• thefartographer@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    I appreciate you sharing that. My father certainly wasn’t one of those “man’s men” and certainly had no bias on gender boundaries, mostly because of how pragmatic he was, but also because of behaviors he chose to not emulate from his father.

    He also used to beat the shit out of me because his father beat the shit out of him and it’s really hard to break that cycle. I’ve chosen not to have kids because he and I once discussed (after my first legitimate suicide attempt) the fact that he never wanted to be “that” father and he didn’t know what happened. He even opened up how much it scared him the first time he threw me down a short flight of steps into the wall of a hallway in our house.

    I have no crystal ball to explore what-ifs for any of us, but I imagine your father walking out on you was the most positive choice he made in his entire life. I appreciate you for the man you’ve become as a result.

    • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
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      8 months ago

      Hey thanks, I appreciate that, and it sounds like you are too. I can’t understand those demons, but I wish you the best of luck in finding them. Funny enough, I’m choosing not to have kids took, but for other reasons.

      Beat the generational cycle, however you see fit. The problems of our fathers don’t need to continue

    • LallyLuckFarm@beehaw.org
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      8 months ago

      @scrubbles

      Growing up had a lot of careful navigation between “what are you smiling about” and “I’ll give you something to cry about” and a ton of unhealthy emotional suppression to boot. It takes so much effort to escape those trajectories.

      I’m proud of both of you and really hope you feel that way about yourselves.