8 Reasons Why Our Relationships With Our Fathers Are Not Important

1. Your father was the first man to ever leave your life.

He taught you some important lessons with doing this. He taught you not to trust so easily, and also to not expect that just because people are your flesh and blood, does not mean that they will be there for you.

2. A father’s lack of love teaches us independence and to love ourselves.

If your own father doesn’t love you, then who will? You. That’s who. You can’t depend on anyone else to love you. Love yourself because you deserve it. Love yourself because you can’t love anyone else until you do. This is an important element on the path to independence.

3. Fathers will always put a dampener on our dreams.

He isn’t there to egg you on, he’s not there to give you encouragement when you need it most, he won’t be there listening to you confess your hopes and dreams. But it’s important to keep our passion for those dreams alive. But due to his absence or disregard for your dreams, that will just spur you on further to achieve them. You want to show the world you can do anything, and you don’t need anyone’s help to get there. GO GET ‘EM.

4. Your father is the only one who never accepted you, even when his approval was the only one you wanted.

You’ve stomped your feet and thrown tantrum after tantrum to get his attention. You’ve even taken drastic measures to see if there’s any limit he reaches until he finally gives in and treats you like an actual daughter like you’ve always hoped. Turns out, there isn’t, and if there is it’s fleeting. Stop trying to get approval from someone who doesn’t care. Turn to your mother, or your best friend. Hell, turn to everyone else who gives a shit about you, he’s not worth the wait, nor the time.

5. Your father never saw you grow up, and knows you the least out of anyone.

He doesn’t know what age you were when you lost your first tooth, he never held you when you cried over the first person you fell in love with and he doesn’t even know what your favorite comfort food is. Do you really want someone in your life who has no knowledge of your being whatsoever, and has no intention of doing so? This might be a hard truth, but the quicker it’s understood and accepted the faster you can move on to better things and better people.

6. An absent or emotionally absent father will never be there for you when times get tough.

For me personally, this was pretty difficult to deal with. I was never taught how important communication was and I was never really allowed to voice my opinions or my emotions to him, when I did so, I got nothing in return. This is funny as he’s a psychiatrist his entire job is centred round talking about feelings and problems with emotionally vulnerable people.

7. A father won’t show you affection. Full stop.

And that’s okay. That’s what your friends are for, the best thing about friends is they have no family ties to you and still want to hang out and hear about your day and hold you when you cry and will tell you when to pull up your socks and stand up tall. Friends are basically chosen family, which is pretty awesome. Also it’s guaranteed that at least one of your friends also has a shitty or absent father, so you can both share your ‘who has the worst father’ stories. Turn it into a game.

8. Lack of having a father will make you a great parent.
You’ve unfortunately witnessed firsthand how crappy growing up with a missing or reluctant parent (or even both) was. You don’t want your children to experience what you had to go through. You’ll do whatever it takes to insure your kids have the greatest childhood, and you have no one to thank for that but yourself.