Confrontation

I confronted my dad tonight. I pretty much recited the post I made last night. There was some fighting, but now we are cool.

You have to confront what you fear and what angers you in order to get past it.

Back story

I have a lot on my mind. In order to give context to any one reading this. I suppose I need to establish where I started, where I have been, and where I am today.

My parent's were together until my mom died when I was 11 (four days from turning 12). My dad wasn't around that much, so my mom did most of the parenting of my sister and I. I remember her being a good mom. She was involved in our lives. She kept us busy with extra curricular activities, made sure we ate right and played outside. She gave us gifts when we did well, and punished us firmly but fairly when we didn't. I remember my mom being awesome. I miss her. 

I remember my parent's fighting a lot. I remember a lot of fights, but can only remember the details of a few. At some point in every fight, I always remember yelling at my mom in defense of my dad. I can't remember why. I also remember that a majority of these fights ended with my dad and I leaving. Those were some of the only times that I remember my dad paying attention to me. 

When my parent's did get along, they liked to party. I don't really remember them being irresponsible about it. They would leave us with a good baby sitter and go out for the night. I remember one New Years Eve, I was awake when they came home. They were both a little drunk, but happy. It is a fond memory. They would smoke weed in their bedroom. In the rare occasion when I would walk in while they were doing it, they would tell me that they were "filter-less cigarettes". It wasn't until I was older and discovered that smell was weed that I knew what it was. 

Mom got sick sometime in the middle of '93. She was diagnosed with cancer that September, and died on December 31st at 3:03 am. Dad stayed home during that time. He stayed home after she died too. He drank and did lots of hard drugs. My sister spent a lot of her time at friend's houses. I stayed at home and did my best to keep things up. When laundry needed doing, I did it. When the dishes needed cleaning, I did them. The house was far from clean though. It was left up to a 12 year old boy. 

I remember mom pretty much warning us to stay out of dad's way. He never beat me, but threatened to many times. He had a bad temper. The smallest things would set him off. It just got worse after mom died. I remember one time when my sister and I got into a fight. I threw a metal piece from an Erector Set at her and hit her in the face. She ran off to tell dad. The next thing I knew, he was throwing her down on the living room floor and kicking her. I remember running over to stop him. He told me that was the last thing I was ever going to do. He never laid a hand on me though. 

One night, I woke up and he was gone. Some of his friends were staying at our house. I tried to wake them up to find out where he had gone. They wouldn't wake up. I called my grandpa to tell him. I was scared. He told me he would come over. At some point, dad's friends woke up. I can't remember if it was when grandpa got there, or a little before that. Maybe dad got there before grandpa did. I can't remember. I just remember being made to feel like calling grandpa was a bad idea. 

Shortly after that, dad went to rehab. My grandparents moved in with us during that time. Dad was only in rehab for a little over a week. When he came home, things got better. He started dating our next door neighbor and married her not too long after that.

After that, things got better and stayed fairly stable. Dad still had a temper, but kept it under control for the most part. He got a stable job, and worked hard to make sure we had nice things. He was never really good at teaching or giving advice though. If I had to describe his parenting style, I would have to sum it up as "laissez-faire". He always "supported" what we wanted to do, but never really did much to encourage us or offer guidance. 

My dad is really good at three things. Music, golf, and building things. He is a masterful pianist/keyboardist, an excellent golfer, and a genius when it comes to designing and building a structure. I tried to bond with him in all three areas but it never really worked. I remember asking him if he could teach me how to play the piano. He told me I was better off finding someone else to teach me. He bought me a set of golf clubs and signed me up for golf lessons, but only invited me out to golf with him a handful of times. I'd say building things was where we came closest to actually bonding. 

When I was in my early 20s, he offered me a job at his construction company. I started off as a print boy, and started taking classes for estimating. I sucked at it. It was either that or I was too busy partying to care. Probably the latter. He should have fired me, but I think the guilt for everything he had done in the past prevented him from doing so. It wasn't until I found out that I was going to be a father that I finally woke up and started taking my job seriously. Around that time, the economy crashed, and the company went out of business. 

My son changed my life. I went from a hardcore party boy to model father nearly overnight. My unemployment meant that I got to spend the first six months staying home and taking care of my son. I started going to school for IT at night. My son's mom had a hard time with it though. She wanted to be a stay at home mom, but she had to work full time so we could make ends meet. Things got pretty bad, and we split up when our son was only 6 months old. A couple of months later, I finally got a job. I took care of my son, and saw him on a regular basis. Things have been far from perfect, but over time they have gotten less chaotic. 

This brings me to now. I have been at the same company for nearly 3 years. I have a house that I kinda fell into. Its about an hour away from work, and about an hour and a half away from my son and his mom. I hate the location, but it is mine. I have had a pretty good routine going. My parents live close to my son's mom. For the past few years, I have stayed at their house with my son every other weekend. My step mom did a lot to help. She would pick him up from school so that he was at their house when I arrived. There were times when I felt like we were a burden. Anytime I would mention this, my step mom would get upset and swear that wasn't the case. I offered many times to make other arrangements, but my parents insisted that we were welcome. 

That was until last weekend. 

My son is three. And like any three year old, he has temper tantrums. I always deal with them by remaining calm and sticking to my guns. I know that I can't give in to his demands of having candy before dinner, or refusing to clean up his toys. I refuse to yell at him though. It doesn't fix anything, and I don't want him to fear me like I feared my dad when I was young. Last weekend, my son was having one of his tantrums. I was dealing with it, and my dad just started yelling at him. I asked him to stop, and he left the house. I took Thor upstairs to our room to calm him down. In the middle of it, I started crying. All of the memories of my childhood came flooding back. There we were, a 3 year old boy and a 30 year old man bawling our eyes out. My son, while crying, kept saying "Be happy daddy." We finally calmed down. 

The Tuesday after that, it happened again. I went to my parent's house after work. Shortly after I arrived, Thor started one of his tantrums. Seconds after it started, my dad started yelling at him again. I told him to stop. Dad said that I was not allowed to let my son act like that in their house. I took my son upstairs and calmed him down. We gathered our things and left. I took him to his moms house and got him situated. 

I went back to my parent's house to talk with them. I tried to explain to my dad that I didn't want to yell at my son the way he yelled at me. That it had taken me years to realize that losing your temper and yelling, especially at children, solves nothing. He disagreed. I tried to say more, but he told me to leave. 

The next day, I emailed my step mom to let her know that I didn't need her to get my son from school anymore and that I was going to start keeping Thor at my house. The same day, I got an email from dad telling me to get the rest of our things from their house. I have spoken to him a couple of times since then. We haven't talked about all of this yet. 

My son's mom has decided that I can't keep our son at my house. She sites the fact that I live so far away, and that I have roommates as the reasons. She wants me to sleep in her basement on the weekends that I have him. I am not going to do this. I haven't told her yet. I am supposed to have my son this weekend. 

In short, I am stressed.