Men of Reddit, how did your opinion of your father change as you got older?

46 comments

  2. When I was younger, he was just dad, and I took it for granted. As I got older, I appreciated how rare he really is – very smart, incredibly hard working, and has done everything he could to prepare us for life.

  3. I’ve been increasingly impressed by his accomplishments as I come to understand the difficulty of completing them.

  4. As a kid he was my hero. As a teen, he was the man trying to get back into my life, but struggled because of work and his new wife not letting him see my family…. As an adult I realise he is actually just a terrible dad. If he wanted to come see me, he would have. If he wanted to be part of my life, he actually would have made the effort, not just words and blaming other people

  6. Overall, it really hasn’t much. He was always a good man. Still is.

    One weird thing that has changed over time, though: We’re both semi-pro photographers. Neither of us has ever done photography as a full-time career, but we’ve both done our share of paid gigs, and we’ve both been published.

    One day, my dad told me I’m a better photographer than he ever was, and I’m pretty sure it was one of the prouder moments in both our lives.

    But, I still have trouble wrapping my head around it. How can I be better than him at something, when he taught me 90 percent of everything I know about it? How does that math even work?

  7. I came to be more accepting of his flaws, and recognize he was wiser than I thought. Just not as wise as HE thought.

  8. My dad is a carer criminal who has since turned straight and mostly reformed. I use to love and hate him depending on different stages of my life.

    As an adult I mostly feel sorry for him. As a parent I can’t imagine putting my kids through what his parents put him through and I genuinely see him for the traumatised and damaged man he is.

    On the other hand I resent him for the poor choices he makes and his lack of seeking help to grow.

  9. My dad died 6 years ago. I used to think he was an absentee asshole as a kid, but now I wish he’d been around longer so that we could better understand each other. We started to grow closer when I was about 23, and talking to my mom more these days I realize how what looked like shitty behavior back then was his dedication to us. I was just too young to see it.

    An example she gave is that we went on a family vacation to Disneyland when I was a kid. My dad was rarely around, and I’d see him for these little periods. I assumed it was because he was off drinking or something (he was definitely an alcoholic).

    My mom told me a couple weeks ago it was because he had to give a series of speeches at Epcot, and that’s why we were there in the first place. He’d eat breakfast with us, ride some rides, sprint to Epcot to give a speech, blow off all the business development he was supposed to do to spend an hour with us again, then give another talk. He spent the next three days running between the conference venue and finding us to get little slices of time together.

    He wanted to be part of our lives but was trying to balance being a senior executive at a company with that. He wasn’t perfect, but the fact that he’d blow off half a hugely important business trip so that he could spend that time with us was really something. In retrospect, he did that a lot, making time for all our vacation windows in school to be on trips with us, even if it meant sometimes having to step away to handle things.

  10. It went from “that mans a cunt” to “that man is miserable” to “that man is dead” and now “that man taught me what not to be.”

  11. Well he developed cancer. you know how a lot of teenagers have that feeling/sense of invincibility and do stupid shit cause they haven’t really grasped mortality? Yeah that shit disappeared real quick and so did roles as now I had to start working to help support the family as a teen.

  12. When I was very young my dad was my hero. Big and strong, he was a titan of a man!

    Then when my folks got divorced and he remarried, he saw less and less of me. I thought he had lost interest so I became angry and estranged.

    After many years he found a way to make contact and wanted to visit. When I picked him up at the airport I was shocked to see what a beaten down old man he had become. He looked at least 25 years older than he really was and so riddled with arthritic joint pain that he could barely walk.

    I came to realize that he didn’t lose interest. He and his new wife struggled financially (both hearing impaired which no one really give much employment opportunity to back then)….so he’d work up to 4 low paying shitty jobs at any given time just to make ends meet. Lucky to sleep 3hrs night…for like 30 years. He has one foot in the grave after decades of literally working himself to death…and I had jumped to conclusions rather than try to understand what was really going on in his life.

    I went from adoring him, to hating him, to pitying him.

  14. Didnt appreciate him until it was too late.
    Grew up thinking he was just a person, realised too late how much he worked and sacrificed for me.

  16. None really. He went for milk at age 6 and hasn’t been seen since. Store must have been sold out.

  17. I began to see him as pussy-whipped. His wife wears the pants in that family. He was never one I could go to for male advice as a teen.

  18. Realized that he is a human being with a badly wounded inner child, stemming from his relationship with his alcoholic father. He didn’t have a “how to” manual on raising me. Yes, he unloaded a lot of his trauma onto me, like his father did to him. But he did the best he could and provided all material needs. He did his duty. He never got drunk. He was always home. He’s very mellow and happy now. I love him.

  20. I still look up to him in the same way. I was a rare case of a late 80’s divorce resulting in DAD winning custody. Especially when you consider my mom has no criminal history, psychological disorders and is generally a fit parent.

    If anything I would say my views of my mom have changed. There are some areas that I understand better that I previously had negative feelings towards. There are other areas that I have learned are just plain and simple her short comings. I can say that my dad winning custody was for the best.

  21. 0-7yo – this guy is my hero

    7-10 – my dads awesome

    10-14 – this guys is pretty cool but he doesn’t know EVERYTHING

    14-17 – now that I think about, this guy doesn’t know much at all

    18-25 – I’m a man now and this guy is a peer. We are equals

    25-30 – you know what, he was right about a few things.

    30-35 – man, my dad is a wealth of knowledge

  22. I hated him when I was younger. I plotted his murder with my 12 gauge shotgun and came up with an “accidental” discharge thru the wall that would’ve taken off his head. He beat my Mom, he nearly killed me several times when I was younger, he drove my older brother into a nervous break down by the age of 6 so that he had to be taken away to live with my great Aunt and Uncle until he could recover. As I grew older I understood that he had his own demons from fighting in a war and that he was trying to cope as best as he could with going from being respected and obeyed in the military to being someone everyone feared because he spent so many years in that war. I can’t say I’ll ever forgive him because there was help available for soldiers like him but he was too proud to take it. As I grew older I understood him and that helped me more than him. He died alone and I still don’t know where he’s buried because my brother knows I’m going to piss on his grave if I ever find out.

  23. When I was 18 he was the dumbest man I knew. I went over seas for a few years and when I came home I couldn’t figure out how he got so smart. Miss him.

  24. Well, for me, I really had a renewed appreciation for him after I had kids.

    I told him one day, I said, “You know, dad, it’s crazy. I look at my daughter and I’m just so overwhelmed with how much I love her and how I’d do anything for her. And I realized you felt like that about me, too.”

    And without skipping a beat he goes, “I still do.”

    And I thought, holy shit. I “knew” my dad loved me, but until I experienced the love a father has for his kids within me, I realized I had no idea.

    I was blown away that someone could love me the way I love my kids. It was profound for me, and changed a lot of things.

  28. Genuine respect. Was love and admiration. not that those have diminished but now as a father and old man I have such respect for all the things he made look easy.

  29. My dad and I never had a great relationship but as I grew older I forgave him for the things he had done that weren’t good. I respect the fact that there was always a roof over our heads, food on the table, and basic necessities were more than met. As for the things he did to my mom, I decided that it was between them to work it out.

  30. I realized he’s not a great husband. I have personal complaints about my mom, but comparing the two as marriage partners to the other, she wins 100/100 times.

  31. I realized he’s a flawed man that did the best he could under his conditions at the time. The traumas he passed on to me are traumas he himself suffered. I can be a better man and end those traumas with myself. If I have children, they will not inherit the traumas of my father.

    Deep respect for my father has only increased as I’ve gotten older. I need to visit the old man a lot more. A lot of his faults were undeservingly thrust upon him, and despite them, he did a better job with me, than his father did with him.

  32. In my case I liked my dad, he was supportive, understanding, let me make mistakes, creative, and more of a guide than a authority figure (he did that when he absolutely had too, and believe me i did a good job of testing that boundary).

    Parents had me when they were 40.

    My relationship with him now? Hes more of a friend and sometimes guide when i need it, he supports me in my endeavors and i help him out with yard work and stuff. At this point in their lives i buy gifts that are quality of life upgrades like a roomba vaccum and stuff. I appreciate him not being an absolute fuck head and being close while giving me space to learn to be myself.

  33. Learned to respect him far more after being an adult. He worked hard to support 4 kids by himself and to provide us with a ever increasing lifestyle.

    I’ll admit, I was an ungrateful little shit and I tell him that frequently.

  34. My dad is the hardest person I’ve ever seen. Also his sarcasm kills me. Damn its so good.

  35. As a kid I was brought up in a strict family oriented household and feared him. Growing up realised he was an abusive asshole to me, my siblings and my mother and reached breaking point when he punched my mum straight in the chest and nearly caused her a heart attack. At that point lost all respect, stood up to the cunt and we haven’t spoken since. He walked out on us a few months after, made attempts to come back and keep a relationship but we knew it wasn’t genuine and he hadn’t changed.

  37. My father was a small business owner, and through my teens, he would work 6 days a week in the office and then do some work from the kitchen table on Sundays. I always thought this was an example of a great work ethic and something to aspire to.

    Then he suffered a stroke and heart attack and lived out the last few years of his life largely just watching TV at home.

    I’ve since realized that there is more to life than being professionally successful “at any cost.” He had always talked about a big family vacation, but the timing was “never right.” He sacrificed enjoyment of life for the next payout.

  38. When I was young I loved him, as I turned into an older child it was ”your dad was abusive, you should hate him” and when I misbehaved it was ”don’t be like your dad” so I grew to hate him. As I turned to my mid 20’s and was invited to meet him, I was hesitant and was afraid to.

    Then it turns out we are exactly alike in so many ways and we got along fantastically – then he died in 2022.

  39. I’ve grown to truly appreciate how he took me with my mom and has never once treated me as less his son than my brothers despite that I’m not biologically his and my brothers are.
    We share an interest in cars and I remember being 25, having just spent a weekend out of state at a car show weekend with him when I remembered that his own dad died when he was 25 and that I really need to appreciate these times because he never got to have them.

  40. For some context my parent split when I was a kid and he ended up dying when I was 11

    When I was a kid he was my hero and I always tried to be like him, everyone loved him, he was always the center of attention at family gatherings, my friends thought he was cool because he was big and strong (he would pick us up and throw us around, he was basically a jungle gym). Also no one was funnier than my dad so a lot of my comedy was me trying to mimic him.

    As I grew older I realized he had a lot of issues looking back, he had a drug addiction, severe mental health problems, attempted to take his own life, and he wasnt the perfect father I thought he was.

    That being said, he was my dad, and ill always miss him.

    Now I still try to model myself after his ideal parts, I like to think I have his same humour and prescence, and ill use the lessons I’ve learned from him and try to be better.

  41. My mother always said really bad things about my father. As I got older I eventually figured out that she was a men (and boy) hating feminist. My father was a pretty good dude and had struggled hard to take care of us despite mother’s hate and irresponsibility.

  42. From being an unbreakable hero who could do everything, to being a man, with all the weaknesses and flaws that men like us have – who somehow managed to do everything. Seeing him age has been rough (health related reasons) but it makes me be in awe of how despite his health issues he has managed to do everything he has. I don’t think I could have done half the shit he has, including raising me and my sister, had I been in his shoes. He’s the best person I’ve met.

  43. My parents divorced when I was 5. My mother got custody but my father got visitation rights. Between the lines from the stories they’ve both told me, they were fairly reasonable once the split began. No one suffered financially and they didn’t have to discuss me for very long.

    When I was a kid I really missed having him around. Everyone else had their dads, and realistically I could always call my dad, but it’s not the same thing as having him around. I also knew that he’d been in multiple marriages and had several kids in each of them, so I wasn’t going to be the sole focus like I was with my mother, to whom I am an only child. This never really bothered me as a child or a teenager.

    As a teenager I wanted him to be proud of me, so I always shared new experiences in life and made sure to send him the music I made and he was very supportive. As far as I know, he never even had an on time child support payment, they were always early. I got to see him for extended lengths of time a couple of times a year, roughly coming out to about two months a year. He always kept up with what was going on with me and helped where he could.

    Once I got a little older though, I realized more and more that his current family was closer to him, both in a physical and emotional sense. All his other kids had grown up, these children and grandchildren hadn’t. They were his focus. I never got that chance. I don’t hold any ire for him or my mother for how things went down, but it does certainly still pull a bit that I never got that “dad” experience.

    So my opinion *of him* has remained pretty stout throughout the years. He’s my dad, he isn’t perfect, and I love him. My opinion of *the situation* has changed from not understanding, to longing, to acceptance, to longing, to understanding.

  44. 0 – 5 – this guy is the best, but I wish he didn’t hit me and yell at me so much.

    6 – 13 – I don’t like being around this guy but at least he is usually at work. His outbursts of anger can be pretty scary, but we have some rare nice moments.

    14 – 17 – this guy is a massive bully and an asshole, I can’t wait to move out of this house. I make a promise to myself to never be like him when I get older.

    18 – 30 – finally free – I only have to see this guy on holidays and random visits. He is okay in small doses and does nice things occasionally, but anything more than a day or two and he goes back to being the old asshole I grew up with. I am envious of my friends who have parents that are normal and actually care about them.

    30 – present – this guy very likely has narcissistic personality disorder and has suffered with his mental health his whole life. He clearly has no idea how to have close relationships with people. I think he wants to be able to have real relationships and seems depressed about it, but it doesn’t make him any more capable of empathy or make him any easier to be around. I feel sorry for him, but there isn’t much I can do for him. I try to call every now and then and listen to him brag about how brilliant he is or how he dominated someone at work.. I think it cheers him up that one of his kids still calls him, but this is pretty much my limit of what I am willing to do. It makes me feel sad he is probably messed up from how his dad raised him and I am now messed up from how he raised me, but at least I’m in therapy trying to sort it out.

  45. He was really abusive to my brother and I growing up. Like horrifically so and the police and courts got involved. I was petrified of him as a kid, hated him as a teenager, and now that I’m an adult, I’ve leaned more towards forgiveness and accepting his apologies and working towards a relationship with him. He came to my wedding, we see each other and talk occasionally, and while I doubt we will ever be close, it has been somewhat healing for me as well.

  46. 0-12 Yay Dad

    13-18 OK Dad you’re a bit strange and cringe

    19 – 25 Please stop doing drugs

    26 – Now – Drugs have destroyed your mind, I no longer wish to speak with you and you will not see my daughter.

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