Judgement Day

As his son prepares to fly the nest, one man takes a clear-eyed look at his performance as a father. Did he pass the most important exam you will sit?

- Daniel Williams

Way back, when I was the one leaving home, I looked up from the driveway to the verandah at my farewell party of two. My mum was crying, while my dad looked annoyed. I think he felt I’d failed to lend the occasion its proper gravitas. And he was right. I’d marched out of there as though I were off to buy milk. Where were the solemn words of gratitude? Too young and foolish to know better, I’d blown the moment.

Thirty years on it’s my son – my first-born – who is about to fly the coop. It isn’t like I won’t see him anymore. He’s going all the way to the next suburb with his fiancée. But this is still the end of something. And with my crack at the daily fathering of my boy winding up, I’ve been thinking about how I did.

Well, let’s see. I didn’t stumble in drunk every night, or any night. I never forgot his birthday, swiped his pocket money or made a lunge at one of his girlfriends. So I probably don’t qualify as a train-wreck of a dad.

If you’re like me, however, you will have set the bar higher than out-fathering Thomas Markle. Good move. Because experts are increasingly tracing children’s prospects for long-term well-being to the father’s influence. According to Darrell Brown, author of Raised By Our Childhood Voices: One Father’s Journey to Raise Confident, Connected, Compassionate Boys, sons who miss out on the validation they need from their dad develop something called a “father wound”. Clinicians who’ve worked with thousands of men, Brown tells me, say that if you walk into any psychiatrist’s office, nine times out of 10 the root cause of the presenting problem is a father wound.

Have I inflicted one of those? Time for a lightning review of a 26-year relationship.