Incoming much-too-long Father's Day thread coming. Pre-emptive TLDR: being a dad is great in ways I wouldn't have expected it to be lol

Anyone who’s known me for a while knows that Father’s Day isn’t my thing. Since I was in middle school, it’s been a day for me to thank my Mom for being awesome, and then to try to not think about my Dad. That’s been the case even since I’ve had my own kids—it’s not a day I like

I was born to a man who was a great father for the first decade or so of my life, who was then subsumed by alcoholism. I didn’t forgive him then and I don’t forgive him now for the emotional and financial havoc he wreaked on my mother, my brother, and myself.

My dad killed himself when I was in college. This was less than a week before an appointment we had with a therapist to try and start the process of mending our relationship.

In the decade-plus since, I’ve come to better understand the demons in his life, and the way he was shaped by shame and pain at having grown up a closeted gay man in a Catholic Italian family.

It was not my goal to become a father myself—for a long time my goal was the opposite. But it was clear to me early in my relationship with my wife that I wanted to see her be a mother, and I wanted to raise a family with her, one not touched by the pain we had both grown up with

That desire, I thought, was only about our children. I hoped that I could raise kids who were secure in both their parents’ presence and love—but that was something I wanted for them, not me.

I focused on checking things off lists: I went to every doctor’s appointment with Shar while she was pregnant. I was there when Vincent and Maya were born. I stayed home with them all day the first two years of their life until they could start preschool.

I went to every game, I volunteered as a coach, I signed up to be the Room Parent this year for Vincent’s 1st grade class. I have never missed a doctor’s appointment for either one of them.

I’ve fought hard to keep a career that allows me the flexibility to drop them off at school every day and to be there for big events or holiday celebrations with their classes, and allows them to come to my job with me when they miss me.

I’ve never drunk or gotten drunk, because (like my dad) I’m someone who gets addicted to things easily—and I didn’t want to risk losing myself.

To an extent, I did those things for myself, to prove that I wasn’t my Dad. When Shar was pregnant, I kept wishing I could talk to him, to ask when things changed. When love stopped being enough to hold the demons at bay. I worried (daily) that the same thing would happen to me

The truth is: I’m not worried about it anymore. The moment I held Vincent for the first time, it was like someone turned a key in my head and all those anxieties and fears just kind of…vented out and faded into the air.

Looking at my little boy, who’d been in the world for only a few minutes, it was clear: it’s not about me. It’s not about my hurt, or my pain, or my fears. It’s about him, and it’s about Maya.

I continue to check things off my fatherhood to-do list, because it makes me happy. But my kids are six and four years old, and I’m smiling in every picture they’ve ever drawn of us. I’m only a monster to them when that’s the game they want to play for the night.

I keep a few of those pictures on my desk to remind me that whatever else happens in my life or at my job, I’ve already met the only goal worth having: being a good dad to my children, being a good husband to my wife.

My goal as a father was to break the cycle and raise kids who didn’t grow up with the pain that I had. What I never guessed was that doing so would allow me to let go of my pain as well—in fact, would force me to. Father’s Day isn’t about looking at myself or my hurt anymore.

Who gives a shit about me, or my pain? I don’t. Today and every other day is about looking at my beautiful, happy children, and asking them: “What do you guys want to do today?”

Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there figuring it out for themselves. I really believe we can change the world by breaking bad cycles and raising strong, healthy kids. Love all of you guys.