(apologies, this is quite long and rambling)
Hi all, not really expecting much advice here, just have been meaning for a while to write down my annoyances about my distant dad because they just seem to bother me more and more these days.
I read a lot on MN about crap fathers and they often sound old and doddery or just like they never gave a shit in the first place and what annoys me about mine is that he isn't old, doddery and did seem to care when I was a child. He's still pretty active and works but the older me and my DBs have got, the less interested in us he's become. What is really stark is how little he cares about my DC, which is particularly obvious given how much their other grandparents care about them. I should say that DM and DF divorced many years ago. So DM is a typical doting GP, as are the inlaws, and yet my DF barely knows the DCs and they definitely don't know who he is.
That's all his choice of course, but it's just a bit weird because he is so enthusiastic the couple of times a year we get together and I remember him being really enthusiastic when I was a child and teenager. You'd think that this is the sort of thing that would bother me less as I get older but it bothers me more, I think because having DC has made me remember my own childhood and think, hey, how come dad (and to a lesser extent mum) care more about me? I love my children so much, I would happily do absolutely anything if it made them happy, yet I think back to examples from childhood and think, OK, they seemed to mean well most of the time, but couldn't they have shown a bit more interest in me? I had some pretty unhappy teenage years, on the whole.
I guess there are just some fathers who claim to care and to love you, but just aren't really capable of putting those words into practice because they're too wrapped up in their own lives? It just seems astonishing to me as a mum myself now that any parent wouldn't want to walk through coals for their children in the way that I do now. Or maybe my dad felt like that when I was a toddler but slowly lost interest.
I think I might be projecting anything that isn't perfect in my life currently on him. Like, if anything goes wrong at work I think about how my job isn't perfect, then think about if only my childhood had been more normal I might have done better in life and then gone on to get a better job and it's all his fault for not being around more. I did want to try a therapist to get this all off my chest but we have just very suddenly run into some big unexpected building costs sorting out the kitchen which is falling apart, so we can't really afford it at the moment.
So there you go. I guess it would be interesting to hear if anyone else has a father who is a nice person and even entertaining to be around, but ultimately doesn't seem to show the sort of paternal concerns you might expect from a dad and who forgets you exist for the 3-6 months of the year you don't see each other for.