I grew up without a dad, and for the most part, it was great. My parents had sex just once, at a party. When my mom decided to keep me, she told my dad he didn’t need to be part of my life, and while he was very alarmed by the whole situation, he was also relieved.
In elementary school, when for Father’s Day we would make construction paper ties with dorky poems on the back, I would giggle, knowing I would be giving these symbols of masculinity to my mother. She was my beautiful, brave, female father. And she loved me enough for two, even three people.
Was there a small amount of sadness? Sure. But dads also seemed difficult. They yelled in scary low voices; they made you play sports; they didn’t want to talk about relationships or watch “Xena Warrior Princess.
” On , they were usually depicted as bumbling buffoons who didn’t know their own children’s birthdays but who somehow managed to attract wives of model-level attractiveness. I didn’t feel that I was missing much. Besides, it would have been really hard for us to have a relationship since my parents weren’t even together and we lived in different places.
I was probably better off having nothing instead of having a more complicated . That is the story I told myself, the most comfortable story. Even to this day, when I attempt to poke this area of myself, I feel almost nothing.
The wound is entirely numb, if it ever was a wound at all. Which is why it is curious that three of my four have centered on fath.
