I lied in my last essay
I recently published an essay titled “Dad Doubts.” While every fact in it was true, it left out the most critical part of the story.
If you read that piece, it made me sound like a great dad who effortlessly raised four happy, successful college graduates. The second part of that sentence is absolutely true. The "great dad" part? Not so much.
I felt a pang of guilt after it went live because I gave the impression of a perfect father who just happened to have one tough conversation with his son. The truth is much heavier. I want my writing to be authentic, and to do that, I need to clear the air.
The doubts I carry didn't start recently. They started when I was thirteen years old.
That was the year my older brother Robert—my idol—was murdered in the inner city of Detroit where we lived. It was a white boy who shot him. I mention that explicitly because when people think of crime in the Detroit ghetto of that era, a specific stereotype often comes to mind. Crime has no color, but it leaves the same hollow wreckage behind.
When I heard the news, I didn’t cry. I couldn't. I just went into my room and closed the door. My mind and body silently decided to go on a long, solitary walkabout.
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Before the shooting, I was the top student in my school. Afterward, I gave up on academics entirely. I didn't become one of the cool, social stoners; instead, I used drugs and alcohol to push the world away in total isolation. That quiet, solitary depression followed me deep into my thirties.
When I was dating the woman who would become my wife, I told her flat out that I did not want children. I was terrified of passing on the curse of depression.
But one year into our marriage, she told me she was pregnant. I was pushed headfirst into a role I felt entirely unprepared to play. As it turned out, fatherhood became the best thing that ever happened to me—but that is a story for another day.
We had four boys, born just a year apart.
Even with a beautiful family, the depression and social anxiety didn’t just vanish. I wasn't the doting, high-energy father who coached the sports leagues or took the boys to every game. The most my kids ever survived in organized sports was a single year.
I did my absolute best to keep the darkness away from them, but kids are sharp. They knew there were times when Dad had to retreat into his bedroom. Sometimes for hours. Sometimes for days.
Because of my own derailed youth, I never learned how to fix things around the house or work on a car, so I couldn't teach my sons those traditional "manly" skills. There were parent-teacher conferences I missed entirely, simply because the anxiety and depression locked me in place.
I loved my boys fiercely, and they always knew it. But I have carried a lifetime of guilt believing I failed to teach them the things a man should know.
Looking back at "Dad Doubts," I realize the anxiety I felt during that recent conversation with my son Alex wasn't an isolated incident. It was the bubbling up of decades of self-doubt.
Phew... I feel lighter getting this off my chest. If I’m going to invite you along on my journey through these stories, I owe you the unvarnished truth.
