It’s 2023 and it’s the day after my daughter had yet another tantrum that turned into a complete meltdown. My therapist reassures me that this will pass, adding that children are not fully physiologically able self-regulate emotions until around four or five. At the time she was nearly five and we were well over two years into meltdowns.
Sometimes I’m calm through the meltdown, handling the situation with a deep level of acceptance and love. Sometimes I yell, matching her decibel for decibel. Yelling is the worst. It escalates the situation, guaranteeing that it will take longer to resolve. It also leaves me feeling hollow and regretful, like I have a gaping wound in my soul.
I think to myself, how did I become The Dad That Yells? I think about the father that I want to be. I think about the father that I have and how he was with me when I was a kid.
A memory from my childhood jumps out from the distant past. While out riding bikes in the neighborhood with my friends, we were talking about times we got in trouble. After proudly contributing my story of misbehavior, I add, “my dad was so mad! He really yelled at me!” I’ll never forget that my friends laughed in disbelief. “Your dad doesn’t yell,” they chided. “If you want to hear a yelling, come to my house!” Then they all tried to one-up each other with stories of their dads screaming at them.
My parents were—and still are—gentle, thoughtful and deeply loving; their disappointment in me was often the punishment enough.
So how did I become The Dad That Yells? I wonder this after I’ve managed to somewhat pull myself together and demonstrate that a 40-something is, in fact, fully physiologically able self-regulate emotions—even after having recently proved the opposite.
Why did I lose my temper and yell? What is wrong with me? That sort of self-reflection which leads to self-recrimination, spirals me downward.
The strange thing about my child’s meltdown is that after she’s fully emoted with every single atom in her body, she’s done. The valve is off, and she’s ready to play. Many times, my daughter has come out of her room, face puffy and red from non-stop crying, beams a huge smile, and says in a voice raspy from twenty minutes of screaming, “Daddy, guess what? I thought of something fun we can do together!”
I stand there dumbfounded. Partially because I’ve been spiraling downward about being The Dad That Yells, berating myself for just absolutely fucking up this fatherhood thing. And partially also because, for the last twenty minutes I’ve been the brunt of a non-stop barrage of verbal and emotional assaults from this child.
I think about the latter part as though someone handed me a steaming bag of dogshit. I’m just standing there, holding this giant, stinking bag of shit, custom-crafted just for me by my little girl, and now she is all smiles and wants to play?!
Gobsmacked, I believe is the term I’m looking for.
I think about my parents again. I think about my dad. What did my dad do with all the bags of shit I handed him? When I think about the things I did as a kid—or worse, as a teenager—it’s a wonder they still pick up the phone when I call, let alone still love me and want to see me.
The accumulation of the awful, foolish things I did, whether purposefully, spitefully, or simply to try and get away with it, the weight of it could be unbearable. But there’s no resentment from my parents. They’re not carrying around any of that shit.
That’s the thing about a bag of shit: you don’t have to carry it around. You can set it down. But in the heat of the moment, it’s really, really hard to set that shit down.
My daughter is smiling hopefully at me through her puffy eyes. My mind is reeling with introspection. I’m standing there, gobsmacked, yes, but also with the realization that I’m holding two bags of shit. One that she lovingly crafted for me, the other that I made for myself out of self-recrimination.
How do I put these down? How do I move forward?
The answer is simple: forgiveness.
Fatherhood is forgiveness.
I have to forgive her—wholly, completely, and instantaneously. It’s the only way to put that bag down. Just as important, I have to forgive myself. I can’t be the father that I want to be if I’m going to carry around a bag of my own stinking shit.
I think about my dad again. He has forgiven me for all of my transgressions. I don’t have to ask him—I know it deep in the core of my being.
Fatherhood is forgiveness.
Fatherhood is forgiving your children because you love them so deeply you could do nothing else but forgive them. Fatherhood is forgiving yourself because without that you could never be fully present, loving them with your whole self.
“Daddy?” she breaks me out of my reverie.
I climb the stairs and together we talk about forgiveness.
It’s spring 2024. We’re sitting on her bed finishing up the bedtime routine and she asks me, “what are you afraid of?” Earlier in the day I had dealt with a spider in the house so she may have been expecting an answer of spiders or sharks or ghosts. But I catch both of us off guard as my answer seems to come from out of nowhere, “I’m afraid of being a bad father to you and your brother.”
The meltdowns had subsided after she started full-day kindergarten, less than two months after her fifth birthday. She’s had her moments, I’ve had mine, too. In those moments and afterward, I repeat my mantra, “fatherhood is forgiveness.”
Just as quickly as I gave my answer, she responds. “You don’t have to be afraid of that,” she says as she gives me a hug to assure me, “you’re the best dad in the whole world.”
Despite the sudden lump in my throat, I thank her and tell her she’s the best daughter in the world. As I leave the room, I repeat my mantra, “fatherhood is forgiveness.” I’m sure I’ll need it again soon.
