'The one thing that changed my relationship with my father'

by JANE COPELAND

The relationship between my dad and I has always been thorny. In fact if I am honest, I would say I have spent most of my life almost hating him. I say ‘almost’ because if I had actually hated him, I wouldn’t have felt the angst I did over what I perceived to be an incredibly poor relationship.

As a young girl I felt my father wasn’t there for me. The encouragement I yearned for was absent, the affection non existent. We had few direct conversations and spent little time together. Only once did I see him show what I deemed to be real emotion and that was when, in the last year of high school I decided to leave my private school and switch to public, he cried.

I would jealously watched my friends with their fathers, putting the sum of their experiences on a pedestal. I dreamed of outings with my father where he laughed and cuddled with me. My anger that this was not my reality had the momentum of a building wave, crashing down on me as I drowned in a sea of resentment.

If you ask my family, they will tell you that my father and I got on badly because we were so alike. Naturally I could not see this fact, and recoiled with horror every time it was brought to my attention, which was often.

The foundations of the unsavory dossier I had created over the years, held the resulting emotional barrier in place. The distance between us grew so great, that as teenager and as a twenty-something year old, if my dad had to pick me up from somewhere, I dreaded it. I felt self conscious driving in a car with just him, and awkward being left alone in the same room. There really was no relationship.

I chatted regularly to my mum about my dad’s poor parenting.  Mum would say that he was a good father, and that he was doing his best by working hard, so that I could have a better life than he had – good education, holidays, and extra curricular activities. Yes, yes mum I know that, but what about having some sort of dialogue with his daughter?

I would say, ‘Why doesn’t he ever hug me?’ and Mum would reply “You can hug him if you want”. My response was always the same, ‘He’s the parent isn’t he?’

At some point in my late teens I had seen a psychologist for an unrelated matter. She’d ask me about my family and I told her about my relationship with my dad. She replied by offering the following suggestion, ‘Don’t give up hope. Wait until you have a baby. Chances are there will be a different dynamic. It could give your dad a new lease on life, a second chance if you like’. What an odd idea I thought. It didn’t make much sense to me and I told her I had given up loving my dad. For good.

Twenty years later her words came back to echo in my ears – my dad transformed right in front of me. Nobody saw it coming and it was quite a shock to all who knew him. His whole demeanor changed and you could see it written all over his face – weathered lines softened to smooth hills. The man with the tough exterior vanished, and instead a big, cooing softie was revealed.

Watching my dad with his first grandchild, my son, is the most uncensored emotional outpouring I have ever seen. He is very over the top in every sense. He plays with him, takes him for walks, feeds him, and showers him with affection and care. He even takes him to the Baby Bounce class at the library.

Becoming a parent has made me see the person my dad was and is. As a parent I feel the stress of worrying about building the best life possible for your child. It’s not easy. You worry. You need to work hard. You are busy.

Quite naturally, yet still a little shocking to me, the dynamic between my dad and I is changing. Why, I can’t say for certain. Perhaps it is because Elliott (my son) has enabled us to see sides of each other that were previously out of reach. Organically a relationship is being established as the former barriers melt away.

Twenty years ago the psychologist had been correct, but not about my dad. It was me who would be given the second chance. I’ve been given the opportunity to open my eyes and see a man that in trying circumstances has never wavered or dropped the ball. Instead he has, in his own way, showed enormous love for his family and daughter over and over again.

It took a long time for me to figure out that my dad is really a big softy. It’s not just about how he is with Elliott, but rather the type of person he is and how he treats people.

Elliott’s middle name is Jack, my dad’s name. Our relationship was estranged when I chose it. Maybe when the psychologist had said not to give up hope, I didn’t. Perhaps what she said went straight to my heart and was the lifeboat I needed to cling to.

At the age of thirty-seven there was a profound change for me. Yes I gave birth to a baby, but a new relationship was also born.

Jane is the founder of www.copingwithjane.com and you can find her on Twitter here.