If you had an absent father, you can still be the kind of dad you wish you’d had. Undoing the past starts with fathering yourself. Here’s what it looks like.
NOTE: This post assumes that your father was absent as if MIA, yet in reality many kids don’t have completely absent fathers (i.e. a father may have been partially present for the first few years). Additionally, this post assumes your father was physically absent, yet many children have fathers who are physically present yet emotionally and relationally absent. The details of your individual story matter, and I assume this post will not capture all the nuances of your relationship with your father and how his absence affected you. I am only hoping to capture what generally happens to many boys who grow up feeling that their father was absent.
First, your past matters
Every client I have worked with as a psychotherapist wants to understand their past so that it doesn’t control their present, for unless we intentionally prevent it, the past inevitably repeats itself.
Our past is that powerful. It loads us up with triggers and narratives that ultimately influence—if not dominate—everything we do in the present. Only if we understand our past can we control these triggers and narratives so that they don’t control us.
This is all to say that if you had an absent father, you are entering fatherhood with an added challenge that could make being an active, present father more difficult.
Fathering yourself
We all carry pieces of our childhood inside us. These aren’t just memories; they are triggers and feelings that stay with us, sometimes rushing up from our gut into the present. All those irrational feelings we have—the anxieties that don’t make sense, the anger (or any emotion, for that matter) that seems too big and too intense for the situation—these are all parts of our childhood. It’s as if we still carry a small child in us that bursts out and sometimes controls what we do or feel.
This is normal; it’s how we are constructed as humans: we all have an adult part and a child part in us.
“Fathering yourself” means that your adult part steps in to father and take care of the child part. If you want to show up for your own child as a father, you also need to show up for yourself, too.
Showing up for yourself
This means showing up emotionally. And one of the biggest jobs is letting your child-self process the sadness and loss that goes with not having had a father. Fathering yourself means helping yourself mourn this loss.
But also know that there is a man in you that you have developed, and this grown-man part of you can talk to and help your child part. It’s as if this adult-you can serve as the father you never had for the child-you.
Showing up for yourself means talking to the child part when it needs support. For example, as a child, you may not have been able to tolerate the grief of your father’s absence. Now, as you process the loss, the child-you may fear that the feelings will be too intense and overwhelming. However, the adult-you can actually now handle these painful feelings, and the adult-you will have to reassure the child-you that the emotions are manageable. It’s as if the adult part of you is telling the child part that he’s not alone, that a caring grownup is there to help him get through the feelings. (For more on this, check out the crucial post, “Head vs. Heart: Growing a Neck.”)
This parent part will also need to help the child part process what’s at the heart of having an absent father:
At the heart of having an absent father
If your dad was absent or missing, you’re more likely to fear that you’re going to fail as a father, too. That’s a hard thing to carry around, but there’s another piece to it all: as a child, how did you explain to yourself that your father was gone?
So many young kids naturally misperceive what happens and why, and rather than blame the parent, they blame themselves. This is a universal issue for kids (and is taken up in more detail in the post, “Why Young Children (Have To) Think We’re the Best”). Kids feel it was their fault their father was absent, and this perspective creates a profoundly unhealthy narrative.
Unless this early narrative was actively addressed, it’s likely that you felt you were not important enough for your father to stick around. This is a near-universal reaction young children have when a parent is absent: they not only feel at fault, but feel they are unimportant and unworthy of the parent’s love. This becomes the basis for low self-esteem.
The absence of a role model
Many dads who had absent fathers worry that because they had no role model—or a bad one—they will not know how to be a good father, especially to a son.
Just keep in mind that the world is full of role models, and we all borrow pieces from everyone we see and know. In this way, role models serve as an intellectual idea of who we want to be—even a movie’s fictitious character can provide us with a father’s role model.
The real importance of a role model, however, comes down to how a role model makes us feel about ourselves. It’s the connection between us and the role model that is so crucial: it’s the feeling that we matter and that we’re important to someone we look up to. This is the basis for our self-esteem.
So, the takeaway here? You don’t need a father to know what kind of father you want to be. Figure out what’s important to you when it comes to showing up as a father.
By showing up for your child—especially when you show up emotionally—you are connecting to your child and building his self-esteem.
Doing the exact opposite of your father: the risk of absolutist thinking
We tend to either repeat how we were raised or do the exact opposite—this black-and-white perspective has its own issues as will be discussed in the upcoming post, “The Danger of Doing the Exact Opposite of What Your Parents Did.”
If your goal is to do the exact opposite of your father, you may be setting a high bar for yourself that gives you no wiggle room. What happens if you don’t meet these expectations? Will you feel that you have failed as a father? And then what?
Parenting is such a difficult job that many parents regularly feel like a failure. That’s normal, and it’s okay. But if your own father failed at the job, there’s an added danger here for you when you feel you’ve failed: you may feel no better than your own, absent father.
The black-and-white thinking risks becoming all-or-nothing: either you are the opposite of your father or just like him.
Fathers who feel they are failing at the job—and especially if they are told by others that they are failing—run the risk of themselves becoming absent fathers like their own father.
The solution
If I know one thing about parenting, it’s this: you only have to be a good enough parent. You don’t have to be perfect or even close to it. None of us are. “Good enough” is…well, good enough!
Let go of those harsh expectations, and give yourself room to learn and make mistakes. You and your child will be happier for it.
And know that if you are reading this post, you are not like your absent father in at least one, major way: the fact that you’re reading this post means you want to do better for your own child and break the cycle of missing fathers. You want to show up for your child, and this is what really matters.
Reviewing what you can do
1 Set reasonable expectations for yourself as a “good enough” father.
2 Know that even when you feel like you’re an imposter as a parent, you’re not. You’re still present and showing up, and that, in the end, is what matters most.
3 Do some personal work around your self-esteem. Remind yourself that your father’s absence was not a you-problem but your father’s problem.
4 Remember that the most important thing you can give your child is a feeling of being wanted and loved.
5 The best way to connect with your child is being attuned to him. Show up and share emotionally, not just intellectually.
6 Work on fathering yourself. Show up, support, and love yourself as you would for your child.
Check out the below posts which all focus on how we think of and accept ourselves and our faults. As you take up fathering yourself, letting go of shame and guilt while growing to accept yourself will be extremely helpful.
Related Posts
How to Never Feel Guilty Again
Everyone feels guilty, but it’s not necessary. Here’s how to deal with guilt in a new way that promotes healing and self-acceptance.
Letting Go of Shame
Shame is a toxic emotion in adults and kids. It eats us from the inside. But it doesn’t have to live and breed in us. Here’s a new way to see things so that shame literally becomes a thing of the past.
Childhood Narratives: How They Impact Kids for a Lifetime
Narratives are one of the most important things parents need to know about a child’s psychology. This post will tell you what they are and how they work.
2 thoughts on “How to Be a Father When Your Own Dad Was Absent”
I had an absent father growing up, and reading this has been helpful. Thanks for raising a subject that often gets overlooked and ignored.
Thanks for the feedback, TJ. And if there are specific subjects you’d like to read more about, just let me know.