Fatherhood Is Not a Performance
Father’s Day can be wonderfully uncomplicated for some people. A handmade card. Breakfast that arrives slightly burnt. A phone call. A family lunch. A photograph posted online with an affectionate message about the man who has always been there.
For others, the day arrives carrying considerably more weight.
Here in Australia, Father’s Day falls in September, while families elsewhere mark it at different times of the year. The date changes, but the emotional complexity does not. For some men, it is the first Father’s Day holding a baby they still cannot quite believe has been entrusted to them. For some children, adult or otherwise, it is another year without the dad they desperately wish they could call. For others, the person being remembered was never technically a father at all, but an uncle, grandfather, stepfather, coach, older brother, teacher or family friend who quietly did much of the fathering.
And then there are men for whom Father’s Day creates an uncomfortable question: Am I actually doing this well?
That question deserves more attention than we sometimes give it.
There is a strange contradiction in the way contemporary culture talks about fatherhood. We increasingly ask fathers to be emotionally available, engaged, nurturing, psychologically aware and deeply involved in their children’s lives. Quite rightly. Yet many men have entered fatherhood without ever having those behaviours modelled for them.
A man can deeply love his children and still have no idea what emotionally available fathering looks like.
He may have grown up in a household where his own father worked hard, provided well and rarely spoke about anything happening beneath the surface. He may have had a father who disappeared. A father whose temper dominated the room. A father who loved him but did not know how to show it. A father who believed affection weakened boys. Or perhaps a wonderful father whose absence through death now creates the impossible feeling that nobody else could ever measure up.
Then a baby arrives and suddenly this man is expected to know.
Know how to settle a crying infant. Know what to say when a child is frightened. Know how to manage anger without frightening everyone else. Know when to offer advice and when simply to listen. Know how to discipline without humiliating. Know how to create security while privately wondering whether he has any idea what he is doing.
One of the most useful things we can tell new fathers is that fear does not mean they are failing. Sometimes fear means they understand the significance of what they have taken on.
Parenthood introduces a form of vulnerability that can catch people completely unprepared. Before children, many adults can maintain the illusion that they are reasonably in control of their lives. Parenthood demolishes that illusion remarkably quickly. Suddenly another human being matters in a way that is almost frightening. Their wellbeing matters. Their safety matters. Their opinion of us will one day matter.
That can awaken old wounds too.
People often discover parts of their own childhood after becoming parents. Experiences once dismissed as “just how things were” can suddenly look very different when imagining doing the same thing to their own child. A new father may find himself thinking: I could never speak to my son the way my father spoke to me. Or: I suddenly understand how much my dad sacrificed. Sometimes both can be true.
Fatherhood can become a mirror, and mirrors are not always comfortable. Yet perhaps the greatest mistake is believing good fatherhood requires certainty.
Children do not need a father who has mastered every aspect of parenting. They need adults willing to remain engaged. Adults who can apologise. Adults who can say, “I got that wrong.” Adults who are strong enough to remain curious about their own behaviour rather than automatically defending it.
That matters because fatherhood is not a performance of competence. It is a relationship.
The same applies when fathers are no longer physically present.
Grief has a peculiar way of collapsing time. A grown adult can be perfectly capable of running businesses, raising children, paying mortgages and navigating complicated lives, yet on Father’s Day find themselves missing their dad with the intensity of a child.
There is nothing strange about that. Relationships continue internally long after people die. We remember phrases. Gestures. Annoying habits. Pieces of advice we ignored at the time and somehow hear clearly years later. Sometimes grief is softened by gratitude. Sometimes the relationship was complicated and death did not magically resolve it.
Father’s Day does not require us to rewrite difficult histories into sentimental ones. It can simply be a day to acknowledge what was, and perhaps also what was missing.
For those fortunate enough to have fathers or father figures still present, this day offers another opportunity that may matter more than whatever gift was purchased…
Say the thing.
Thank them for something specific.
Ask a question about their life that has never been asked before.
Let boys see men express affection without embarrassment. Let fathers know they are valued for more than what they provide.
For the fathers reading this who are quietly wondering whether they are getting it right, perhaps the better question is not, Am I a perfect father?
There is no useful answer to that.
Ask instead: Am I willing to keep learning how to love these people well?
That is a much more demanding question and a far more hopeful one.
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