Father's Day · 5:05am Jun 17th, 2013
To write stories, I have to understand human nature, observe closely, and pick up subtle details in the things people say and the way they interact. I could take any of my characters and tell you what they wanted, what their strengths and weaknesses were, how they felt.
But if I'm so good at that, why is my father such a mystery to me?
I realized, while struggling to write a Father's Day letter, that I understand even the minor characters in my shortest stories better than I understand my own father. I don't know what he wants from life. I don't know what he cares about most. I don't know what he thinks of me, or if he thinks of me. I don't know if what he has shown me is a mask, or his true face. I don't know what his story is.
Every Christmas, I buy gifts early for everyone else, but end up buying him a sweater, or Christmas sausages and smoked cheese, or some other generic gift. No one in my family ever knows what to get my father for Christmas.
I can't recall him ever complaining about anything. Shouting, yes, but never complaining. Sure, he could get angry. But he never told us if anything was really bothering him, or disappointed him. Or that he was really looking forward to something. I don't know if he was trying to protect us, or if he just didn't think about things that much. He was always quick to make a joke out of everything, but I don't know why.
In my stories, everyone has a motivation. I try to discover how to sympathize with everyone, even the villains. But I've never discovered how to sympathize with my father. I don't know his motivation.
if I were writing a story, I could imagine that he was holding himself distant, hiding behind puns and forced grins. because of some deep insecurity that could be resolved by a dramatic experience or personal epiphany. But I think he just really likes puns and isn't very interested in people.
Or I could be completely wrong. I'll probably never know.
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So very different than my own relationship with my own father. On the whole, me and my dad understand each other far more than most I think, mostly because we are so very much alike. But we both have some difficulty understanding others. //dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/misc_Octavia_O_O.png
I find this to be terribly sad, though to a certain degree I can identify with what you've said. Fathers are only people, just as a sibling or your mother or a friend are, or some stranger you meet in the grocery store. But they shouldn't ever be strangers to you, even if they choose not to tell you everything about themselves (and who does?).
My own father is a bit the same way as yours, and I'm always surprised to hear of some new story told about him that he's never related to me. I only know of some things from my childhood, many of which were not pleasant and many of which were. Everything else is snippets from the present or recent past.
I don't know about you, but so many men from my father's time didn't grow up 'sharing' their thoughts and feelings with anyone, unless something was wrong enough for them to share anger. I'm sure my perception could be skewed in that regard, but then that's the memories I had.
And I forgot to call him today, as usual. I don't know if that's more of a statement about me or about him.
You can understand your characters because you created them. That is one of things that pushes a certain sort of person to read and write, the illusion of empathy and understanding something outside yourself. You can look over a notebook page and draw out the superficial and hidden motives, the past and unique thoughts of each character.
A fictional character can be understood in ways that a real one never can. Even if you're all post-modern about it, an unreliable narrator is still bound to the same story forever, allowing them to be dissected at leisure.
There would be no reason to write if real humans allowed this level of understanding.
I dug into my own father's motivations through endless, incessant pestering and observation, and I didn't like what I found. He attempted to manipulate my religious beliefs at an early age; he was very controlling about things he wished to control, and utterly lassez-faire about everything else. I heard him say, out loud, to another man that, unlike men, women didn't really "think" about things, they just spewed emotions all over the place. It was his justification for why he needed to lie to me and my mother, but not my brothers.
I still talk to him, but it's always about things that are detached from my life. Stories I read, movies I saw, movies he's seen, stories he's read. The only way we relate now is through fiction.
I suppose that's the way it's always been, really.
You're not alone. American society as a whole often teaches fathers that their most important support contribution is a financial or family stability-related one, putting a lesser value on emotional issues. As a result, emotional development and bonding has few opportunities outside of framework activities (here in Wisconsin, it's the deer hunt). If you never shared an actual hobby interest with your father, society provides few other acceptable alternatives.
There has always been considerable distance between me and both my parents: I wasn't sure what they wanted from me, but I was reasonably certain it wasn't what I wanted from me, and eventually the issues -- and the relationships themselves -- were swept off the table.
They're both gone now, and I have learned nothing. I can't say I'm surprised by that; I can't say I'm happy about it either.
Sadly, mothers and fathers are not immune to various types of depression, and that has an influence on how they interact with their family.
Honestly, the way you described your dad is almost exactly how I would have described myself a few years ago. It's scary.
Dad's are sometimes hard to gauge. I can relate. My father in law though I can read much better, strangely enough.
I just gave my father a hickey because I'd started gnawing on his neck, but then I remembered that I'd just eaten so I hurriedly tried to suck the beef juice I'd spilt on him while he was having some serious face-to-face talk with an employee.
"Man," I said (or its equivalent in creole), pulling away from his reddened neck, "It's too bad everybody here already knows me, or they'd admire you for having the courage to deal with having a retarded child."
"Don't worry," he said in English, "they admire me already."
Everything about this post is depressing, partly because I went through the same thing with my ex-workaholic dad, and partly because I've realized that some people here could probably have resolved this a while ago with their own dads.
Soon before I entered the third grade, my family moved for job reasons. By the time I hit fourth grade, they both spent pretty much all their time either at work or talking about work/money/the house/etc. Over the next four years, I fell out of the habit of talking to them, and from eighth grade until my last couple months as an undergrad, I spoke to them almost exclusively in one or two word responses.
Then one day, I was heading to my research lab a little after noon (as usual), and I decided to call my dad and ask him if he wanted to get dinner. His first response was "What?" and his second was "Sure." We ended up talking about legal and financial philosophy. He found out what "computer security" meant, and I found out that he was at one point just as curious as me. We met every week for a while after that, and he ended up becoming much more laid back and interested in things that weren't work/money/the house.
Your dad is how old? 60? Older? He's crossed the age where he regrets not knowing his family better, and that regret isn't going to go away. You can literally call him up right now (6am, or whenever you read this), ask him if he wants to get dinner, and meet him today (assuming you're both on the east coast). He's probably going to be interested in whatever you say, and he's probably going to want to tell you how much like (or unlike) him you are. After you leave, he'll probably think about everything he wished he thought to bring up. You've done a lot of interesting things with your life. At the very least, you know you can make that meeting interesting for him.
Just make sure you meet your parents separately (assuming your parents are together). From your post, it sounds like they'll have a hard time being candid around each other. You're in the perfect position of being someone your dad cares about and someone he doesn't have to live with.