13JUL23 | ON PARENTING

 

I was an infinitely better parent when my

children were young; from day one I was

hands on, supporting the mother, cooking

cleaning, changing the first diaper and the

 

thousands that came after; being a father

came naturally, instinctively; it seemed to

have been a role I was born to play and I

did it with such fervor and purpose; when

 

the mother of my oldest child (and only

son) went back to work, I would take him

to one of Valencia's many municipal markets

to buy a banana to mash into a sweet purée; 

 

we would spend hours together in the park

or strolling through the city center, stopping

at cafés, boutiques or, on hot summer days,

cooling off in the cafeteria on the top floor

 

of the Corte Inglés; and when my daughters

were born it was the same, I worked part-time

to be there so their mothers could go back to

work and pursue their professional ambitions;

 

it wasn't always easy, but those years were the

most precious of my life and I wouldn't trade

them for anything in the world; but it looks like

I was a much better parent than I was a father;

 

my paternal instincts were keen and focussed on

making sure my children were safe, healthy and

well adjusted; I've dedicated the better part of the

last 25 years to raising five children, sacrificing––

 

as any parent would do––my own ambitions and

desires so that my children would have a father

dedicated to their welfare and wellbeing so there

would never be any shadow of doubt that I was

 

nothing less than a capable, loving and present

father, putting my children's needs well before

those of my own, ensuring that the unconditional

love and adoration I bestowed upon them was

 

never questioned or doubted; but as my children

got older, I became less and less relevant, I was no

longer the center of their universe which, naturally,

I never really was; and when my first marriage came

 

to end and I chose to move away, I realized I had

become like the father who had abandoned me when

I was barely a month old; but I kept telling myself it

was different now, that I had been there for them in

 

those all-important first years of their lives and that

my moving away would present many wonderful and

unique opportunities for them and for us as a family;

but those novelties soon wore off and the distance,

 

while physically not far, grew into an immeasurable

chasm of indifference and disillusionment and, three

years ago, the one relationship I would have bet my

life on as having been infallible, the one between my

 

son and I, collapsed and has yet to be restored and I

fear it never will; then, more than six months ago, on 

a fairly average Saturday morning in mid December,

following a heated exchange between her mother and

 

me, my third eldest, in a contemptuous display of

disdain, turned her back and hasn't spoken a word

to me since; so, that's where things stand and I have

come to accept it as it is, I have taken my brunt of the

 

blows and walked off the pain and have, at least for now,

resigned myself to the idea that perhaps I was only a

good father up until the moment when I simply wasn't

any longer; and I know that as the years go by and the

 

sadness wanes, I will try to look back and find that one

moment in time when I seemed to have lost the ability

to connect with my children on that higher plane where

my role as their father morphed into some unknown

 

disfigured anomaly and I became the kind of father I

swore I would never become, a father like him, a father

unlike the father who raised me who was a good man,

a good father who was always there, present and loving