlying emotions and behavior doesn't really matter.

It's there, like a shadow always behind me, reminding me to double and triple check every single person that comes into my life.

When you grow up with a bad father, you never get to learn what a father should be like.

What's worse, it colors your opinion on everyone you meet.

What's even worse, a lot of times, it takes 15-20+ years for you to realize how much grief your father is the source of.

It takes so long to see how he has warped your expectations and perceptions. It's not until the damage is thoroughly done that we begin to see his role.

I grew up in a small town smack dab in the middle of Bible Belt Kentucky.

There are two things that are almost guaranteed when it comes to this:

1. an exorbitant number of alcoholics-a sin deeply despised but wildly accepted.
2. the expectation that fathers didn't pull their weight.

Sure, they might pay the bills. But the majority of my friends had emotionally unavailable fathers (at best), just like me.

Whether "like calls to like" and we all herded together, or there really was just an insane amount of poor fathers, the fact remains.

It was so common, that many people couldn't distinguish their own abuse because it seemed normal. It was always like that. That's just dad.

Looking back, I (like most) am able to name a few instances that stand out among the noise.

These were moments that were especially traumatic. Moments when our lives took sharp left turns and we were never the same.

Sometimes, we knew it when they were happening. Sometimes, we didn't see how damaging they were until after. Either way, "the ax forgets, but the tree remembers."

All of this is to say that when I was growing up, a toxic, abusive, emotionally-unavailable father was normalized.

It was accepted, but not discussed. Because of this, I didn't realize how wrong my experience was.

Now, I am a staunch feminist. I am certainly not going to "not all men" you in this article.

But, I can't help but feel that my father, specifically lack thereof, set me up to expect the worst.

I can't help but fear that in accepting this, our community taught kids that their dads were allowed to be unpredictable and irresponsible.

I can't help but wonder if I was taught who a father was supposed to be-even if not by my own father-then if some damage might have been prevented.

So many questions and "what ifs" pass through my head daily. But it doesn't really matter, the damage is already done. To me and to millions of children everywhere.

But it doesn't end with us. Many people my age (and the age of our siblings) are beginning to have kids.

As a result of this, our generation has to wrestle with this question: what is a father?

It's not a simple one to answer-certainly not for the the girl whose dad took pleasure in her terror, whose irresponsibility exacerbated her stress.A daughter of the father who failed.

Yet, there are children waiting. And we have to find an answer-one that's different from our parent's and grandparent's-if we hope to end the trauma here.

In reality, it's a question built from a thousand questions, all about what a father should do and mean.

And so many of us can only find answers in the negative. We see what a father shouldn't be, but we're still unsure what he should be.

This question holds a key to healing our own trauma and preventing the trauma of future generations.

It helps us identity what we lacked, what we lost, and where we're hurt. But it also shows us how to not be.

From neglect to abuse to everything in between, people are hurting and broken because of their father, I’m one of them.

And I still find myself asking, what even is a father?