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A Manly Guest Contributor | March 15, 2013Last updated: May 27, 2018
A Man's Life, Fatherhood, On Manhood, Relationships & Family
How Not to Become Your AbsenteeFather
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Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Andy Harrelson.
In 1969, then governor of California, Ronald Reagan, signed into law thecountry’s first no-fault divorce bill. Many other states quickly followed hisexample. Whether his signing the bill was the cause of the skyrocketingdivorce rates that were to come in the next decades or merely a reaction tothe already increasing divorce rate is up for debate. However, I stronglysuspect the latter supposition to be true.
By the time my own mom and pop got together and conceived me in 1973,divorce was almost a rite of passage into middle age. Growing up in the 70sand 80s, I encountered and struggled with the hardships brought on by ourchanging cultural values; hardships that I share with many other men my age.I didn’t know, for example, how to defend myself from the bullies who wantedto test my resolve on the playground or in the halls of my high school. I havealso had more than my fair share of trouble relating to the opposite sex. Heck,I even had to learn how to change the spark plugs in my ’84 Bronco II from aChilton manual! The primary cause of these deficiencies in me and manyothers were due to divorce or just plain old absenteeism. You see, we didn’thave fathers around to teach us the virtues of behaving as proper men.Chances are, a lot of you reading this can relate, although even without afather figure around, you hopefully had enough sense to avoid the mistake ofbuying a Bronco II. That one was all mine.
My mother and father were divorced by the time I was 3 or 4 years old. Hewasn’t especially interested in continuing his relationship with me afterwards,either. My mother never re-married, and I’m an only child, so not only did Igrow up without a father, but without any other immediate family. I had mywork cut out for me, but through it all I think I gathered enough experience toachieve one very important goal: how not to become my deadbeat father. Ifyou, too, want to avoid this or if you think you might be taking on the traits ofyour own absentee dad, maybe I can help you drop those bad habits beforethey hurt you or someone you love.
Modern studies conducted by the Family Research Council now indicate thatabout half of American kids won’t reach adulthood without seeing thebreakup of their parents. To be precise, only 45.8 percent of Americanchildren reach the age of 17 with both their biological parents married.
These statistics reflect that our culture is in need of a serious overhaul, andthe job of fixing it falls to each and every one of us to do our part. The aim ofthis article is not to delve too deeply into the how or why of what got us tothis point. Rather, I hope to bring your attention to several characteristics orpersonality traits possessed by men who had an absentee orabusive/alcoholic dad growing up. If we can identify the garbage in our owncharacters, we can take steps to throw it out before it overflows and we endup passing our unhealthy traits on to someone else.
Adult children of absentee and/or abusive parents are as varied as any otherdemographic group on the planet, but it has come to the attention of Dr.Janet G. Woititz and other researchers that this particular group sharescertain characteristics in common. I’m going to go over what I feel are themost important and potentially damaging of these characteristics. I’ll tell youhow these traits negatively affected me, and then tell you how you, as an alertand responsible man, might avoid these pitfalls in your own life and thusbecome better prepared for fatherhood yourself.
Adult Children of Absentee, Alcoholic, and/or Abusive Fathers Tendto:
1) Need constant approval to feel validated.
This is where it all started for me. There was no dad to teach me the value ofassertiveness, so mom became the gateway to personal validation. Don’t getme wrong, I love and respect my mother. It takes a strong woman to be ableto raise a son singlehandedly, and I wouldn’t be half the man I am todaywithout her guidance. But she ended up being the gatekeeper for me eveninto my young adult years. What I needed from a father figure was theconfidence and self-esteem that would enable me to make importantdecisions on my own. Instead, I ended up compensating for a lack ofconfidence by seeking counsel from mom for everything from my diet to whatkind of shoes to wear to job interviews and everything in between.
Breaking the habit: Are you the kind of person who obsesses and needsvalidation over every little decision? Chocolate or vanilla? Staple or paperclip? I was like this, too. Please believe me when I say that this kind ofthinking does no good for anyone, least of all you. You know all those jobsyou’re thinking about applying to that require “independent thinking?” Well,that’s not a description of you if you’re going to be constantly running to theboss with trifles. You know deep down what’s good for you and what’s not;what constitutes work well done and what amounts to a shoddy job. Do youreally need to seek someone else’s opinion for such trivial matters? Takestock of the situation and the information at hand and make a decision. Beyour own man. You’ll savor your victories even more.
2) Be harsh self critics.
Something was wrong with me, there must have been. Why else would all theother kids go home after school to houses with both moms and dads, while Iwalked back to an empty house or a babysitter because my mom was busyworking 10 or 12-hour shifts to support us? It’s easy for a kid to get down onhimself without the proper support, and trying harder to correct yourperceived faults isn’t the answer. In fact, trying harder to “fix” myself probablyjust contributed to my self-loathing, since, given that I was not the cause ofthe problem, I was predestined to fail at repairing it.
Breaking the habit: So you’re a harsh self critic? So what? It’s not all bad,you might be thinking. That punishing, inner critic can actually spur you on togreat accomplishments. But you’ve got to be careful. Would you offercriticism to other people with the same harsh voice you use to critiqueyourself? Probably not, unless you wanted to burn some bridges and endsome friendships. The negative self-talk adds up, even if we’re just talking toourselves. If you know you’re good at what you’re doing, then cut yourselfsome slack and enjoy life. Like the old saying goes: “Be happy while you’reliving, for you’re a long time dead.”
3) Value loyalty to the exclusion of common sense.
You know all that attention that dad wasn’t giving me? Well, I found itsomewhere else. All of the relationship building that should have beenhappening between my father and I was instead happening with people whodid not have my best interests at heart, to put it mildly. But because I was soeager to find acceptance, I couldn’t see straight, and I put my faith and loyaltyin people who did not deserve it. Every kid makes some bad choicesregarding friends when growing up — it’s all a part of learning to judgecharacter. But when the bad relationship choices extend into your adult life,you’re inviting disappointment and outright heartache.
Breaking the habit: Friendships are two-way streets and they are built on thecommonalities between two people on equal footing. If you find yourselfgiving and giving without getting anything in return, if you take a close look atyour “friends” and find that you have little in common with them, if you findthat you and the ones to whom you give your loyalty are from radicallydifferent walks of life — then it might be time to re-evaluate who your realfriends are.
4) Have di�culty �nishing what they start.
This one probably hurts the most. Looking back on my youth, I can’t begin tocount the number of opportunities I missed out on because I hadn’t yetlearned how to follow through. Dad wasn’t around to show me that whenthings get tough, you need to lower your shoulder and run through the sh*t.Instead, if things didn’t work out for me right away, I was more inclined to justdrop what I was doing and move on. This is no way to experience life, as ayoung man or a grown one.
Breaking the habit: This is purely a matter of willpower and self-discipline.Most people have no trouble recognizing all of the half-finished projectsscattered around behind them, so the only real obstacle is apathy. It’s difficultif you’re attempting to overcome this later in life, but I think the only answer isto take a stand. No more coulda, shoulda, woulda. When you start something,you finish it. Period.
When evaluating your character, it’s important not to play the blame game. It’sgood to be able to identify your own deficiencies and how they developed,but in the end, it’s you alone who are responsible for fixing them. For adviceon how to start owning up to your mistakes, check out this AoM article oncultivating personal responsibility.
For even more enlightenment on the subject of absentee or abusive fathers,there are a couple articles from the AoM archive you might want to read: 6Lessons I Learned About Being a Man from Growing Up Fatherless is prettyself-explanatory, while A Generation of Men Raised by Women is more aboutthe reasons behind the phenomenon.
What lessons have you learned from having an absentee, alcoholic, orabusive father?
_________________
Andy Harrelson grew up in the desert southwest of the United States, wherehe now lives (barely) and works (too often) as a starving writer.
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