Weary of the tough dad

I’m tired of the tough dad.

The patriarch who wields his authority over a son or sons—because it’s usually the males he directs his abuse at—harshly. “The Yellowstone” fathers of the world. You encounter them in movies and in books and on TV, not to mention in real life. Tired of the Great Santinis, tired of books like The Son, with its belittling father, tired of the romanticism of the larger-than-life man who drinks and comes back and beats his children because of some “demons” inside him. The glorification of that, like the glorification of thugs in motorcycle gangs. Hollywood loves a savage father.

We’ve all seen them, the children of these belittling fathers.  They’re self-loathers. (And, yes, the recipients can be women, too.)  Sometimes, their self-hatred is painful to see.  We’ve heard them say, “I’m a piece of shit.”  We’ve seen the person who sabotages their own progress and potential as if they were destroying their home with explosives. Someone wrenched their self-esteem from them.  Often, it’s a father who has repeatedly told them they’re worthless. Maybe you’ve seen that kind of father in action yourself. It’s hard to avoid meeting them in this life. Maybe he was yours. He was mine.

We’ve all heard this: you can’t love someone until you love yourself. I’d add it’s hard to do anything fulfilling in this world if you don’t love yourself. If your self-love is taken by force from you, by some cowardly, browbeating father, you flounder, you stall, you never fly. You limp.

These humiliated children try their best to make their way through life, but something’s missing. A gap from the thing that was taken. They do their best, and some, miraculously, actually do well. How, I can’t begin to say, but they overcome. So many don’t. The houses they build are on spongy ground. They build them, but the structures are wobbly.

I once went to live in a small village in the South of France. It was rural, with barely 200 people. The villagers worked the land and, mostly, didn’t stray far from their insulated village. The place seemed outside of time, completely apart. I found little in common with my own experience in New York City where I’d come from.

I met a young man in that little village, a sort of jack-of-all trades. His father owned a small vineyard but, by the standards of the other villagers, was not terribly successful. The son, about thirty, stuttered, and his eyes twitched when you talked to him. When I met his father, I understood why.

One day I was playing boules, the game of tossed steel balls played everywhere in France, with other villagers. I, a novice, tossed my ball very far from the mark.

I heard a voice. I felt it.

“Richard est nul,” the father said. “Nul.”

“Richard is nothing, useless.”

I turned and saw that smile of his. He was pleased at my failure.

I could see his son standing there next to him, eyes blinking, hands twitching.

He said it again, looking at me, smiling, “Richard est nul.”

There he was, in that remote village. There he is, everywhere.