I have a complicated relationship with Father's Day

Dear Friend,

It's Palmer today :)

I have a complicated relationship with Father's Day.

Father's Day and complicated father-son relationships go hand in hand for a lot of people. For some, this day is joyful. For some, it's painful. For a lot of us, it's some mix of both.

If I'm being honest, I felt more hesitation and uneasiness thinking about writing this email than any other I can remember. It felt like I was trying to force a specific message that felt worth sharing, but nothing felt right. So instead of trying to make this into a clean lesson, I'm just going to write from the heart.

Before I get into any of that, I do want to wish you a happy Father's Day! Fathers are so unbelievably important. Whether our relationships with them are easy, hard, close, distant, simple, or complicated, dads are so important.

For me, Father's Day is complicated because I love my dad, but we have a very sad relationship. Every year since I was 18 or 19, when this day came around, I'd just want to tuck away.

My dad and I used to be very close when I was a kid. I looked up to him. I cared about him. I wanted to protect him.

Then, as I got older, I began to see more of the ways I was scared of him, the ways I felt hurt by him, and the ways our relationship had impacted me.

Now I see it through a different lens. I love him... I see the ways he hurt me... the ways he inspired me...and the ways he changed me for better and worse. I also see him as a boy who had hard things happen to him and was probably scared, alone, and trying to make sense of things he never should have had to carry.

That does not erase what happened. It just makes it more complicated.

I carry both sadness for him, grief for what I missed out on, and frustration for the ways some of that pain got passed down to me. I used to feel more vengeance toward the pain he caused me. Now, in many ways, it has become forgiveness, but forgiveness where I still have to protect myself.

One of the hardest parts is that I wish dearly I had a dad I wanted to call when my son was born, someone I could ask a million questions and be told loving things by. I wish I had a dad who knew who I was and what my life looked like. I wish I knew what it felt like to talk to him and not be on guard.

And still, I do not want that to become the whole story.

I still believe he and I could find a new path for our relationship. I never want that door to be fully closed. Maybe redemption can still happen in ways I don't yet have words to explain.

But one thing I do know is that it is not my dad's fault what I now do as an adult. I can have compassion for where some of my struggles came from, but the responsibility for what I do with them now belongs to me. That has been one of the hardest and most freeing things I've learned. If you're curious about how a father's presence, absence, or patterns shapes a child over time, I wrote more about that in The Power of a Father's Influence.

I am a dad now. To one 16-month-old and another little guy who is 21 weeks old, finishing up his residency in his mama's tummy.

And as much as I wish I could give them a perfectly healed dad, I also know they don't need perfect. They need a dad who keeps doing the work. A dad who keeps repairing. A dad who keeps choosing not to hand them burdens that were never theirs to carry. That tension between who we are and who we want to be for our kids is something I dig into more in Being vs Doing: A Letter to My Younger Self.

It keeps me humble and incredibly hopeful for what is possible.

I feel blessed beyond measure.

So to the dads who are trying, stumbling, repairing, learning, and still showing up, happy Father's Day! Be gentle with yourself. Keep going. And maybe encourage another dad along the way too, because I think a lot of dads are carrying more than they know how to say.

Now I'm off to get donuts and all the other treats this dad wants, and I will likely be changing numerous poopy diapers in the process, because, well, it is Father's Day!

I hope you have a great Father's Day.

Kerry and Palmer :)