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The Anti-Hero

Dad’s Corner
THE ANTI-HERO

By: Justin P. McCarthy | June 1, 2023

Ever since I was old enough to pay attention, I’ve harbored a stubborn ambivalence toward Father’s Day. On the face of it, the third Sunday of each June is a chance for all of us to appreciate–to revere or to remember–our fathers and those who have stood in for them in our lives. This collectively encouraged reverie can get a bit jangled, though, for those of us whose paternal progenitors have occasionally (or often) eschewed the typically required qualifications of the profession.

As dads, contemporary men are faced with a holiday which both demands a reflection which we have been acculturated to disdain and a gratitude which many of us feel is un- or under-earned–or, at the very least, qualified. Sure, we might spend some time on the links, or get out for a sail, but–just beneath the surface, whether we articulate them or not, doubts can swirl: Why should I shower this person with love and affection today, when he’s had so little to spare for me? OK, maybe I’m ticking most of the basic boxes, but am I really a good dad? How could I be, given my role model?

When I was 13–my son, Jack’s age now–my parents had been divorced for around eight years. Both had moved on, nuptially speaking: Mom to her third marriage–since dissolved–and Dad, not to be outdone, to his fourth–which is still a going concern.

Life at my mother and step-father’s home in Briarcliff Manor, NY, was at its stable apogee, dysfunctional and yet reliably so in a way we all found comforting. The first drips of the acidic, erosive end of that union remained a good 15 years out.

Dad, for his part, was still living in nearby Yorktown Heights, maintaining a frequently faltering dermatology practice and a vigorous commitment to bad life choices. A year or so later, chased by a determined accumulation of creditors, he would decamp for rural Illinois. In that teetering prelapsarian moment, though, his adversaries were kept at bay through clever accounting and the sale of his beloved 1983 Porsche 924 Turbo to a dear friend, “for safekeeping.”

Though he eventually turned a corner in his own life and–I am genuinely happy to tell you–is now a relatively healthy 84-year-old Floridian retiree with a timeshare in Mexico, my dad never grew into his role as a parent to me, nor to my sister and brother from his second marriage. It’s telling that my brother is twelve years older than I am, and my sister, nine, and yet I became a parent before either of them. (Our father does appear to manifest paternal behavior toward his three step-children and their families, though, which doesn’t really help his case.)

It’s all but impossible to avoid comparing ourselves as parents to how our parents behaved in rearing us, and that’s just fine! In most cases, such examination yields at least some reasonably thoughtful, well-intentioned source material as we sort out what kind of parents we want to be. Like all of us, our parents are imperfect people taking (hopefully) an earnest swing at doing their best with whatever tools are available to them.

Knowing this, we should be able to appreciate what they did for us as children, consider how to apply, adapt or discard their approaches in designing our own, fold in a healthy dose of research and peer consultation, and decide how to respond when we find our little ones have been biting other kids at preschool, or sneaking late-night iPad time, or drifting toward a morally dubious group of friends.

I have no such bases for comparison with my dad. Faced with a novel parenting problem and consulting memory for how he might have handled it, I find–almost exclusively–void. You might imagine–as I am relentlessly determined to be the best father I can be–the resentment this might drive. It has taken a lot of work to consider my father with something approaching compassion, when daily in bringing up my own children I feel the crushing weight of his abdication.

But I’ve gotten there, or close: when Dad and I talk once a month or so, I enjoy our conversations around politics, science fiction, superhero movies and the New York Giants. I never ask him for advice. When I offer to send him Jack, Ali and Claire’s email addresses, that he might engage with them, I laugh it off when he says, “No; don’t bother–I have so many grandkids to keep track of.”

For all that, this Father’s Day I am grateful to my father for three things: my conception, which really is quite a big deal to me and which should count for something; setting a very low bar for my own approach to being a dad and thus queuing up an endless string of self-satisfied auto-back pats as I regularly crush his parenting PRs; and kindling in me the burning motivation to provide for my kids the present, engaged, just-showing-up-when-it-matters father I never had. So, thanks, Dad!

Justin P. McCarthy lives in Tiburon with his wife, Katie, and their three children--Jack, Ali, and Claire. He’d be delighted to hear from you at jpm.smmc@gmail.com.