Well, good luck, El Con. I'm terrible at giving advice about dealing with fathers since mine didn't care about having any sort of relationship whatsoever until my late teens, when he realized he had severely fucked me up.
Becoming a father myself has really opened my eyes, though. I now understand that parents come with their own truck-load of psychological baggage that we, as kids, can't see. There is no preparation for becoming a parent, as it's basically a trial by fire. Not to say that excuses everything parents do, but we have to understand that parents have nothing more to go on than what they think is right. As long as they show concern for our well-being, we have to be willing to forgive them for their failures, even the really big ones.
Becoming a father myself has really opened my eyes, though. I now understand that parents come with their own truck-load of psychological baggage that we, as kids, can't see. There is no preparation for becoming a parent, as it's basically a trial by fire. Not to say that excuses everything parents do, but we have to understand that parents have nothing more to go on than what they think is right. As long as they show concern for our well-being, we have to be willing to forgive them for their failures, even the really big ones.
Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own - Bertrand Russell
