considering the topic of this community, it should be obvious who i’m referring to…some people never should have had kids in the first place, and arent worth the heart/headache of worrying yourself with…right?
edit/ i realize this actually might have been too vague, i mean having piece of shit for a father. when do you just giveup even bothering to keep that connection going?
I’d be surprised if there is one rule of thumb to go by. For me my father was abusive, physically and mentally, a drunk, lost one home due to being drunk and we got kicked out of the other and had to move in with my grandma.
There was a short period of time I just didn’t talk to him at all and then I had kids and felt he needed a chance to get to know them.
Fast forward to today, my Dad passed away in February after a far too brief battle with cancer and we had an amazing relationship. I had no axes to grind and feel when he passed we had the relationship we always should have had.
Had I cut ties like younger me wanted to I’d of lost out on so much and am pretty sure I’d feel terrible about the regret for the rest of my life. But that is with the hindsight of knowing how well it turned out.
I’m also a father of three and all three in their late teens to mid 20s were pretty hard to like. And I’m positive they all hated me (one still does), but as they grew they changed and whatever it was that was in the way of our relationship went away.
I read the progress / change parable as I was coming out of my early 20s that helped me make the decision I made and fix so many other things in my life that I’ll share here. Hopefully you find this helpful at some point. That said there are father’s that should be cut off from our lives, but how do we know we’re making the right choice?
(The parable has been repeated in many different ways and attributed to different people, I have yet to find evidence of what would consider a credible source…)
The parable: When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world.
I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation. When I found I couldn’t change my nation, I began to focus on my town. I couldn’t change my town, so I tried to change my family. Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is myself.
And if long ago I had changed myself, I could have made an impact on my family. My family could have made an impact on our town. Their impact could have changed the nation.
And I could indeed have changed the world.