I don't want "the world's best dad"

I posted once and then deleted it. Because the gratitude I feel swelling in my chest doesn’t come from having “the world’s best dad,” and the warm fuzzies of safety and connection don’t come from being married to “the best father I could imagine for my kids.” Those feelings don’t come from oft repeated platitudes or simplified and one dimensional narratives of “good men,” but from being gifted hard won treasures from men willing to dig in the dirt of wounded souls. It feels rarer to watch a father who allows himself to be seen as human than to have a “good role model”. It feels more precious to hear a genuine “I’m sorry,” or “I was wrong,” than to have a husband “above reproach”. It feels safer to have a father who hears and believes your experience of your relationship, your family and your world, knowing it may be different than his own, than a father who “teaches” you what that relationship and family and world is or should be based on what he has seen. I will take humility and growth and humanity over “the world’s best dad,” any day of the week.

So here’s to fathers who tell the truth and let the truth be told. To fathers who hear well. To fathers who make amends and pursue the heavy and humbling process of repair. Who know what they don’t know. Who look for a world that’s bigger than the worldview they’ve been given. To fathers whose children don’t have to use harm done to their father as justification for the harm passed on to them.

Here’s to them. I feel grateful to have experienced them, grieved for those who have not and hopeful that it’s never too late for any man to be counted among them.