Turning Cycles of Absence Into Stories of Purpose

Growing up without a dad can challenge our fatherhood. But it can also shape our stories for generations to come.

In 2020, I recorded an eight-episode podcast called Complicated Fatherhood. The series' premise was to explore my fatherhood through conversations with the dad I never knew.

Over eight episodes, I asked my biological dad, Maurice, difficult questions, such as why did you leave me when I was two? I also asked a lot of questions about his childhood, family, and his whereabouts over our seventeen years of zero contact.

I was curious. I’ve only met Maurice once since we reconnected, and though I had made peace with our relationship, becoming a dad opened up Pandora’s box in terms of who I thought a father was supposed to be.

I wanted to be present. I wanted to love my children embarrassingly well. I wanted to break the cycle of absent fatherhood that had hung over my head for decades.

Though these are sentiments sought by fathers across the board, I felt this pressure over me, saying, “You’ve got to prove them wrong.” But then I had to ask myself this one simple question: who is “they,” and why do “they” matter?

Study after study shows that fathers today are more present than ever. Don’t get me wrong; the bar is still pretty low regarding what society expects from dads vs. moms, but can you imagine your average Gen X dads taking six weeks of paternity leave or Baby Boomer dads meeting up for stroller walks with other dads? Today, those concepts are normal, and while men still take far too little paternity leave, we’re making progress.

Every generation passes their baton to the next, and that baton is filled with education and lessons. Whether we like it or not, those lessons stick with us, and it’s our job to filter what we want and don’t want to pass down to our kids.

My dad showed me that as a young man, family wasn’t his priority. I’m taking that lesson and teaching my girls that there is nothing more important than family. My girls may take my lesson and say, “Dad was around a little too much,” and if that’s the case, I’m cool with it. Nobody on earth has it figured out, and that’s what makes writing our stories beautiful.

Breaking the cycle of absence looks different for each person. Lord knows a five-minute Medium article isn’t going to solve it. But through persistence, patience, and honest listening, we can break that cycle, family by family, to rewrite our story for generations to come.

Persistence

Like many of you, I had to create a collage of fathers to emulate since mine wasn’t around. I had an Uncle with two daughters who loved his family well. My eventual stepdad was a great role model for me, too. Even Uncle Phil, Danny Tanner, and the plethora of TV dads showed me what it meant to be a good dad.

So when life got hard, and I was at my wit’s end trying to care for a crying baby, I told myself this feeling was temporary. The sleepless nights are temporary. The crying is temporary. In twenty years, if I want my kids to fly home for the holidays and hold my hand as they tell me about their new apartment, I need to sit in this hard moment a bit longer and persist.

Nothing worth having ever came easy, so in the meantime, find ways to prioritize your mental health. Throw a splash of the good cream in your coffee this morning. Maybe take a mental health day from work and shoot hoops at your local park for an hour. Maybe you’ve been told to “suck it up.” I’m here to say that advice is simply not practical or helpful.

To persist is to walk through challenges and come out the other side a better person. You deserve that now, and your future self does too.

Patience

We talked about persisting, and in order to persist, you’ve got to have patience. Is having patience as easy as it sounds? Of course not. I remember when Golden State Warriors fans booed their team owner for trading Monte Ellis for Andrew Bogut, who eventually, alongside Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green, delivered the first NBA title to the Bay Area in forty years.

Or how about my beloved Indiana Pacers, who in 1980 traded a future first-round draft pick for Tom Owens, who went on to play 74 games for the 35–47 Pacers. Because of this short-sighted trade, the Pacers missed out on an opportunity to draft Michael Jordon in 1984! Patience, my friends. You’ve got to have patience.

Now, since the point of this article is to talk about breaking the cycle of absentee fatherhood, I should probably get back to that.

The younger years are hard, but they’re also kinda easy. The older years are hard, but they’re easier in other ways. Long story short, every season has its struggles, and let’s be honest, for some families, the hard seasons last significantly longer than for the others. It’s not a one-size-fits-all, and it’s certainly not fair. But when you celebrate little milestones and focus on little wins, those wins pile up over time, and your patience is rewarded with wisdom and children who are damn proud to call you dad.

Honest Listening

This sounds easy enough, but I promise you it’s not. Honest listening is the act of taking self-critiques and acting on your assessment in order to create a better future for yourself.

When I spoke with Maurice about his childhood and early stages of fatherhood, one thing he struggled with as a young man was honestly assessing his situation. Funny enough, as an older man, he is unbelievably self-aware, and I was truly surprised by his honesty and candor when reflecting on his life. That said, his current self-awareness was born out of decades of regrets and running from accountability, and if he had to do it all again, there is a lot he would change. With that in mind, why wouldn’t I do everything I can to avoid these regrets later?

Honest listening requires you to understand your strengths and weaknesses and where those weaknesses sit, finding ways to either improve or mask them in a way so they are no longer a detriment to you or your family.

A common denominator of many absent parents is an inability to take responsibility for their actions. Because of this, you should lean heavily into accountability. Lean into identifying your triggers and finding ways to overcome them, whether it’s through therapy or maybe just green tea and a good candle.

By no means is honest listening fun, but when it comes to breaking cycles, it’s an effective tool to identify why the cycle exists and determine how you can be the one to end it for good.