I was about 9 when a friend of mine told me that her dad lost his temper sometimes and would hit her. She said it would only happen every couple of months but that it was enough to make her scared of him. I was horrified and really confused. This was her dad. The idea of my own father ever laying a hand on me was ludicrous. Almost laughable. In my very sheltered youth, it never occurred to me that not everyone had a great dad like mine. Obviously I’d met other kid’s dad’s before. Most of them were more serious than mine, and a bit less fun. They didn’t listen to heavy metal music or belly laugh at everything or order kid’s desserts when they went out for dinner like my dad. They all seemed perfectly nice, mostly a bit boring but still ‘good dads’. This was the first time in my life that I can remember thinking that someone had a ‘bad dad’ and I can remember feeling incredibly sad for this girl.
As I got older I learned more about ‘bad dads’. They were absent, abusive, violent. As I got even older and taught children that had experienced trauma I learned about ‘very bad dads’. Horrific dads. Ones I can’t even talk about, both emotionally and legally.
My friend Eden wrote a post about father’s day and it really resonated with me. She says ‘… my husband Dave never had a father either, yet somehow grew up to be a completely amazing one. He loves all of his children with a fierce kind of purity. It can happen … men can be good fathers.‘
It dawned on her, in much the same way as the opposite dawned on me, that men can be good fathers. It shouldn’t be like that at all. It should be an assumption always that dads are good and I wish I knew a way to make that happen for everyone.
If I could, I would lend my dad to every girl in the world who doesn’t have a decent dad of their own. He would get up at 6am on his only day off and drive you to your first newsagency shift when you’re 14 years old… and every Sunday for the following four years. He’d buy you a second-hand car and spray paint yellow roses on it. He’d spend an hour flattening out an easter egg wrapper, ironing the wrinkles with his fingernails and present you with a perfect square of coloured foil as if it were a diamond. He would always give you a bite of his chocolate and kindly test yours to make sure it wasn’t poisonous. He won’t give a heart felt speech at your 21st and he won’t remember the names of any of your friends. He will probably never know exactly what it is that you do for a living and despite the fact that you’re born on the same day, he will never be 100% sure of how old you are. Sometimes he’ll be grumpy and sometimes he’ll yell, but he will never ever hurt you. And because of him you’ll grow up knowing the way you deserve to be treated. You’ll choose a man to love who is just like him and be treated like a queen every day.
To those of you who don’t have a good dad, I need you to know that I don’t take mine for granted. For those of you without a dad at all, I need you to know that you don’t really need one. If you have two amazing mums, you’re just as lucky as me. Ditto two amazing dads. Ditto one amazing parent or carer.
I don’t have the answer to the bad dad situation. Or the bad mum situation. Stronger child protection laws? Yeah right. That’ll happen. Earlier intervention when a child is being raised in a toxic environment? Wishful thinking. I admire Eden so much. She’s concentrating on breaking the bad dad cycle and she’s winning in a major way. Her boys are being raised by a wonderful man… and a wonderful woman.
And I think that’s the right answer.