Father
Revisiting and reading this page again, (after writing the original body of text), I confess to feeling a little bit disconcerted that I ever found the need to bring down my father’s character in the manner I have expressed below but such feelings are, kind of, irrelevant because I am recalling and writing down an actual factual record of how things truly were. Sure. My father, (at time of writing), is now frail, in his 80’s, but that chronological fact cannot rescue him from a truth I, (only now), choose to reveal.
Dysfunctional Family
Where to start? Well. We are not going to dwell too long within this sorry section of the site though, Jeez. I could stay here, revisiting and rewriting events of my early childhood life that would shock you.
I’ll be letting you off lightly, father … by considering … by allowing … by accepting … that you grew up in the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s, at a time when it was considered macho to strike your wife, (or partner), or to deliver your children a hiding, often, simply because your partner told you that they needed one!
Until I reached the age of 16, (when, by my dad’s own admission, I became too clever and too big to argue or fight with), the man had been a strict, judgmental asshole of a father and even in the decades that followed, still held an entirely delusional view of himself.
The only difference is, now in his 80’s, he hides behind his own frailty, forgetting what an absolute c*** he was during my own childhood.
A coward, by his own admission, my father is neither creative, original or unique in any shape or form. Rather, he is, (or was), no more than a stereotypical, middle management, embodiment of bigoted 1960’s man.
Question. Why, father, from the age of 4 or 5 years old, was I wearing the same unwashed underwear for months at a time?
Question. Why, father, was I not advised to brush my teeth twice a day and why, on the day I walked to infant’s school for the very fist time, was it my brother and not my mother, taking me there? (Mother stayed in bed).
We could pursue further questions all day.
Why, when I was often late for work and having to walk 2 miles into Yeovil town, would my father drive past me in the morning as a way of “teaching me a lesson” about getting up to get to work on time … when we both worked at the same establishment in the town?
In a poll of a 100 fathers, I wonder how many would say they would prefer to drive past their son “to teach their child a lesson” rather than simply giving them a lift to work?
And I wonder what the lesson was? I wonder what personal nugget of wisdom I was supposed to inherit from such cruel and bizarre behaviour.
I am 59 now and we can see, (above), that the only information or enlightenment I gained was … the fact that my father was a jerk.
Having a non emonstrative father, which was the, seemingly, acceptable way my step-mother chose to label my father’s dysfunctional emotional state, might not be any great revelation, (or point of interest), to a reader of this page save for one fact.
I return to the delusional, self important, mantle my father chose to wear.
Stereo-Typical Man
There was always the need for the man to present himself as the all knowing expert in just about everything he ever did though, it is fair to say, I have adopted a similar mantle over my own lifetime.
However, as can now be seen from the advantage of hindsight and the passage of time, my father’s attempt at pulling off this cloak and mirrors exercise was fundamentally flawed.
Outside, in the real social or work based environment he inhabited, he could brag and boast and demonstrate a, quite reasonable, interpretation of being the perfectionist, the man with an eye for detail or a good draughtsman’s eye for the level, the straight and the plumb and, likewise, he might apply a similar discipline when pursuing social ettiquette or public good manners.
But, away from the public gaze of others, the mask would drop and he would reveal his impatient, unforgiving, intransigent and billigerent side …
From behind the net curtains, this entirely, unremarkable, man, transformed into a tyranical, egotistcal bully.