“Confessions of Childhood: 72 Women Reveal the Most Heartbreaking Lessons From Their Fathers’ Mistakes”
My dad never prioritized his health or his finances adequately. He passed from a heart attack and left a massive amount of debt behind. I’ll miss him every day and always wonder why he did things the way he did.
Assuming the daughter will “marry well” so puts less effort and resources towards her education.
S**t shaming me because I wore a tank top. And it wasn’t even a spaghetti strap top it was a two fingers thick top. My older brother joined in and I just felt attacked. To this day if I dress nice (a dress and make-up) just to do errands he asks if I have to “wear that just to go to the store.”
Completely checking out of raising them because they believe their daughters are smart enough to raise themselves. well, i wasn’t! i needed help and got none!! also: abuse, teasing, inappropriate conversations, terrorizing, gaslighting, neglect, shall i go on? my father sucks.
My dad was simply a body in the house. Minimal to no conversations, workaholic, only really spoke to enforce disciplinary actions (including verbal abuse and physical discipline), showed love by providing a roof over our heads, but completely emotionally unavailable in every way. Mocked us when we cried, I think because he didn’t know how to handle emotions and it made him deeply uncomfortable (not to be intentionally cruel). He was a misogynist who loved Howard Stern, though, and he’d delegate any chores my mom gave him to us. I still remember her telling him to do something and then him going, “Girls!” Makes me laugh now.
He’d come home from work to hole himself up for hours with his porn addiction each day, holding up a flimsy piece of paper to block the screen and scream at us if we happened to open the door to the room he was in. And when he wasn’t doing that, he was watching war documentaries on repeat or paranormal shows that scared the c**p out of me.
Our entire existence revolved around him because he was chronically ill and took zero responsibility for it (brittle type one diabetic who went on to have strokes/heart attacks, etc. but thought diet was cliche, so he’d skip meals and guzzle coca cola, etc). Basically instilled in us that you work until you drop and never prioritize yourself when sick, which is something we all struggle with today.
Everyone outside of the house got the best of him, so it was really weird not knowing if he simply didn’t have the capacity to connect (because of how sick he had become that ultimately affected his mental capacity) or if it was a willful choice not to engage. To the point where, when his work desk was cleared out, I was absolutely shocked to find he had pictures of me there. Somehow everyone else knew him as this intelligent, passive peacemaker/story teller who made everyone laugh and loved his daughters.
I don’t really blame him, though, as he came from a family where they couldn’t talk about anything and had fostered a sense of denial in him around his health. He didn’t know how to advocate or stand up for himself, much less love himself, so how could I expect that from him, you know? I think he did what everyone else does–the best with what he knew how at the time.
Anyway. Don’t be like that. 😂.
Wanting her to be something shes not and always being disappointed by that instead of getting to know her for the person she is 🙃🙃🙃 shout out my dad for making me feel like I’m not good enough for him lol.
Universal dad cannon: never remembers the names of my friends.
Not a big deal but always annoyed me as a kid.
Not listening to their political opinions because they’re women/thinking they can’t make financial decisions because of that.
