My Dad Taught Me to Love Me

Kristine Rose loves both her parents, but her dad taught her how to love herself. 

Some of my best childhood memories were times with my dad. My mom was great at the day-to-day things: getting me ready for school and force-feeding my picky ass three meals a day. She made sure I was cultured, teaching me more about history and literature than I ever learned in school, but it was my dad who taught me how to be myself.

After my parents spilt, when I was 11, I spent a few years living with my dad, squabbling over petty and not so petty grievances. As I grew towards independence I pushed back hard, with all the stubbornness I had inherited from him. We had some rough times. Dad was always more of a friend than a parental figure. Although everyone eventually learns when they’re older that their parents are just people, flaws and all, I can’t remember a time that wasn’t crystal clear to me.

My dad was also not in touch with his emotions and could be downright cold when it came to mine. When I would go to him for emotional support he would reply that it was “just not his thing”. Tough love isn’t always the best path for everyone and while he meant well, it was often the opposite of what I needed. I still don’t agree with everything he did, but now I’m far enough removed to see the good things too.

When my dad moved to Florida, moving back in with my mom made me realize how important he was. There are good things about my mom, don’t get me wrong but she doesn’t understand me. And I don’t really think she likes me. She loves me, but she doesn’t really like me. It’s hard to like something that confounds you. To my mother I’m a riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in too many tattoos and eccentricities. Nothing I do can match up to whatever she decided I was supposed to be when she got pregnant.  A  difficult, precocious child was not what she signed up for. She spent her whole life performing for people. What she wanted always came secondary to what the neighbors thought.

My mother isn’t really a mean person, she simply didn’t know what to do with me and she made the mistake of not hiding it. There was no chapter in the parenting books about four year olds who ruin their friends birthday parties by declaring that Barney the dinosaur who came to visit was a fraud because he had a zipper. She had no idea what to do when Iater the same year my uncle died and I wouldn’t just accept that “he was in heaven now” but assaulted her with questions about the meaning of life. She didn’t mean to fuck me up but it’s hard carrying that your whole life, that if you think too much and it makes you unhappy that it’s your fault. It didn’t matter if I was an Honor student, I questioned authority so I was a bad kid.

When I decided to reject the traditional job route to pursue creative passions, it was a slap in the face to my mom. After a failed marriage to an artist, with all the financial ups and downs that lead, to she had nothing but bitterness for me when I chose to start careers in make up and writing. My father’s refusal to conform was a burden she hoped she rid herself of, and here it was in me, reborn, invading her carefully curated space. She was furious I wouldn’t give up and resign myself to an office job. Never mind that when I did attempt those things, I was rejected, the fault was in my nature to begin with. How dare I think I was too good to give up on my dreams?

When I moved back in with my mom at 23, calls to my dad became more and more frequent and I could feel the void between us shrinking. I was beginning to realize what would have happened to a quirky, sensitive child raised only by my mother. If the only messages I had received were that I was weird and wrong and why couldn’t I be more like the other children, I would have hated myself. My dad embraced my tendencies to question everything, to not defer to authority “just because”, to do what I thought was right. When I discovered an interest in goth, he accompanied me to the village to see Rocky Horror, while my mother was worried about being associated with me.

When I started writing professionally my father celebrated every published piece. Creative people were their own breed he told me, that the rest of the world might not understand my path, but it didn’t matter. He sincerely believes in me and my ability to make my own way. He takes an interest in my work even when I’m writing about sex or drugs or depression while my mother refused to read because she “didn’t want to know”.  He doesn’t shy away from the parts of me that aren’t bright and fluffy. He respects me for who I am even if he doesn’t always agree with me. He wants to get to know all of me.

There have been times I found my father completely obnoxious. Even when we were out at social engagements he could find a way to pitch his latest project and I worried he would alienate my friends.  There were times I felt like I was in his shadow, competing for attention. While I’m hardly a wallflower myself, it didn’t exactly come naturally to me to boast about my accomplishments. For a long time I felt like if you had to say how great you were, you probably weren’t. This changed when I started writing. For the first time I could see how essential self-promotion could be even if I found it a bit over the top. My dad’s attitude inspired me to put myself out there more and take chances. I can understand now that what I found annoying was a survival skill to creative types like my dad, who’s bread and butter came from selling not just their art but themselves.

Perhaps my mother was right that my dad’s aspirations kept him from being as stable of a partner as she would have liked, but I understand him. He just didn’t have it in him to grow out of his convictions and stuff down the disappointment so he could blend in with the rest of the aspiring middle class. As far as day to day fatherhood duties he may have been lacking compared to my mother, but he taught me to like myself. He made me feel like I was ok and that if I wanted to stand up for myself it was ok, and if I got kicked out of the Girl Scouts for refusing to make my project the same colors as the other girls that was ok too. He saw through my differences that I was a passionate, thoughtful person, I wasn’t just trying to make trouble.

Our relationship still has a long way to go, but we’re getting there. With each passing year I think we understand each other more. I realize that the things he didn’t do weren’t as important as the things he did do. Maybe he didn’t coddle me or give me enough security in my life, but because of him I’m secure where it counts, on the inside.