What I Learned About My Father, and What I'm Doing Differently
A father of two processes patterns inherited from his own childhood and finds clarity on the parent he wants to be.
My children were with their grandparents. I had the weekend and I had a question: how much of how I parent is actually me, and how much is something I absorbed from my own parents without choosing it?
The session surfaced scenes from my childhood I hadn't thought about in decades. Specific moments I had forgotten. And I was watching them from a new angle — not as the child who experienced them but as a parent watching a child. The distinction changed everything.
I could see exactly what my father was unable to give and why; I could see exactly where I was repeating his patterns and where I had genuinely changed. The grief was clean. I found compassion for him that hadn't been there before — a man doing his best with what he'd been given.
I called my father the following week. We had a conversation we had never had before. He didn't fully understand what had brought it on. That was fine. I understood.
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