Part 1 - Patriarchy & My Dad

No one hungers for male love more than the little girl or boy who rightfully needs and seeks love from dad. He may be absent, dead, present in body yet emotionally not there, but the girl or boy hungers to be acknowledged, recognized, respected, cared for.

My experience of Dad was that he was present in body yet emotionally unavailable. I don't remember him expressing many emotions other than anger, which accounts for the majority of my childhood memories of him.

On rare occasions, I remember him expressing what may have been happiness or affection although that was usually only after he had been drinking and it was mixed with a deep feeling of fear either at the oddity of the emotion coming from him or knowing that he was more volatile and hard to predict when drunk.

I did not understand him, and I was afraid of him, and I desperately wanted his love and approval. Through my dad's embodiment of patriarchy, I learned that, emotionally, a man should be either distant or angry.

So many of us have felt that we could win male love by showing we were willing to bear the pain, that we were willing to live our lives affirming that the maleness deemed truly manly because it withholds, withdraws, refuses is the maleness we desire.

My dad was a civil engineer, owned a general contracting business, and was a lifelong rugby player, skier, and all-around athlete. He exuded confidence and dominance over those around him. I was pudgy, lacked confidence, showed no interest in sports, was unpopular, liked reading, and generally did not fit in with the boys around me or with my dad.

I was aware I was different as I got older and I tried to find ways to win his love and receive validation from him. I joined sports (skiing, football, rugby) and my dad would also join, as a coach. From those times I remember most how there was never praise, only how I could improve. As a child I did my best to improve, hoping that when I finally did my dad would be proud of me, acknowledge me, and ultimately love me. In all my attempts I only felt a greater distance between us and how I was incapable of being who I should be.

My one saving grace that allowed us some form of a bond was that math, science, and computers came easily to me. I was deemed "intelligent" by our education system at a young age and as I grew up tried to excel in these things to win his approval. They did bring us closer together as he took an interest in what I was doing, however, the validation was minimal and it felt like excelling in this way was expected.

Through this, my dad and his patriarchal ideals taught me that I should only validate others, or be worthy of validation, for appropriate male activities, and only if they achieve the highest level of proficiency. Even then the validation should be meagre. This ideal caused me to internalize the belief that I was never good enough as I was and always had to be more.

No male successfully measures up to patriarchal standards without engaging in an ongoing practice of self-betrayal.

My childhood years were spent learning how to hide vast swaths of myself to make myself as acceptable as possible to my dad and the patriarchal ideals he subscribed to.

I never felt like I succeeded in earning his approval, which for me could have been as simple as hearing him say "I love you". As a 38-year-old, I visited him in his extended care facility when dementia already had a strong hold on his mind. I spoke with him about this and how I was afraid that he would die and I would never hear him say those words, never feel his approval. I don't know if he understood what I was saying but I think I saw a tear or two in his eyes but didn't, or couldn't, respond.

I was 39 years old when my dad died, and I never heard him say those words. I do not blame him for this. I can understand how his childhood was an indoctrination into an even stricter version of the same patriarchal ideals, where his father withheld love and approval as well, and in even more direct ways. In comparison, he gave me a much better childhood, and yet it still fell short of what I would call loving.

In writing this I hope to name the system of patriarchy that has been perpetuated through generations of my family, a system that I see at the root of causing so much pain that I am trying to heal from so I can flourish in my life. A system that so many men, like my dad and a younger version of myself, are not aware they have been subjected to and are perpetuating and therefore have never had the chance to heal from and which keeps us disconnected from each other.