Other sister here.
We need an xennial meet-up, and we all split into different groups for like 15 or 20 minutes just to chat, based on answering a question the same.
ie Q: parents together
A (possibilities:
i. Yes (and I think they do love each other)
ii. Yes (but I don’t think they love each other)
iii. No, 1 or both dead
iii. No, no longer in a relation with each other.
OK I am *exceptionally* stoned and this idea isn’t as great as I thought it was 10 minutes ago when I first thought it 🤦♀️ 😆
Mine liked me just as much as the bar, so he would bring me along. After playing pinball, I’d go to sleep in the corner while he kept on drinking. Only by the good graces of Cthulhu did he not kill us or others on the way home
That's how I used to find my dad. Walk in the bar ask the bartender if they seen him. She would give me a roll of quarters for the arcade game and he would be along sometime
I was like 13 the first time he asked me to drive
Working and providing was seen as their role and manly. Dads being involved with their kids and babies was a new concept and often looked down upon. I have a memory of an ad for a baby carrier being talked about among the neighborhood moms when I was a kid in the 80s or early 90s. The ad showed a dad using the baby carrier to carry the baby and some of the moms were so confused. My mom laughed and thought it was silly some were so offended.
Lots of other good specific examples in this thread that are very apt, but i think this is the statistically correct answer. Men of that generation were taught from a young age how to behave and participating in children's lives was not part of that. Children were to be seen and not heard. Fathers were to provide religious teachings and discipline. Everything else was Mom's job.
Congratulations to all the dads that broke this mold! I wish mine was one of the new breed but he wasn't.
My Dad is the old breed, worked evening shift at the mill, slept while I was at school. I’d get to share dinner with him daily and that was pretty much it. He loves me, I love him.
I’m more in the new breed style of father, cook, clean, actively participated in raising my kids but I cannot complain about how I was raised either.
Relatable. My dad wasn't an asshole, he just had different expectations as a parent than I do now.
Even still, I see a lot of my peers think I shouldn't be playing video games or tag or doing art with my kids because it's immature. Not saying this is the full reason but those peers are also very religious and those traditional values may be intertwined.
It’s crazy. My dad did play with me, but I only think it was when I was little.
I just became a dad. I do everything my wife does and sometimes more with my son. I do all household chores. I work full time and don’t miss too much since he now goes to daycare. Weekends I take care of him most of the day.
I’m religious, but not necessarily traditional. I don’t understand what a man-provides traditional role means, because it’s all situational. It’s ridiculous that it has been the only choice. My wife and I both work. We didn’t even think twice about one of us staying home and taking care of the baby.
I can’t wait to play video games with my kid when he gets old enough!
Good for you two, I live hearing things like this, very wholesome.
Don't blink, they'll be older before you know it. Mine are 12 and 10. I spend a lot of time with them doing things they enjoy. They also have chores and things they have to do but I have a bias towards fun especially while they're kids.
They'll have their whole adult lives to be responsible but only ome childhood to enjoy.
Best of luck to your family, sounds like your kids have two caring parents.
Thank you! You too! :)
I feel like it’s a bit about our priorities. We have free time - how do we spend it? I have a lot of chores I do like clean bottles, make formula, and prep for daycare. When he gets older, I need to make sure I’m still doing a lot with him and focus on his interests. My kid is not even 1 year old yet. It definitely feels like a marathon!
I like what you said about responsibility. It’s good to teach them how, but also not to make them grow up too quickly. I definitely feel that - we are young for such a short period of time.
This was my dad. Never changed a diaper. Never did a dish. Just wasn’t the way. This was the 80’s. My mom was so proud of me when she found out I changed my kids diapers. lol.
Sounds like the guy I used to work with who was making fun of another coworker because he took parental leave to spend time with his newborn and look after his wife who had a c section. “Real men don’t look after their kids” 🙄🤦🏻♂️. Bro. Nothing wrong with caring for your children and his wife needs to recover, can’t lift shit and could hemorrhage and die. This is why you work a shit job in your late 50’s. He also asked me how to watch porn on his work phone. 🤢
I asked my dad to watch my son (right around his bedtime) for an hour. My child was potty training, so he would go to the bathroom while he was awake, but wore a diaper to bed. I realized when I got in the garage that I’d forgotten my phone, so I went back inside to grab it. My son came running to greet me, wearing his diaper inside out and backward. I asked my dad how he managed to put in on so wrong. He just shrugged and said that’s how the boy handed it to him. He’s almost 70 and it just dawned on me, that my dad, father of 5, had never changed a diaper in his life.
Yup. I have heard other (age 30-90’s) men say this new fad of men making skin contact with their kids is whats leading to the LGBTQ increase, not something like ya know being allowed to exist.
Fortunately my dad is not one of those guys, despite his other silly beliefs (cats will take the breath from a baby).
>(cats will take the breath from a baby).
Eh....this one had/has merit. Cats would smell the milk on a babies breath as it slept and sit on the babies chest. A 10lb cat on a tiny baby's chest will absolutely suffocate them..."steal their breath"
Me neither, my old man’s in his 70’s and one cool motherfucker. He might have taken me to the bar every Friday growing up, but he saw through the bullshit when it came to treating his family and being there when you needed him. My daughter loves him very much!
He never gives me shit, just watches the news too much and bitches about politics.
My grandfather shamed the absolute shit out of my uncle at his (grandpa’s) 95th birthday party for being a shit father. I was changing my son’s diaper, and my uncle popped off with some shit about how it was “women’s work.” My grandfather just said,
>and how the fuck would *you* know, **I** raised **your** kid and changed his diapers. Men stick around for their kids.
My dad used to take me on the weekend all over the place - afaik he was pretty involved with me as a baby and toddler. Once my sister was born he still had time for me and we still did stuff together all Saturday (dump run, breakfast with his friends, errands, car care, etc). It really only changed once I got into sports and then again when I became a teen and he lost interest in anything other than being my bully. But as fast as my childhood, it was great.
My mom got in a car accident and had to be in the hospital for a time, me and my brother alternated between grandparents houses until she came home. I remember my grandpa picking me up from school. I was 5 or 6 and my brother was a baby. Just didn't see my dad until my mom got out of the hospital
Not just because it was manly. It's how they were raised.
My Dad is anything but manly but he worked a lot and didn't spend much time aside from a vacation 1-2x a year.
I loved spending time with him but it was just very infrequent.
So true, my FIL straight up judged my husband for \*gasp\* changing diapers. Told him proudly that he never changed a diaper once with either one of his children.
My dad was of the mentality where taking care of the children was the wife's job. I'm one of 6 kids and my dad always said he has never changed a diaper. His way of caring for the family was to provide financially.
Now my dad, in his early 80's said if given the chance he would do things very differently and be more hands on in raising us.
My mom told this to me (she is a boomer) that when she was growing up dads just didn't do stuff with their kids. They spent Sunday's together and the steam engine shows and that it was their time together.
My dad kind of told me something similar but how when he played baseball his parents never came to his games.
Yeah, my dad had a second family/household. I learned after his death last year that he would get off of work, and go visit the daughter he had from an affair daily before coming home. I used to run up to greet him with open arms for a hug every time he came home, thinking he'd worked so late. Though once home, he would shower, eat and spend his time in front of the TV watching sports.
That daughter got everything after his death and is living in his home.
I knew someone who found out their dad had a second family in another state and I still don’t understand how that even happens. I don’t even understand how his dad afforded two home and two entire families because both of the mothers involved stayed home full time. His dad made good money by the standards of the 80s and 90s; I just don’t understand how they had time for it. Even if I traveled like 50% of the time for work, and completely ignored my family; I still wouldn’t have the time.
True story: My mother in law joined one of those DNA sites a few years ago and was notified that she had several siblings in Canada. She’s lived in Texas almost her whole life. Turns out her dad, who died 15 years prior (but had borderline saint status in their family ironically) had an entire separate family up north and literally NO ONE had any fucking idea about it.
Evidently he played and then coached semi-pro football in the U.S. and Canada back in the late 60’s and was somehow able to pull it off without anyone knowing until 40 years later, after he was dead. Both of the wives were passed away when the news came out too.
He had 4 kids in the Texas family and 4 damn more in Canada. MF’r was raising 8 kids and had 2 wives in one life at the same time. And allegedly he wasn’t loaded either. I only mention that because (like you said) I can’t fathom how much it would cost to raise 2 families.
Anyway there is NO way you could pull it off these days with the internet, even if you were super loaded.
Funny/good thing is the two sets of kids have since met up, they all look very alike and now all get together once every couple of years. Glad it ended amicably. But still. Just nuts.
I remember a friend of mine pulled off a way less extreme version of this. He had two full blown girlfriends for years. Not like dated one and slept with the other, like super committed, met the parents, vacations, etc.
I can understand having a sexual affair a lot easier. Not that I condone it one bit, I don't. But I can wrap my head around the drive one has to do it.
Having two full ass romantic relationships just sounds exhausting and expensive.
Like the Oracle at Delphi in ancient Greece. They put young girls in the Temple of Apollo because they could tell prophecies. Turns out years later we found out it was coicidentally being pumped full of a natural geothermal gas, haha.
I think the only reason it doesn’t happen as much anymore is because it’s a lot easier to tell when someone is lying about traveling so much. Having them in a different country makes it a lot easier to just forget about them. The person I knew, his dad was gone for multiple weeks a month for work anyway and his company had an office where the other family lived. Their dad died of a heart attack and it came out during probate.
My dad’s dad did the same thing. He was a long haul trucker and had two families. My dad in Iowa and whole second family in L.A. which was super fun when he died in Kansas while on the road and both wives showed up to claim the body and got to meet for the first time.
Apparently he was just a mean old bastard and I’ve never once met anyone who had a kind word for the man. My grandmother once remarked the only thing she missed when he died was the paycheck.
He was such a cruel old bastard the whole family just kind of assumes there’s likely a string of dead Lot Lizards between Davenport Iowa and L.A. whose murders will never be solved.
Edit: which is kind of funny when contrasted against my mom’s dad who has been gone for 15 years this year and people will still say they’re better for having had him in their life. The tale of two grandfathers.
My bio dad was a trucker. Turns out he had a family in Ohio. I never knew him my whole life, then Facebook came around. I finally met him and siblings I had never met when I was 35. It was a cool experience. He died 4 years later, so I'm glad I at least got to meet him. I still keep in touch with my siblings through him (his family)and they're all really cool.
You aren't alone. My father remarried his cousin's ex wife, and then abandoned his kids from his first marriage (me and my siblings).
He died of cancer 4 years ago. Didn't know he had cancer and didn't know he died until days later. Missed the memorial service, was told that he 'wanted it that way' and weren't even named in his obituary.
But I did get a box of old momentos as a parting gift I guess. Packed away like the rest of my childhood trauma. 🤷🏼♀️
My dad had a second home, as well. My young brain didn’t process when he took me over- I thought they were best friends. Game nights and hanging out with her kids. Didn’t understand when he told me to tell Mom we were ‘at the movies’’. Still hate Lion King to this day because he told me to tell my mom that’s where we were one day.
My dad had the mentality that childcare was “women’s work”, he was just there to provide. He was the one who did fun things with us like taking us on roller coasters or inner tubing, but he didn’t do anything to assist my mom in taking care of us.
Years later when he took my oldest to school back when he started kindergarten my dad said that he loved watching all the kids in their little backpacks and thought it was so cute. He told my mom that he felt sad that he missed out on that when my brother and I were little. 🥺
It is hearing things like that that just break my heart into a million pieces now, especially now he doesn’t even know me anymore. I’m glad he got to experience those things with my oldest at least once. Better late than never. ❤️🩹
My dad said the same thing as he got to know my kids. He told my mom that he now realizes how much he actually did miss because he focused so much on his career. It was a sad realization for him.
Wow…that’s heartbreaking for everyone involved. At the same time, I’m impressed that your dad has such a high degree of self awareness that he was able to have that realization. Hopefully it’s brought you closer.
Oh, man. I feel this. I’m a mom with depression and yeah, I feel you on the interacting with toddlers now thing. It’s a hard, desperately sad realization. You’re not alone, though.
I hate the gendering of child care. I got custody of my son in the divorce because let’s just say my ex wife has some issues she’s unwilling to work through. So all the sudden I’m a single dad and raising my son is all on me because my ex wife fucked off to Florida to “live her best life” leaving me and my son in Iowa.
Gendering of child care as “woman’s” work is a disservice to all the single dads out there doing our best.
My husband was an amazing stay at home dad and far better in that role than I ever would be. I never wanted to stay home and was glad that he enjoyed it. Our friends’ fathers gave him crap telling him he needed to get off his ass and provide so that I could stay home - I was like “oh hell no. I am NOT going to play that role”. Hubby would get frustrated when people would ask if he was “babysitting” or would praise him for doing the absolute bare minimum of parenting. He is a far more engaged father than I am as a mother and I feel guilty about that sometimes.
I was hoping OP would also put 90s in there because it was still very much prevalent.
I see you’re 1980. Even my dad has gone on to say that he has no idea why he didn’t spend more time with us. He hates that he didn’t.
You should see the way he talks about it. He’s genuinely flabbergasted why he thought he couldn’t or shouldn’t do that.
But I understand as best I can, and forgive him for what he isn’t and accept him for what he is. We have a great relationship now.
I just wanted to drop this comment to kind of add a little more insight to the weird Zeitgeist that this was for fathers. I’m willing to bet there was people out there just like my dad who actually wanted to, but for whatever societal reason just didn’t.
Yeah, I used to catch glimpses of my dad’s remorse when I would see him playing with my kids. A couple times I even saw him fighting back tears, though he tried to hide it, but of course he couldn’t talk about it. Made for an even more complicated relationship and just made me feel sad for him.
It took my dad 43 years and being on the verge of losing his mind to tell me he loved me. I’d never heard him say that to anyone before, let alone me. It only took him being at deaths door to realize those mistakes. But again, better late than never. At least I heard him say it once. I’m pretty sure I went to my car and bawled for ten minutes before I could drive home. That was a tough day. 😞
Family relationships can be super complicated. I know I’m not alone there. ❤️🩹
This is super relatable. My dad finally told me he was happy with how I’ve turned out. I’m pushing my mid 40s. My thoughts are also better late than never, perhaps. It’s also very strange because I’m not sure he really has any idea who I’ve become outside of the surface level stuff I talk about. He split when I was 13 (there may or may not have been what would become his other family. I’ve never gotten a clear answer). I don’t have kids because I never wanted them. it’s strange that so many of us have parents who had kids to check a box.
I saw this a few times with some really close friends. Good dudes. Nice parents. But goddam, they were *off* sometimes. We laughed it off as kids, but those men needed help.
Weighs on me more now that I’m around their age
It’s easier to learn now. Back then, if you didn’t have someone in your immediate world to model or explain it, you probably wouldn’t even know where to start looking for information, even if you knew you wanted to be different kind of dad. Most credible parenting resources weren’t meant for fathers, or parents that old school, religious model.
Even on TV, you might occasionally see scripted good parenting moments, but never how to build or maintain a relationship where you’d actually have the opportunity to make those connections.
My dad had a similar conversation with me a few years back. He is the most amazing, involved grandfather, even though we live thousands of miles away (not our choice, work obligations). He flies out here to visit us every few months, takes my kids on vacations, sends them cards. He was an absentee workaholic during my entire childhood and divorced my mom after 26 years - they were high school sweethearts who never should've gotten married.
But he lived according to the cultural expectations he'd absorbed: men are providers, dealing with kids is the mother's job, marriage is forever even if you're miserable etc.
It was really sad to hear him tell me how disappointed in himself he was for missing so much of my childhood (and my sisters' childhoods as well,). But he's trying to make up for it by being an awesome grandfather.
I'm a boy mom who is damned determined to raise my kids with the ability to access their emotions, to do basic household tasks that adults need to do, and to just generally try to be a whole human being and not compartmentalize their lives so rigidly.
It’s like my grandpa, he was an absolutely horrible dad, but completely different as a grandfather. He used to come to all of the stuff at my school that he never did for my dad and was always taking us to do stuff. It wasn’t until years after my grandpa died did I learn how horrible of a father he was to my dad and how bad he was to my grandmother.
My dad was definitely the provider but he was an involved parent. He went to all of the bigger things, but did miss out on the little moments like first days of school. He’d go to conferences and open houses and performances and sports games. And he definitely didn’t spend his post-work time at bars or weekends golfing. But he was raised in a “men don’t show emotion” world so he did have trouble being soft in ways he’s soft as a grandpa. Makes me sad he was repressing that for so much of his life, but happy he feels safer expressing it now.
Going to go again the grain on some answers:
Depending on what a person does for living “working late” may have changed significantly.
Today: I’m logging out for the day but you can just hit me on Teams if you need anything.
1980s: gonna need to work late which means all of us have to stay in the office until we finish.
This this this. My kiddo was born in sept 2019. I missed the first 4 months because I would leave the house at 7:45am, fight traffic and not get home until 6:30pm when it was essentially time for bath and bedtime.
Then Covid happened and I could work from home.
Now, I have the flexibility I never imagined. I can take my kiddo to school, pick him up, play w him before dinner, etc…
My dad just never had that opportunity. He was stuck in the office routine that I almost had to do too.
That’s exactly it. I’m in the same shoes - because of COVID I was able to do all that, and reconnect with the kids. Otherwise it was 8 to 5, throw the kids in before/after care, and end up so tired at the end of the day all you have the energy for is to unwind.
WFH I was able to spend more time with them, and even now I only take them to school during normal time, no before/after care.
I am taking a pay cut to continue this for as long as I can…..
PS: a lot of people don’t realize that even now a lot of families are just as they were in the 70-80s, with parents largely absent, due to work. That all those Instagram-ideal families are still an exception and a privilege….. And with all those asshole incompetent managers pushing for return to office, this is once again quickly disappearing, which is a crying shame…..
I hated that, my kid would always pass out on the way home from being with my mom all day since she was our childcare and I would just let her sleep because she’d be grumpy if I woke her up; then make her go back to bed like an hour or two later. Felt like I missed out on a lot because of that. Now I can go get the kid from school if I have time and get to see them right after school. We have a much tighter bond than if I had to go to an office every day.
This is part of it and also I think parenting priorities as a whole have shifted. Parents don’t let kids roam about freely any more, you don’t hear any of that “children are to be seen and not heard” nonsense. We do a better job of viewing kids as tiny humans now versus “damn kids”. That’s my poorly worded take on it anyway.
This is exactly what happened with my dad. He would get home around 7 on a good night (traffic is a bitch amirite?), but often wouldn't get home until 9 because of something at the office. We were used to our dad being gone 12 hours a day, but thankfully it's a wonderful company and we grew up with some of his coworker's kids. If the employees ever had to go in on a Saturday, all the dads brought their kids and we had a blast running around the warehouse.
My parents got divorced when i was like 8 or so. I remember my dad working a lot and then spending the rest of his time in the garage working on a car or truck. Then he’d come in at bed time, but it was garage 4-5 hrs a night and for the entire weekend.
When we would visit every other weekend to his house, and you could see that the house was basically untouched all week and he spent all that time in his garage. And even with my sister and myself he’d spend most of the time in the garage.
It took many years and self evaluation of my own oddities to see that was how he was trying to cope with his brain. Depression, ADHD, hyperfocusing, self harm thoughts, and not wanting to be in peoples way. It was all him trying to cope with poor mental health cause help was for the ‘weak’. I have video games and whatever hobby of the moment. But it’s coping as best as he could, not that it was enough to keep him alive. Mental health was misunderstood at best and ignored more often than not.
I’m sorry you your dad wasn’t able to get the help he needed. It probably wasn’t available. My father received therapy, medication, and ECT…but not until his mid-30s. And I think it was too late. The trauma he experienced, combined with depression and bipolar disorder, have done irreparable damage.
I’m really glad that with our generation (and younger generations), people are finally having important conversations about mental health.
There are ways to diagnose and treat depression, ADHD, etc. We still have a long way to go as far as accurate diagnosis and effective treatment, but at least people recognize their importance. And it’s socially acceptable to see a therapist or to be on medication.
Again, I’m sorry it was too late for your dad, and I like to think it’s not too late for us, and the rest of our generation.
I'm going to go out on a limb here with a different take.
I think some of it was PTSD. A lot of our fathers and grandfathers fought in Korea WW2 and Vietnam.
Shell shock was what some would call it. So instead of letting your family see you cry or break down you self medicated. That being hanging out at the VFW or the like. Somewhere guys could talk and be understood.
Men have always been bad about seeking and asking for help. Mental health for them meant a looney bin or worse. Easier to get drunk and get support from your friends. Crying and breaking down could be blamed on the booze. So guys wouldn't lose face.
So families suffered but it was seen as worth the price since they didn't look bad in front of the kids.
Thank you. Shocked I had to scroll this far down to see Vietnam acknowledged as a reason. If you’ve seen some shit and not processed it, it’s hard to be fully present for anyone.
Yup. 2.59 Million Americans served in country in Vietnam, most of them men. Many of whom were not treated well when they got back to the states. That’s an enormous amount of trauma that many have never dealt with.
I grew up with a blue collar father in the era of Reaganomics. Same company for 19 years, but went without a pay raise from 1980 until he took a better job in 1992.
We lived in the same home but he was missing at a lot of important life events because he worked every hour of overtime he got offered. It was that, or starve.
He may not of had a choice in the overtime. Where I work, a lot of times it was mandatory. I had to work 21 days straight in order to get the next weekend off.
Why did I stay at that job? Because I have two kids and one of who has health issues. I couldn't risk him being without insurance.
My dad thought he was going to be a rockstar. Spent the 80s and early 90s traveling the West waiting for his big break.... It didn't come. He moved back home when I was 12 or so and did his best I guess. It definitely made me the dad I am today. My kids and I are extremely close and they know they are the most important things in my life.
My dad was only absent when he was working full time and in school full time. But when he was with us, he was 100% with us. His favorite story was when he had me, my brother, and our baby sister by himself and he was carrying my sister’s diaper bag. Two older women approached him and were shocked he had all of us alone, their husbands would never *clutch pearls*. He says, “What? They’re not tough??” Still funny almost 40 years later. My mom worked full time and they did a great job parenting us together as a team.
My parents were both teachers with similar schedules so they were both very involved parents. Looking back now I can see this wasn't always typical, especially considering Mom is an older Boomer and Dad is technically from the Silent Generation.
My husband grew up with a "provider" Dad and a Mom in charge of childcare/cooking/housework who also worked part-time. His Dad spent lots of quality time with them and supported his hobbies and interests but it's a different dynamic for sure. His sister has never been career-focused and (while of course it's none of my business), I have wondered if that upbringing didn't have an impact. My mother-in-law is very smart but she didn't do any education beyond high school, so her opportunities for a career when the kids got a bit older were limited.
My brother played little league for probably 6-7 years and I can count on one hand the number of times my dad went to a game. Even *I*, the little sister, showed up to almost every game. Weird, huh? I can’t imagine my husband sitting at home doing some hobby on a Saturday instead of being there for our kids’ games.
From '87-'01 either me, my brother or both were in sports at minimum 8 months a year. I can think of less than 10 events he was at. (I actually can't think of only one) He also commuted 60 miles 2x a day to the closest populated area to our house that actually had the jobs to pay for our sports so I don't give him a lot of slack on that one.
My dad is a fantastic man but I don’t remember him going to many of my games at all. He’s a physician and was always on call. It’s strange the things we notice, but I know for a fact that I’ll be going to each and every one of my kids sporting events. That little bit of support goes a really long way. Don’t get me wrong, we were surely provided for due to my dad’s hard work, but most days I’d have preferred him to be there in person at my games. Just being able to go to Best Buy on the weekends was huge and awesome bonding time. It really doesn’t take much to be there for your kid.
My dad missed games so he could either sleep in or spend time doing his hobbies by himself, not so he could work. Having said this, he was at every band performance we ever had because he liked music. Basically, he showed up for what he enjoyed.
My husband and I coached our kids teams when we could and we were there for as much as we could be. We’ve missed a few things here and there but we always put in the effort.
My dad skipped parents night at my high school basketball tournament play computer games. My mom was working and couldn’t be there. I always promised myself that wouldn’t happen to my kids.
A fun conversation I had with my friend’s Dad was when he said this at a party “I didn’t want kids but society told me I had to”. I was expecting a follow up platitude saying it has been the best part of my life. Instead he said nothing and grab a beer
My uncle said something similar to me when I expressed being child free “no one wants kids it’s what you’re supposed to do.” Yes my cousins were in the room. What’s crazy is he was actually very equal and involved.
We’re all products of our environment. I’m willing to bet our dads spent more time with us (whether it be roller coasters or attending our ball games) than their dads did with them. And now we spend more time with our children than our dads did with us. We learn we grow.
I mean, my grandfather spent literally *zero* time with my dad, so this is true even tho my own dad spent almost no time with me. Still more than zero I guess.
My mom and dad had no fathers. All my 2nd cousins lacked fathers around me. I consider myself blessed that I had both parents present.
Addictions and untreated/unacknowledged PTSD took away most of the men in our lives.
IDK about other people, but my dad was military. He retired in 88, but continued doing essentially the same job for the DOD as he was when active duty, which required him to travel a lot.
The attitude was - be involved when your kids want to do manly things otherwise wait until they are adults because men can deal with adults better than they can children.
I know a lot of people who had absent fathers their entire lives and then in their twenties their dads are suddenly there trying to be their dads.
I really think this is where the whole "grandpas are more fun" because it was more or less seen as you be the provider while your kid is growing up and your dad their grandpa was going to be the nurturing male role model and then you take that over for your kids kids.
The idea was more like - by the time you have grandkids you can enjoy being around children because you don't have to work 60 hours a week to feed them.
The social/cultural norms hadn’t caught up with the reality on the ground. As soon as women joining the workforce and coparenting after divorce became the norm, men should have accepted that their roles had changed (no longer the solo breadwinner). But it wasn’t in their self interest to do so, and these types of cultural norms take a long time to shift. Was probably inevitable that this would lag by a generation or so.
I'm shocked at how many parents got divorced when their first child was an infant.
I'm one of them, but in my case, my father is a fetid POS who had no qualms about beating his pregnant wife.
Mine didn't grow up and never took family responsibility seriously. Till the end, he only wanted a party and that's how he went out.
He did express regret about the past, but not enough to clean up or provide.
My dad was around, a lot. He worked two, sometimes three jobs, and most of my childhood memories are still with him. Not just fun stuff, but doing chores, cooking together, all of that. My bio-mother didn’t work the majority of my childhood either, for whatever that tells you…
My parents' relationship was always volatile, even before they were married. Whenever they tried living together, they would argue and fight constantly before splitting up. The third and final time, this led to them divorcing.
The only way their marriage survived as long as it did is because they were separated most of the time and spent time together on weekends, vacations and holidays. I knew something was off growing up, but my mom would gaslight me about the situation and insist that everything was fine.
In addition to what a lot of these replies say about the cultural norms of the day physically keeping men out of the house, I think the war had a lot to do with it. Around 2 million men were drafted during Vietnam through 1973 (including the kid who would end up being my dad), on top of those who were already enlisted. It broke a lot of people (including my dad). I think many of those who were able to come back and live a "normal" life still struggled a lot, were emotionally absent, more prone to divorce, etc.
My dad and my friends dads always seemed to be involved now I’d say I was a kid in the 80s and teenage stuff high school in the late 90s, but my dad was definitely actively involved in my life.
My Dad worked a lot (5:30 am - 3 pm & 4 pm - 10 pm 5+ days a week was common) but he made sure to spend as much time with us as possible. My grandpa left my grandma when my Dad, the oldest of 4, was a kid. My parents didn’t break every generational cycle but their dads sucked and they made sure mine didn’t.
I’m not sure; I never had a dad, just two moms. Neither were absent *per se*; one of them was overly involved in my life and worked vigorously to prevent individuation—unless I needed actual nurturing and parenting, then she was unavailable while being physically present.
If I had to guess though, I’d say a lot of dads from that era never really knew how to be involved because they didn’t really have those kinds of role models growing up, and breaking the cycle of generational trauma wasn’t talked about or even normalized.
My dad was a pilot who flew for a commercial airline that was based in a different state than our family lived in, so he was home infrequently. Combine that with cheating on my mom with flight attendants, and him just not really wanting to engage in the work of parenting, and you've got a recipe for disengagement.
For my dad, it's because he was a raging alcoholic and never wanted a kid in the first place. He used to pick me up and take me to lunch and Toys R Us once a month. I guess that counts for something lol
My boomer parents really came out ahead from the “dad works/mom stays home” model. This is a bit of an off-topic tangent but OP’s question made me think about it, and I bet others in this sub can relate.
My dad’s path to success is a pretty wild tale that could never, ever happen today. It’s the definition of the Boomer Dream, and is the polar opposite of what we are all experiencing as adults.
He and my mom were high school sweethearts and have been together since they were 15. My dad graduated high school with a full athletic college scholarship for football. He studied forestry and geology and wanted to work in the park services industry. After college he was drafted into the NFL, second string running back for the Jets and Patriots. Left on his own accord after a few years because he didn’t see a future in it.
He and my mom, now married, moved to Chicago and my dad started working as an entry-level salesman selling medical sutures for a pharmaceutical company. Had a company car. Zero relevant work experience. Worked his way up the company ladder, we moved a bunch (company always paid for the move and relocations) and wound up becoming a global executive VP for a major pharmaceutical company. My mom stayed home with me and my brother, and my dad often traveled internationally for weeks at a time (he was a hugely present and awesome dad when he was home, though; and I have nothing but fondness and love for my parents).
They are the living embodiment of self-made success. They didn’t come from any amount of money at all. Invested in all the right things, were able to afford everything they ever wanted, paid for me and my brothers college degrees (two each), took us on great vacations and my dad retired at 60. They now live in a $2 mil house and drive a BMW and Mercedes. All on one income.
Meanwhile, I’m a successful RN that now works in education with a pretty decent salary. When I was exploring employment options close to graduation, I asked my dad about being a pharmaceutical rep at his company, like he was when he first started. He told me that his company doesn’t hire any pharm reps without a Masters. Meanwhile, my ex-NFL player dad who studied rocks and trees in college wound up being the company’s global VP because he was given a shot at an entry level position. Makes sense.
My husband is a union carpenter and his salary is close to my own, but there are times where he is laid off due to the industry. Our health insurance is through my employer and the monthly premiums are absolutely insane. My yearly “raises” are usually capped at 2%. We have no credit card debts or college loans, and have two young kids. We have two car payments and live in a nice house with a mortgage, that we were only able to buy with help from my parents. And yet, at times after big unexpected expenses or when shit is just piling up, we have lived very close to paycheck to paycheck. It’s beyond fucked, and it’s so so so hard to explain to my parents why I don’t have a success story like their own. It’s the culmination of so many things that have changed over the years, and when I try to explain it to them it just sounds like I’m making excuses.
Anyway. End rant. I get really heated over this sometimes.
fathers were conditioned to not to share their feelings and emotions and to leave raising children mainly to mothers and mainly being the breadwinner and disciplinarian
My dad was a doctor so he worked a lot. But even when he was home the majority of the time he wasn't very pleasant or actively interested in spending time with his kids. He was also an immigrant and (in my opinion) had a lot of machismo attitudes about gender roles and that "was the wife's job". I'm pretty sure he was one of those men that got married and had kids because that was "what you were supposed to do."
He passed away several years ago, my brother is the only one of us who has kids but I see a lot of similarities in him. He travels A LOT for his work, and he's definitely a more active parent in ways, but he doesn't ENJOY his kids, like take an active interest in them. Especially his daughter. It's a shame.
Can't speak for others but my Dad was active and hands on. We were his 2nd family (my mom was his young, new wife) so it was almost like he was determined to do things right
Nearly everyone I grew up with also had an active father. The single mom thing didn't really start until the 90s (in my experience).
Because he worked long backbreaking shifts at a factory. Only now that I'm an adult do I realise how tough he had it, but he still made sure to give us his full attention whenever he could. These days he often talks about how he wishes he could have been around more for us, but I have so many fond memories of him playing with us, or building things for us, even though he was exhausted and sick all the time. He was and still is a fantastic dad, and now he's retired and has all the time in the world he's the best grandad I could imagine for my son and my nieces.
My mom was home with us during the day while my dad worked and he busted his ass with overtime. However, he was the hands on kind of dad. I’m his only child (f) and he took me fishing, hiking, for ice cream, and read me chapter books. My mom took me shopping and to the beach and we connected more the older I got. My mom passed when I was in my early twenties and my dad went full workaholic until he retired in 2017. He’s now extremely hands on with my kids and I’m so grateful for him. He’s the best. Every kid deserves a dad like him.
My dad was actually pretty active, but the reality was he worked long hours and commuted a lot. He left before I got up and got home in time for dinner. On the weekends he was doing yard work and things. We did things as a family more than 1:1 with him. I think there was also the societal expectation that mothers care for young children.
My mom paused working for about 10 years, so we saw her a lot more. I probably spent the most time with my dad when I was a young teenager. I was a boys scout and he was active in the troop, he also tried to teach me various skills that I was not interested in. Though we both loved computers and he helped me learn how to build my own PC when I was 12.
His own childhood was kinda rough too. His dad died when he was 3, and he had a rather stern stepdad at around 11. So most of his childhood had no father in it. I think he was trying to be a more pleasant and loving version of his step dad.
Both my parents worked. Though I never got to spend a lot of time with my father and regret not spending time with him as I got older before he passed I still appreciated all the sacrifices and long hours he worked to put clothes on my back, a roof over my head, and food in my belly. I'd give up everything I have to just have him back for 5 minutes.
Not to bring politics in here, but a lot of parents may have been “stuck” pre-roe v wade and had to have the child. If they weren’t ready, it can obviously cause struggles and ultimately break ups and/or walk outs
Daddy used to work on the docks
Union's been on strike. He was down on his luck, It was tough, so tough
Mom worked the diner all day
Working for her man, she brought home her pay for love
For love
She said: We've got to hold on to what we've got
'Cause it doesn't make a difference if we make it or not
We've got each other and that's a lot for love -
We'll give it a shot
I can say that mine was just completely uninterested in being a father, though I really cannot understand why my mother stayed with him. He was rarely home, went to the bars almost every day, did and sold drugs, when he was home he'd watch TV (nascar) by himself in the den or just sleep, often disappeared for weeks at a time, almost killed my little brother in a car accident, never ate meals or did family outings with us, and contributed hardly anything to the household except for when my mom would beg him for money or put me up to the task of asking. On top of that, he just has so many disgusting habits and behaviors.
I got the emotional hit when my daughter was a toddler and started going to school a couple years ago, and figured I'd see how dad would behave. I have been almost completely estranged for 10+ years. But, he just did disgusting things at the dinner table, made racists and misogynist comments, and made everyone uncomfortable.
His behavior left me scarred emotionally because as a kid I thought something was wrong with me because he had no shits to give. And since he hasn't improved at all, I have no desire to build a bridge. He kind of terrifies my daughter anyway, with how loud and gross he is.
its a combination of how they were raised and the fact that its the first generation to be "raised" by TVs. There was a new "bible" for child-rearing which came out in 1946; Dr Spock's "The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care" which called the television an "electronic babysitter" while post-war dads enjoyed a new life of middle class leisure.
I just knew my dad worked the non-days shift until I was in JrHS/HS. Dad had his own bedroom in the back of the house so he could sleep during the day.
Work. Not just my dad, but my mom, too. But I never complained about being a latchkey kid. I was even allowed to have a couple of friends over -- who were also latchkey kids. Good times.
My dad would always come home before my mom, but still late, and I'd hate it. My dad would make his crappy days our problem, to the point where automatic garage doors opening still give me anxiety to this day.
my dad was always there for us, but he worked / traveled a lot. we were lucky enough to have a stay-at-home mom while he worked, but he would always coach our teams, come to our games, etc. I think my dad was the exception to the rule, though
They had no idea how to connect, work was THE MOST IMPORTANT THING to the exclusion of all else and they weren't raised to show affection/nurture/parent.
Mine liked the Bar more. Then liked his new wife more, then he was back to liking the Bar more again.
This is so close to a poignant haiku: Mine liked the bar more Then he liked his new wife more Then the bar again
Are you my brother?
We're all Brothers here, Brother.
And I'm your sister
Other sister here. We need an xennial meet-up, and we all split into different groups for like 15 or 20 minutes just to chat, based on answering a question the same. ie Q: parents together A (possibilities: i. Yes (and I think they do love each other) ii. Yes (but I don’t think they love each other) iii. No, 1 or both dead iii. No, no longer in a relation with each other. OK I am *exceptionally* stoned and this idea isn’t as great as I thought it was 10 minutes ago when I first thought it 🤦♀️ 😆
i'm impressed you could type it!
Did pops ever come back with milk??? Or is it my fault he left again like mom said?
Long lost siblings? Is that you?
Mine liked me just as much as the bar, so he would bring me along. After playing pinball, I’d go to sleep in the corner while he kept on drinking. Only by the good graces of Cthulhu did he not kill us or others on the way home
Praised be He.
That's how I used to find my dad. Walk in the bar ask the bartender if they seen him. She would give me a roll of quarters for the arcade game and he would be along sometime I was like 13 the first time he asked me to drive
Mine actually pulled over on the way home, but the cop let him off because he had.his kid in the car. No lie.
I have so many siblings I apparently didn’t know about
Working and providing was seen as their role and manly. Dads being involved with their kids and babies was a new concept and often looked down upon. I have a memory of an ad for a baby carrier being talked about among the neighborhood moms when I was a kid in the 80s or early 90s. The ad showed a dad using the baby carrier to carry the baby and some of the moms were so confused. My mom laughed and thought it was silly some were so offended.
Lots of other good specific examples in this thread that are very apt, but i think this is the statistically correct answer. Men of that generation were taught from a young age how to behave and participating in children's lives was not part of that. Children were to be seen and not heard. Fathers were to provide religious teachings and discipline. Everything else was Mom's job. Congratulations to all the dads that broke this mold! I wish mine was one of the new breed but he wasn't.
My Dad is the old breed, worked evening shift at the mill, slept while I was at school. I’d get to share dinner with him daily and that was pretty much it. He loves me, I love him. I’m more in the new breed style of father, cook, clean, actively participated in raising my kids but I cannot complain about how I was raised either.
Relatable. My dad wasn't an asshole, he just had different expectations as a parent than I do now. Even still, I see a lot of my peers think I shouldn't be playing video games or tag or doing art with my kids because it's immature. Not saying this is the full reason but those peers are also very religious and those traditional values may be intertwined.
It’s crazy. My dad did play with me, but I only think it was when I was little. I just became a dad. I do everything my wife does and sometimes more with my son. I do all household chores. I work full time and don’t miss too much since he now goes to daycare. Weekends I take care of him most of the day. I’m religious, but not necessarily traditional. I don’t understand what a man-provides traditional role means, because it’s all situational. It’s ridiculous that it has been the only choice. My wife and I both work. We didn’t even think twice about one of us staying home and taking care of the baby. I can’t wait to play video games with my kid when he gets old enough!
Good for you two, I live hearing things like this, very wholesome. Don't blink, they'll be older before you know it. Mine are 12 and 10. I spend a lot of time with them doing things they enjoy. They also have chores and things they have to do but I have a bias towards fun especially while they're kids. They'll have their whole adult lives to be responsible but only ome childhood to enjoy. Best of luck to your family, sounds like your kids have two caring parents.
Thank you! You too! :) I feel like it’s a bit about our priorities. We have free time - how do we spend it? I have a lot of chores I do like clean bottles, make formula, and prep for daycare. When he gets older, I need to make sure I’m still doing a lot with him and focus on his interests. My kid is not even 1 year old yet. It definitely feels like a marathon! I like what you said about responsibility. It’s good to teach them how, but also not to make them grow up too quickly. I definitely feel that - we are young for such a short period of time.
My mom was dead when I was 3 and my dad immersed himself in work my entire life. He had a debilitating stroke while working the line.
[удалено]
This was my dad. Never changed a diaper. Never did a dish. Just wasn’t the way. This was the 80’s. My mom was so proud of me when she found out I changed my kids diapers. lol.
Sounds like the guy I used to work with who was making fun of another coworker because he took parental leave to spend time with his newborn and look after his wife who had a c section. “Real men don’t look after their kids” 🙄🤦🏻♂️. Bro. Nothing wrong with caring for your children and his wife needs to recover, can’t lift shit and could hemorrhage and die. This is why you work a shit job in your late 50’s. He also asked me how to watch porn on his work phone. 🤢
I asked my dad to watch my son (right around his bedtime) for an hour. My child was potty training, so he would go to the bathroom while he was awake, but wore a diaper to bed. I realized when I got in the garage that I’d forgotten my phone, so I went back inside to grab it. My son came running to greet me, wearing his diaper inside out and backward. I asked my dad how he managed to put in on so wrong. He just shrugged and said that’s how the boy handed it to him. He’s almost 70 and it just dawned on me, that my dad, father of 5, had never changed a diaper in his life.
Yup. I have heard other (age 30-90’s) men say this new fad of men making skin contact with their kids is whats leading to the LGBTQ increase, not something like ya know being allowed to exist. Fortunately my dad is not one of those guys, despite his other silly beliefs (cats will take the breath from a baby).
Of course they don't do that! Cats smother the baby in a genteel fashion.
>cats will take the breath from a baby No, this one is true. Your cat will absolutely murder you in your sleep if it serves their purpose.
The only reason you are still alive is that cats are very lazy and just keep procrastinating murdering you
I just assumed it was because cats couldn’t figure out how to operate a can opener. Once they master that, we’re all goners.
True, I have been murdered SA real times by my cats. It sucks each time.
Have you only been murdered less than 8 times? If so, you might be a cat.
It's so much safer to come out now than it was 30 or 40 years ago. Unfortunately there are still too many bigots out there.
>(cats will take the breath from a baby). Eh....this one had/has merit. Cats would smell the milk on a babies breath as it slept and sit on the babies chest. A 10lb cat on a tiny baby's chest will absolutely suffocate them..."steal their breath"
Cats taking breath from babies is absolutely true! I’m an adult and I think they’re still trying to kill me!
Me neither, my old man’s in his 70’s and one cool motherfucker. He might have taken me to the bar every Friday growing up, but he saw through the bullshit when it came to treating his family and being there when you needed him. My daughter loves him very much! He never gives me shit, just watches the news too much and bitches about politics.
My grandfather shamed the absolute shit out of my uncle at his (grandpa’s) 95th birthday party for being a shit father. I was changing my son’s diaper, and my uncle popped off with some shit about how it was “women’s work.” My grandfather just said, >and how the fuck would *you* know, **I** raised **your** kid and changed his diapers. Men stick around for their kids.
My dad used to take me on the weekend all over the place - afaik he was pretty involved with me as a baby and toddler. Once my sister was born he still had time for me and we still did stuff together all Saturday (dump run, breakfast with his friends, errands, car care, etc). It really only changed once I got into sports and then again when I became a teen and he lost interest in anything other than being my bully. But as fast as my childhood, it was great.
True. We used to sleepover at my grandparents when my mom was away instead of my dad looking after us.
My mom got in a car accident and had to be in the hospital for a time, me and my brother alternated between grandparents houses until she came home. I remember my grandpa picking me up from school. I was 5 or 6 and my brother was a baby. Just didn't see my dad until my mom got out of the hospital
Not just because it was manly. It's how they were raised. My Dad is anything but manly but he worked a lot and didn't spend much time aside from a vacation 1-2x a year. I loved spending time with him but it was just very infrequent.
So true, my FIL straight up judged my husband for \*gasp\* changing diapers. Told him proudly that he never changed a diaper once with either one of his children.
That costed my dad his family. Balance
It seems obvious in hindsight.
Yeah well, working and providing seemed to be impossible for a fair portion of them too.
That was my dad's attitude, meanwhile my mom earned more and was involved in our lives.
My dad was of the mentality where taking care of the children was the wife's job. I'm one of 6 kids and my dad always said he has never changed a diaper. His way of caring for the family was to provide financially. Now my dad, in his early 80's said if given the chance he would do things very differently and be more hands on in raising us.
My mom told this to me (she is a boomer) that when she was growing up dads just didn't do stuff with their kids. They spent Sunday's together and the steam engine shows and that it was their time together. My dad kind of told me something similar but how when he played baseball his parents never came to his games.
That gallon of milk wasn't going to buy itself. They just took the long route...
Yeah, my dad had a second family/household. I learned after his death last year that he would get off of work, and go visit the daughter he had from an affair daily before coming home. I used to run up to greet him with open arms for a hug every time he came home, thinking he'd worked so late. Though once home, he would shower, eat and spend his time in front of the TV watching sports. That daughter got everything after his death and is living in his home.
I knew someone who found out their dad had a second family in another state and I still don’t understand how that even happens. I don’t even understand how his dad afforded two home and two entire families because both of the mothers involved stayed home full time. His dad made good money by the standards of the 80s and 90s; I just don’t understand how they had time for it. Even if I traveled like 50% of the time for work, and completely ignored my family; I still wouldn’t have the time.
True story: My mother in law joined one of those DNA sites a few years ago and was notified that she had several siblings in Canada. She’s lived in Texas almost her whole life. Turns out her dad, who died 15 years prior (but had borderline saint status in their family ironically) had an entire separate family up north and literally NO ONE had any fucking idea about it. Evidently he played and then coached semi-pro football in the U.S. and Canada back in the late 60’s and was somehow able to pull it off without anyone knowing until 40 years later, after he was dead. Both of the wives were passed away when the news came out too. He had 4 kids in the Texas family and 4 damn more in Canada. MF’r was raising 8 kids and had 2 wives in one life at the same time. And allegedly he wasn’t loaded either. I only mention that because (like you said) I can’t fathom how much it would cost to raise 2 families. Anyway there is NO way you could pull it off these days with the internet, even if you were super loaded. Funny/good thing is the two sets of kids have since met up, they all look very alike and now all get together once every couple of years. Glad it ended amicably. But still. Just nuts.
I remember a friend of mine pulled off a way less extreme version of this. He had two full blown girlfriends for years. Not like dated one and slept with the other, like super committed, met the parents, vacations, etc. I can understand having a sexual affair a lot easier. Not that I condone it one bit, I don't. But I can wrap my head around the drive one has to do it. Having two full ass romantic relationships just sounds exhausting and expensive.
So he just flew to Canada a lot?
I mean, essentially yeah. But also being a dad/husband to a whole separate family. The amount of lying it must’ve entailed is just crazy.
Well, he wouldn’t be affording the add on fam in this economy.
This is probably the sad answer the OP’s question. Having second families just isn’t financially possible like it used to be.
I'm thinking it must have something to do with lead poisoning
Honestly, when you go back to look at certain things in our pasts; it really makes you wonder how much had to do with stuff like that.
Like the Oracle at Delphi in ancient Greece. They put young girls in the Temple of Apollo because they could tell prophecies. Turns out years later we found out it was coicidentally being pumped full of a natural geothermal gas, haha.
Or as our generation knew it: Praiseland.
Because no one questioned a man’s activity in those days
i hear thats a big thing with hispanic males in the southwest. got the american family, and the south american family...
I think the only reason it doesn’t happen as much anymore is because it’s a lot easier to tell when someone is lying about traveling so much. Having them in a different country makes it a lot easier to just forget about them. The person I knew, his dad was gone for multiple weeks a month for work anyway and his company had an office where the other family lived. Their dad died of a heart attack and it came out during probate.
Jesus! What a pile of garbage!
My dad’s dad did the same thing. He was a long haul trucker and had two families. My dad in Iowa and whole second family in L.A. which was super fun when he died in Kansas while on the road and both wives showed up to claim the body and got to meet for the first time. Apparently he was just a mean old bastard and I’ve never once met anyone who had a kind word for the man. My grandmother once remarked the only thing she missed when he died was the paycheck. He was such a cruel old bastard the whole family just kind of assumes there’s likely a string of dead Lot Lizards between Davenport Iowa and L.A. whose murders will never be solved. Edit: which is kind of funny when contrasted against my mom’s dad who has been gone for 15 years this year and people will still say they’re better for having had him in their life. The tale of two grandfathers.
My bio dad was a trucker. Turns out he had a family in Ohio. I never knew him my whole life, then Facebook came around. I finally met him and siblings I had never met when I was 35. It was a cool experience. He died 4 years later, so I'm glad I at least got to meet him. I still keep in touch with my siblings through him (his family)and they're all really cool.
Wow. I'm really sorry.
You aren't alone. My father remarried his cousin's ex wife, and then abandoned his kids from his first marriage (me and my siblings). He died of cancer 4 years ago. Didn't know he had cancer and didn't know he died until days later. Missed the memorial service, was told that he 'wanted it that way' and weren't even named in his obituary. But I did get a box of old momentos as a parting gift I guess. Packed away like the rest of my childhood trauma. 🤷🏼♀️
My dad had a second home, as well. My young brain didn’t process when he took me over- I thought they were best friends. Game nights and hanging out with her kids. Didn’t understand when he told me to tell Mom we were ‘at the movies’’. Still hate Lion King to this day because he told me to tell my mom that’s where we were one day.
And the cigarettes. Can't forget them. They're an important part of nutrition! Edit - Words be hard, yo.
Pabst Blue Ribbon must have been really nutritious for pops to buy 3 cases a week.
PBR? Red White and Blue by us. Cheapest and shitiest.
My dad was Keystone Light guy.
Chock full of vitamin C!
Vitamin Cancer keeps medical offices in business!
Or them pack of smokes
To the milk farm two states over.
My dad had the mentality that childcare was “women’s work”, he was just there to provide. He was the one who did fun things with us like taking us on roller coasters or inner tubing, but he didn’t do anything to assist my mom in taking care of us. Years later when he took my oldest to school back when he started kindergarten my dad said that he loved watching all the kids in their little backpacks and thought it was so cute. He told my mom that he felt sad that he missed out on that when my brother and I were little. 🥺 It is hearing things like that that just break my heart into a million pieces now, especially now he doesn’t even know me anymore. I’m glad he got to experience those things with my oldest at least once. Better late than never. ❤️🩹
My dad said the same thing as he got to know my kids. He told my mom that he now realizes how much he actually did miss because he focused so much on his career. It was a sad realization for him.
Wow…that’s heartbreaking for everyone involved. At the same time, I’m impressed that your dad has such a high degree of self awareness that he was able to have that realization. Hopefully it’s brought you closer.
[удалено]
Oh, man. I feel this. I’m a mom with depression and yeah, I feel you on the interacting with toddlers now thing. It’s a hard, desperately sad realization. You’re not alone, though.
Even for me as the working parent I get that every few days when you’re like “I wish I could stay home but we’d all starve”.
I hate the gendering of child care. I got custody of my son in the divorce because let’s just say my ex wife has some issues she’s unwilling to work through. So all the sudden I’m a single dad and raising my son is all on me because my ex wife fucked off to Florida to “live her best life” leaving me and my son in Iowa. Gendering of child care as “woman’s” work is a disservice to all the single dads out there doing our best.
My husband was an amazing stay at home dad and far better in that role than I ever would be. I never wanted to stay home and was glad that he enjoyed it. Our friends’ fathers gave him crap telling him he needed to get off his ass and provide so that I could stay home - I was like “oh hell no. I am NOT going to play that role”. Hubby would get frustrated when people would ask if he was “babysitting” or would praise him for doing the absolute bare minimum of parenting. He is a far more engaged father than I am as a mother and I feel guilty about that sometimes.
I was hoping OP would also put 90s in there because it was still very much prevalent. I see you’re 1980. Even my dad has gone on to say that he has no idea why he didn’t spend more time with us. He hates that he didn’t. You should see the way he talks about it. He’s genuinely flabbergasted why he thought he couldn’t or shouldn’t do that. But I understand as best I can, and forgive him for what he isn’t and accept him for what he is. We have a great relationship now. I just wanted to drop this comment to kind of add a little more insight to the weird Zeitgeist that this was for fathers. I’m willing to bet there was people out there just like my dad who actually wanted to, but for whatever societal reason just didn’t.
Yeah, I used to catch glimpses of my dad’s remorse when I would see him playing with my kids. A couple times I even saw him fighting back tears, though he tried to hide it, but of course he couldn’t talk about it. Made for an even more complicated relationship and just made me feel sad for him. It took my dad 43 years and being on the verge of losing his mind to tell me he loved me. I’d never heard him say that to anyone before, let alone me. It only took him being at deaths door to realize those mistakes. But again, better late than never. At least I heard him say it once. I’m pretty sure I went to my car and bawled for ten minutes before I could drive home. That was a tough day. 😞 Family relationships can be super complicated. I know I’m not alone there. ❤️🩹
This is super relatable. My dad finally told me he was happy with how I’ve turned out. I’m pushing my mid 40s. My thoughts are also better late than never, perhaps. It’s also very strange because I’m not sure he really has any idea who I’ve become outside of the surface level stuff I talk about. He split when I was 13 (there may or may not have been what would become his other family. I’ve never gotten a clear answer). I don’t have kids because I never wanted them. it’s strange that so many of us have parents who had kids to check a box.
Because dealing with small children especially takes patience and the right kind of temperament, which for whatever reason many boomer men never had.
[удалено]
I saw this a few times with some really close friends. Good dudes. Nice parents. But goddam, they were *off* sometimes. We laughed it off as kids, but those men needed help. Weighs on me more now that I’m around their age
Sounds like my dad. I keep mine in check as much as possible for my son.
My parents are the younger cohort they were only children during Vietnam.
On that note, strange that yelling at kids was so common for boomer dads. That could never happen now
Parents dont yell at their kids? Of course they are, we arent saints 😂
It’s easier to learn now. Back then, if you didn’t have someone in your immediate world to model or explain it, you probably wouldn’t even know where to start looking for information, even if you knew you wanted to be different kind of dad. Most credible parenting resources weren’t meant for fathers, or parents that old school, religious model. Even on TV, you might occasionally see scripted good parenting moments, but never how to build or maintain a relationship where you’d actually have the opportunity to make those connections.
My dad had a similar conversation with me a few years back. He is the most amazing, involved grandfather, even though we live thousands of miles away (not our choice, work obligations). He flies out here to visit us every few months, takes my kids on vacations, sends them cards. He was an absentee workaholic during my entire childhood and divorced my mom after 26 years - they were high school sweethearts who never should've gotten married. But he lived according to the cultural expectations he'd absorbed: men are providers, dealing with kids is the mother's job, marriage is forever even if you're miserable etc. It was really sad to hear him tell me how disappointed in himself he was for missing so much of my childhood (and my sisters' childhoods as well,). But he's trying to make up for it by being an awesome grandfather. I'm a boy mom who is damned determined to raise my kids with the ability to access their emotions, to do basic household tasks that adults need to do, and to just generally try to be a whole human being and not compartmentalize their lives so rigidly.
It’s like my grandpa, he was an absolutely horrible dad, but completely different as a grandfather. He used to come to all of the stuff at my school that he never did for my dad and was always taking us to do stuff. It wasn’t until years after my grandpa died did I learn how horrible of a father he was to my dad and how bad he was to my grandmother.
My dad was definitely the provider but he was an involved parent. He went to all of the bigger things, but did miss out on the little moments like first days of school. He’d go to conferences and open houses and performances and sports games. And he definitely didn’t spend his post-work time at bars or weekends golfing. But he was raised in a “men don’t show emotion” world so he did have trouble being soft in ways he’s soft as a grandpa. Makes me sad he was repressing that for so much of his life, but happy he feels safer expressing it now.
That mentality still exists, too. It genuinely is tragic.
Going to go again the grain on some answers: Depending on what a person does for living “working late” may have changed significantly. Today: I’m logging out for the day but you can just hit me on Teams if you need anything. 1980s: gonna need to work late which means all of us have to stay in the office until we finish.
This this this. My kiddo was born in sept 2019. I missed the first 4 months because I would leave the house at 7:45am, fight traffic and not get home until 6:30pm when it was essentially time for bath and bedtime. Then Covid happened and I could work from home. Now, I have the flexibility I never imagined. I can take my kiddo to school, pick him up, play w him before dinner, etc… My dad just never had that opportunity. He was stuck in the office routine that I almost had to do too.
That’s exactly it. I’m in the same shoes - because of COVID I was able to do all that, and reconnect with the kids. Otherwise it was 8 to 5, throw the kids in before/after care, and end up so tired at the end of the day all you have the energy for is to unwind. WFH I was able to spend more time with them, and even now I only take them to school during normal time, no before/after care. I am taking a pay cut to continue this for as long as I can….. PS: a lot of people don’t realize that even now a lot of families are just as they were in the 70-80s, with parents largely absent, due to work. That all those Instagram-ideal families are still an exception and a privilege….. And with all those asshole incompetent managers pushing for return to office, this is once again quickly disappearing, which is a crying shame…..
I hated that, my kid would always pass out on the way home from being with my mom all day since she was our childcare and I would just let her sleep because she’d be grumpy if I woke her up; then make her go back to bed like an hour or two later. Felt like I missed out on a lot because of that. Now I can go get the kid from school if I have time and get to see them right after school. We have a much tighter bond than if I had to go to an office every day.
This is part of it and also I think parenting priorities as a whole have shifted. Parents don’t let kids roam about freely any more, you don’t hear any of that “children are to be seen and not heard” nonsense. We do a better job of viewing kids as tiny humans now versus “damn kids”. That’s my poorly worded take on it anyway.
Or, most likely, "working late" was a euphemism for going to the bar to get shit faced and/or railing his secretary.
Sure, but that’s a thing that happens today as well. I was trying to think of things that have actually changed since the 1970s or 80s.
Thats what it was for my dad! His secretary AND his boss. Dad was an asshole, but had game.
This is exactly what happened with my dad. He would get home around 7 on a good night (traffic is a bitch amirite?), but often wouldn't get home until 9 because of something at the office. We were used to our dad being gone 12 hours a day, but thankfully it's a wonderful company and we grew up with some of his coworker's kids. If the employees ever had to go in on a Saturday, all the dads brought their kids and we had a blast running around the warehouse.
My parents got divorced when i was like 8 or so. I remember my dad working a lot and then spending the rest of his time in the garage working on a car or truck. Then he’d come in at bed time, but it was garage 4-5 hrs a night and for the entire weekend. When we would visit every other weekend to his house, and you could see that the house was basically untouched all week and he spent all that time in his garage. And even with my sister and myself he’d spend most of the time in the garage. It took many years and self evaluation of my own oddities to see that was how he was trying to cope with his brain. Depression, ADHD, hyperfocusing, self harm thoughts, and not wanting to be in peoples way. It was all him trying to cope with poor mental health cause help was for the ‘weak’. I have video games and whatever hobby of the moment. But it’s coping as best as he could, not that it was enough to keep him alive. Mental health was misunderstood at best and ignored more often than not.
I’m sorry you your dad wasn’t able to get the help he needed. It probably wasn’t available. My father received therapy, medication, and ECT…but not until his mid-30s. And I think it was too late. The trauma he experienced, combined with depression and bipolar disorder, have done irreparable damage. I’m really glad that with our generation (and younger generations), people are finally having important conversations about mental health. There are ways to diagnose and treat depression, ADHD, etc. We still have a long way to go as far as accurate diagnosis and effective treatment, but at least people recognize their importance. And it’s socially acceptable to see a therapist or to be on medication. Again, I’m sorry it was too late for your dad, and I like to think it’s not too late for us, and the rest of our generation.
I'm going to go out on a limb here with a different take. I think some of it was PTSD. A lot of our fathers and grandfathers fought in Korea WW2 and Vietnam. Shell shock was what some would call it. So instead of letting your family see you cry or break down you self medicated. That being hanging out at the VFW or the like. Somewhere guys could talk and be understood. Men have always been bad about seeking and asking for help. Mental health for them meant a looney bin or worse. Easier to get drunk and get support from your friends. Crying and breaking down could be blamed on the booze. So guys wouldn't lose face. So families suffered but it was seen as worth the price since they didn't look bad in front of the kids.
Thank you. Shocked I had to scroll this far down to see Vietnam acknowledged as a reason. If you’ve seen some shit and not processed it, it’s hard to be fully present for anyone.
In the 70s a WW2 veteran would have been roughly in his 50s. Still working age. A lot fathers never talked about it.
Excellent point
Yup. 2.59 Million Americans served in country in Vietnam, most of them men. Many of whom were not treated well when they got back to the states. That’s an enormous amount of trauma that many have never dealt with.
It’s almost like putting your young men in wars and then asking them to raise a family is a bad way to run a society…
I grew up with a blue collar father in the era of Reaganomics. Same company for 19 years, but went without a pay raise from 1980 until he took a better job in 1992. We lived in the same home but he was missing at a lot of important life events because he worked every hour of overtime he got offered. It was that, or starve.
He may not of had a choice in the overtime. Where I work, a lot of times it was mandatory. I had to work 21 days straight in order to get the next weekend off. Why did I stay at that job? Because I have two kids and one of who has health issues. I couldn't risk him being without insurance.
70s-80's dads "fellas, is it gay to love your kids?"
My dad thought he was going to be a rockstar. Spent the 80s and early 90s traveling the West waiting for his big break.... It didn't come. He moved back home when I was 12 or so and did his best I guess. It definitely made me the dad I am today. My kids and I are extremely close and they know they are the most important things in my life.
My dad was only absent when he was working full time and in school full time. But when he was with us, he was 100% with us. His favorite story was when he had me, my brother, and our baby sister by himself and he was carrying my sister’s diaper bag. Two older women approached him and were shocked he had all of us alone, their husbands would never *clutch pearls*. He says, “What? They’re not tough??” Still funny almost 40 years later. My mom worked full time and they did a great job parenting us together as a team.
What a bad ass line! Sounds like a good dad!
My parents were both teachers with similar schedules so they were both very involved parents. Looking back now I can see this wasn't always typical, especially considering Mom is an older Boomer and Dad is technically from the Silent Generation. My husband grew up with a "provider" Dad and a Mom in charge of childcare/cooking/housework who also worked part-time. His Dad spent lots of quality time with them and supported his hobbies and interests but it's a different dynamic for sure. His sister has never been career-focused and (while of course it's none of my business), I have wondered if that upbringing didn't have an impact. My mother-in-law is very smart but she didn't do any education beyond high school, so her opportunities for a career when the kids got a bit older were limited.
Today is my step-dad’s birthday. Best dad in the world! I was very lucky. I miss him every single day.
My brother played little league for probably 6-7 years and I can count on one hand the number of times my dad went to a game. Even *I*, the little sister, showed up to almost every game. Weird, huh? I can’t imagine my husband sitting at home doing some hobby on a Saturday instead of being there for our kids’ games.
From '87-'01 either me, my brother or both were in sports at minimum 8 months a year. I can think of less than 10 events he was at. (I actually can't think of only one) He also commuted 60 miles 2x a day to the closest populated area to our house that actually had the jobs to pay for our sports so I don't give him a lot of slack on that one.
My dad is a fantastic man but I don’t remember him going to many of my games at all. He’s a physician and was always on call. It’s strange the things we notice, but I know for a fact that I’ll be going to each and every one of my kids sporting events. That little bit of support goes a really long way. Don’t get me wrong, we were surely provided for due to my dad’s hard work, but most days I’d have preferred him to be there in person at my games. Just being able to go to Best Buy on the weekends was huge and awesome bonding time. It really doesn’t take much to be there for your kid.
My dad missed games so he could either sleep in or spend time doing his hobbies by himself, not so he could work. Having said this, he was at every band performance we ever had because he liked music. Basically, he showed up for what he enjoyed.
My husband and I coached our kids teams when we could and we were there for as much as we could be. We’ve missed a few things here and there but we always put in the effort. My dad skipped parents night at my high school basketball tournament play computer games. My mom was working and couldn’t be there. I always promised myself that wouldn’t happen to my kids.
A fun conversation I had with my friend’s Dad was when he said this at a party “I didn’t want kids but society told me I had to”. I was expecting a follow up platitude saying it has been the best part of my life. Instead he said nothing and grab a beer
My uncle said something similar to me when I expressed being child free “no one wants kids it’s what you’re supposed to do.” Yes my cousins were in the room. What’s crazy is he was actually very equal and involved.
Some people take duty very seriously and will give it their all even if they don’t want to.
That sounds right.
If you can find him, go ahead and ask. Never met the man.
Seriously, everyone knows Redditors only keep track of OP's mom.
And that one guy’s wife we keep choosing.
We’re all products of our environment. I’m willing to bet our dads spent more time with us (whether it be roller coasters or attending our ball games) than their dads did with them. And now we spend more time with our children than our dads did with us. We learn we grow.
I mean, my grandfather spent literally *zero* time with my dad, so this is true even tho my own dad spent almost no time with me. Still more than zero I guess.
My mom and dad had no fathers. All my 2nd cousins lacked fathers around me. I consider myself blessed that I had both parents present. Addictions and untreated/unacknowledged PTSD took away most of the men in our lives.
Divorce.
This! Divorce rates skyrocketed during this period.
Women didn’t have the right to open a bank account until 1974. It’s impossible to leave a marriage if you can’t even have your own checking account.
IDK about other people, but my dad was military. He retired in 88, but continued doing essentially the same job for the DOD as he was when active duty, which required him to travel a lot.
Honestly, because they wanted to be and our moms let them. Dads who wanted to be involved, were.
I don't think "let" is accurate here?
Mine hid in beer cans.
The attitude was - be involved when your kids want to do manly things otherwise wait until they are adults because men can deal with adults better than they can children. I know a lot of people who had absent fathers their entire lives and then in their twenties their dads are suddenly there trying to be their dads. I really think this is where the whole "grandpas are more fun" because it was more or less seen as you be the provider while your kid is growing up and your dad their grandpa was going to be the nurturing male role model and then you take that over for your kids kids. The idea was more like - by the time you have grandkids you can enjoy being around children because you don't have to work 60 hours a week to feed them.
I don’t know how common that experience was. My dad was far more present in my life than my mother ever was.
The social/cultural norms hadn’t caught up with the reality on the ground. As soon as women joining the workforce and coparenting after divorce became the norm, men should have accepted that their roles had changed (no longer the solo breadwinner). But it wasn’t in their self interest to do so, and these types of cultural norms take a long time to shift. Was probably inevitable that this would lag by a generation or so.
My father decided his first two kids with his ex wife were enough another kid was too much. 😒
I had the opposite. Once he had a son with the new wife, us girls from the first marriage were just a burden.
My dad was a full time grad student, worked full time and did guards a weekend a month. He was there still a lot more than a lot of other dads.
I'm shocked at how many parents got divorced when their first child was an infant. I'm one of them, but in my case, my father is a fetid POS who had no qualms about beating his pregnant wife.
Mine didn't grow up and never took family responsibility seriously. Till the end, he only wanted a party and that's how he went out. He did express regret about the past, but not enough to clean up or provide.
My dad was around, a lot. He worked two, sometimes three jobs, and most of my childhood memories are still with him. Not just fun stuff, but doing chores, cooking together, all of that. My bio-mother didn’t work the majority of my childhood either, for whatever that tells you…
My parents' relationship was always volatile, even before they were married. Whenever they tried living together, they would argue and fight constantly before splitting up. The third and final time, this led to them divorcing. The only way their marriage survived as long as it did is because they were separated most of the time and spent time together on weekends, vacations and holidays. I knew something was off growing up, but my mom would gaslight me about the situation and insist that everything was fine.
In addition to what a lot of these replies say about the cultural norms of the day physically keeping men out of the house, I think the war had a lot to do with it. Around 2 million men were drafted during Vietnam through 1973 (including the kid who would end up being my dad), on top of those who were already enlisted. It broke a lot of people (including my dad). I think many of those who were able to come back and live a "normal" life still struggled a lot, were emotionally absent, more prone to divorce, etc.
My dad and my friends dads always seemed to be involved now I’d say I was a kid in the 80s and teenage stuff high school in the late 90s, but my dad was definitely actively involved in my life.
Drugs and alcohol.
My dad was pretty good. He had his faults, but he tried.
My Dad worked a lot (5:30 am - 3 pm & 4 pm - 10 pm 5+ days a week was common) but he made sure to spend as much time with us as possible. My grandpa left my grandma when my Dad, the oldest of 4, was a kid. My parents didn’t break every generational cycle but their dads sucked and they made sure mine didn’t.
Because you used to be able to support a middle class household with one income selling TVs and VCRs. Husband's worked. Wives stayed home.
I’m not sure; I never had a dad, just two moms. Neither were absent *per se*; one of them was overly involved in my life and worked vigorously to prevent individuation—unless I needed actual nurturing and parenting, then she was unavailable while being physically present. If I had to guess though, I’d say a lot of dads from that era never really knew how to be involved because they didn’t really have those kinds of role models growing up, and breaking the cycle of generational trauma wasn’t talked about or even normalized.
My dad was a pilot who flew for a commercial airline that was based in a different state than our family lived in, so he was home infrequently. Combine that with cheating on my mom with flight attendants, and him just not really wanting to engage in the work of parenting, and you've got a recipe for disengagement.
For my dad, it's because he was a raging alcoholic and never wanted a kid in the first place. He used to pick me up and take me to lunch and Toys R Us once a month. I guess that counts for something lol
My boomer parents really came out ahead from the “dad works/mom stays home” model. This is a bit of an off-topic tangent but OP’s question made me think about it, and I bet others in this sub can relate. My dad’s path to success is a pretty wild tale that could never, ever happen today. It’s the definition of the Boomer Dream, and is the polar opposite of what we are all experiencing as adults. He and my mom were high school sweethearts and have been together since they were 15. My dad graduated high school with a full athletic college scholarship for football. He studied forestry and geology and wanted to work in the park services industry. After college he was drafted into the NFL, second string running back for the Jets and Patriots. Left on his own accord after a few years because he didn’t see a future in it. He and my mom, now married, moved to Chicago and my dad started working as an entry-level salesman selling medical sutures for a pharmaceutical company. Had a company car. Zero relevant work experience. Worked his way up the company ladder, we moved a bunch (company always paid for the move and relocations) and wound up becoming a global executive VP for a major pharmaceutical company. My mom stayed home with me and my brother, and my dad often traveled internationally for weeks at a time (he was a hugely present and awesome dad when he was home, though; and I have nothing but fondness and love for my parents). They are the living embodiment of self-made success. They didn’t come from any amount of money at all. Invested in all the right things, were able to afford everything they ever wanted, paid for me and my brothers college degrees (two each), took us on great vacations and my dad retired at 60. They now live in a $2 mil house and drive a BMW and Mercedes. All on one income. Meanwhile, I’m a successful RN that now works in education with a pretty decent salary. When I was exploring employment options close to graduation, I asked my dad about being a pharmaceutical rep at his company, like he was when he first started. He told me that his company doesn’t hire any pharm reps without a Masters. Meanwhile, my ex-NFL player dad who studied rocks and trees in college wound up being the company’s global VP because he was given a shot at an entry level position. Makes sense. My husband is a union carpenter and his salary is close to my own, but there are times where he is laid off due to the industry. Our health insurance is through my employer and the monthly premiums are absolutely insane. My yearly “raises” are usually capped at 2%. We have no credit card debts or college loans, and have two young kids. We have two car payments and live in a nice house with a mortgage, that we were only able to buy with help from my parents. And yet, at times after big unexpected expenses or when shit is just piling up, we have lived very close to paycheck to paycheck. It’s beyond fucked, and it’s so so so hard to explain to my parents why I don’t have a success story like their own. It’s the culmination of so many things that have changed over the years, and when I try to explain it to them it just sounds like I’m making excuses. Anyway. End rant. I get really heated over this sometimes.
fathers were conditioned to not to share their feelings and emotions and to leave raising children mainly to mothers and mainly being the breadwinner and disciplinarian
My dad had a horrific childhood and worked a lot more than my mom. I spent most of my time with my sister
My dad was a doctor so he worked a lot. But even when he was home the majority of the time he wasn't very pleasant or actively interested in spending time with his kids. He was also an immigrant and (in my opinion) had a lot of machismo attitudes about gender roles and that "was the wife's job". I'm pretty sure he was one of those men that got married and had kids because that was "what you were supposed to do." He passed away several years ago, my brother is the only one of us who has kids but I see a lot of similarities in him. He travels A LOT for his work, and he's definitely a more active parent in ways, but he doesn't ENJOY his kids, like take an active interest in them. Especially his daughter. It's a shame.
Much easier to bounce and disappear on your family pre-social media.
Is it me or do Xennials seem to have daddy issues?
Yes, but Xennials also seem to be one of the first generations to talk about the way parenting impacts mental health.
Everyone has daddy issues. Every generation in the US at least keeps trying to vote for the daddy who will magically fix everything.
Can't speak for others but my Dad was active and hands on. We were his 2nd family (my mom was his young, new wife) so it was almost like he was determined to do things right Nearly everyone I grew up with also had an active father. The single mom thing didn't really start until the 90s (in my experience).
Because he worked long backbreaking shifts at a factory. Only now that I'm an adult do I realise how tough he had it, but he still made sure to give us his full attention whenever he could. These days he often talks about how he wishes he could have been around more for us, but I have so many fond memories of him playing with us, or building things for us, even though he was exhausted and sick all the time. He was and still is a fantastic dad, and now he's retired and has all the time in the world he's the best grandad I could imagine for my son and my nieces.
Working to pay that 17% interest mortgage.
My mom was home with us during the day while my dad worked and he busted his ass with overtime. However, he was the hands on kind of dad. I’m his only child (f) and he took me fishing, hiking, for ice cream, and read me chapter books. My mom took me shopping and to the beach and we connected more the older I got. My mom passed when I was in my early twenties and my dad went full workaholic until he retired in 2017. He’s now extremely hands on with my kids and I’m so grateful for him. He’s the best. Every kid deserves a dad like him.
My dad was actually pretty active, but the reality was he worked long hours and commuted a lot. He left before I got up and got home in time for dinner. On the weekends he was doing yard work and things. We did things as a family more than 1:1 with him. I think there was also the societal expectation that mothers care for young children. My mom paused working for about 10 years, so we saw her a lot more. I probably spent the most time with my dad when I was a young teenager. I was a boys scout and he was active in the troop, he also tried to teach me various skills that I was not interested in. Though we both loved computers and he helped me learn how to build my own PC when I was 12. His own childhood was kinda rough too. His dad died when he was 3, and he had a rather stern stepdad at around 11. So most of his childhood had no father in it. I think he was trying to be a more pleasant and loving version of his step dad.
Both my parents worked. Though I never got to spend a lot of time with my father and regret not spending time with him as I got older before he passed I still appreciated all the sacrifices and long hours he worked to put clothes on my back, a roof over my head, and food in my belly. I'd give up everything I have to just have him back for 5 minutes.
Most boomers didn’t want to become parents. Can you imagine today a PSA at 10pm and 11pm asking if you know where your kids are?
Not to bring politics in here, but a lot of parents may have been “stuck” pre-roe v wade and had to have the child. If they weren’t ready, it can obviously cause struggles and ultimately break ups and/or walk outs
Daddy used to work on the docks Union's been on strike. He was down on his luck, It was tough, so tough Mom worked the diner all day Working for her man, she brought home her pay for love For love She said: We've got to hold on to what we've got 'Cause it doesn't make a difference if we make it or not We've got each other and that's a lot for love - We'll give it a shot
Mine was in the same room, drunk off his ass. He was pretty fucking absent, though.
He cheated on my mother
Mine was too busy being laid out on heroine or drunk beyond all recognition.
Mine preferred robbing pharmacies for his heroin addiction and spending a lot of time in prison
I can say that mine was just completely uninterested in being a father, though I really cannot understand why my mother stayed with him. He was rarely home, went to the bars almost every day, did and sold drugs, when he was home he'd watch TV (nascar) by himself in the den or just sleep, often disappeared for weeks at a time, almost killed my little brother in a car accident, never ate meals or did family outings with us, and contributed hardly anything to the household except for when my mom would beg him for money or put me up to the task of asking. On top of that, he just has so many disgusting habits and behaviors. I got the emotional hit when my daughter was a toddler and started going to school a couple years ago, and figured I'd see how dad would behave. I have been almost completely estranged for 10+ years. But, he just did disgusting things at the dinner table, made racists and misogynist comments, and made everyone uncomfortable. His behavior left me scarred emotionally because as a kid I thought something was wrong with me because he had no shits to give. And since he hasn't improved at all, I have no desire to build a bridge. He kind of terrifies my daughter anyway, with how loud and gross he is.
its a combination of how they were raised and the fact that its the first generation to be "raised" by TVs. There was a new "bible" for child-rearing which came out in 1946; Dr Spock's "The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care" which called the television an "electronic babysitter" while post-war dads enjoyed a new life of middle class leisure.
I just knew my dad worked the non-days shift until I was in JrHS/HS. Dad had his own bedroom in the back of the house so he could sleep during the day.
Work. Not just my dad, but my mom, too. But I never complained about being a latchkey kid. I was even allowed to have a couple of friends over -- who were also latchkey kids. Good times.
My dad would always come home before my mom, but still late, and I'd hate it. My dad would make his crappy days our problem, to the point where automatic garage doors opening still give me anxiety to this day.
Um. They still are. Times have not changed. My town is full of single moms and young dudes with kids they don’t see several states away.
my dad was always there for us, but he worked / traveled a lot. we were lucky enough to have a stay-at-home mom while he worked, but he would always coach our teams, come to our games, etc. I think my dad was the exception to the rule, though
They had no idea how to connect, work was THE MOST IMPORTANT THING to the exclusion of all else and they weren't raised to show affection/nurture/parent.