Not aging well in the memory.
My biological father died about 2-1/2 years ago, but I hadn't seen him for over 20 years before then. He basically threw away the right to be called "Dad" (i.e. "family") through a bunch of stupid decisions he made, his attitude, and the way he abused others. I ended up living by myself by the age of 18, working full-time, happy to be on my own rather than in a "family".

I get the impression, from other posts etc., that you're supposed to appreciate your "Dad" more as the years go by; you grow older and supposedly have a better understanding of who he was - but I don't. He wasn't stupid, but he was clueless and selfish, and had no understanding of anything but his own little world. It was as if he and my mother (who died nearly 30 years ago) had liked the idea of children at first, but didn't know what to do with them as they grew up; had no conception that we'd be different people to them, living in a different world, in which we'd need different things to make a go of it.

(An example of my parents' cluelessness, from memory: when I was about 5, we went on a holiday in Scotland, landed on some little island, and rented bikes to ride around it. One problem: I didn't know how to ride a bike then: there was a 3-wheeler, but at age 5 I was in no state to take one on a 10+ mile ride. They'd just never thought about the practicalities of asking a 5-year old, who'd never ridden a bike before, to get on one and ride miles and miles.)

I didn't know all this at the time: it's taken me years to understand just how badly he fucked it up, and the lasting effect it's had on me. I only got to go to university when I was pushing 40 - a work still in progress. (Even though I had the academic ability when I left school, we didn't have the finances, in a country (South Africa) with no state support for education at the time.) I'm very reluctant to have children of my own, even though I suspect I'd do a better job of it - having experienced first-hand how not to do it!
( bnt what, me worry?, Thu 2 Dec 2010, 10:50, 1 reply)

I'm pretty much the same
My dad disappeared when I was 17, and the few times I've seen him since then haven't endeared him to me at all. Telling my 15 year-old sister that he left because she "didn't love him enough" is just one example of his crassness and stupidity.
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Thu 2 Dec 2010, 12:12, closed)