Mad at Dad

Every Thursday I’ll post an article having to do with either relational or emotional matters. Hope it helps.

—

Mad at Dad

Dads figure pretty largely in the lives of the men I’ve worked with over the years. Partly, of course, because Dads figure largely in any man’s life; partly, I think, because problems between fathers and sons often become roots of later rebellions, dysfunctions, wounds. In any case, almost always, when talking about a person’s life and history, Dad comes up, sometimes as monsters; sometimes invisible; sometimes terrific with flaws. And to a point, that’s predictable.

Nobody gets a straight A report card in parenting. In know, as a father, that both my sons would give me a mixed set of grades, and I’d say our relationships are pretty solid. Still, I know that problems between parent and child are inevitable, and that it’s the degree of the problem, not its existence, that determines how serious it is. And along those lines I’d have to say there are plenty of people plenty mad at Dad.

I’d also have to say, with all due respect for the pain anyone’s experienced at the hands of an imperfect father, that while anger may be legitimate, forgiveness is still a mandate.

I wrote my first book twenty years ago, and much of it had to do with father/son bonding. But it was too easy, in 1991, to write about what fathers should or shouldn’t be.  I was new to the game myself, the proud step-father of a lovably energetic eight year old boy, who I’d spent a mere three years actually parenting.  Huge mistakes, mostly mine, hadn’t yet been made. His adolescence was years off, so our days were playful and I was his hero, snatching him up after school for bowling, football games and junk food.  No wonder it was so easy for me to look critically at older fathers.  I was determined never to become one.

Since then, the boy I loved has become the man who’s forgiven me.  We jumped into the power struggles and mutual rage every father/son relationship is (to some extent) doomed to, and I careened from rigid strictness to cold fury to indifference, depending on which battle we were fighting. We weathered some tough years, re-bonded, and today I couldn’t be prouder of him, or of us, when I see the outcome.

But happy ending or not, I know there are things I said and did to him that were damaging, and can’t be undone.  To some degree, they’ll affect him and the way he sees life and people.  So like all sons, he could write his own book, delivering a rather mixed report card to the old man. I know, too, that what I didn’t say or do, and should have said or done, can’t be compensated for.  In short, I understand more than ever how difficulties between fathers and sons come about.  And more than ever, for obvious and very personal reasons, I also see and stress the need for a forgiving heart.

There’s a time for anger, of course. I remember too well the first time I admitted to myself how enraged I was with my own father, and how blasphemous and childish I felt.

But it was a crucial beginning.  Dad is that enormous figure assigned to us who will probably, for better or worse, affect us more profoundly than anyone else in life.  So your relationship with him may well play into much of what you’re dealing with now.  “Be angry, and sin not”, Paul advised. (Ephesians 4:26)  It’s allowed.  If you were wronged, you were hurt;  if you were hurt, your anger is justified.  So let it come.

Then, in due time, let it go.  Because as surely as you need to express and resolve your anger, there’ll be someone else, someday, who’ll need to do the same with his anger towards you.  And you, like all of us, are subject to the laws of sowing and reaping.  Be sure to sow forgiveness while you can.  You will, unquestionably, be grateful it’s there to reap when you need it.