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David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

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Loving father’s pride in daughter easily bridges our language gap

By David McElroy · June 6, 2018

When I pulled into my driveway this evening, I had to be careful to avoid getting in the way of a softball. The man next door was outside with his daughter again. The little girl is around 8 or 9 years old and he was throwing balls high into the air for her to practice catching fly balls.

“Great catch!” I called to her as she got to a difficult ball just in time. Then I asked her dad — jokingly — if she’s going to be a softball star.

“She already is,” he said as he beamed with pride. “She plays on the community team and they’ve been winning tournaments. They won in Tuscaloosa next weekend. If they win one more, they go to the state tournament.”

I don’t know this family well, but we always wave and say hello. They’re originally from somewhere in Latin America and the parents’ accented English is sometimes difficult for me to understand.

This evening, though, I didn’t have any trouble understanding. He was a loving father whose pride in his little girl was unmistakable. His love for his daughter transcended our language gap.

I constantly see this man spending time with that little girl. The mother is there, too, and she spends a lot of time with the girl, but there’s something noteworthy about this father’s dedication. Maybe it’s just that I see so many fathers who only grudgingly spend time with their daughters instead.

For a lot of fathers, children are a source of ego-satisfaction and little more. Those fathers love being the one who their children are eager to see when they’ve been away. This sort of father doesn’t really want to spend a lot of time with the child, patiently teaching and nurturing. That sort just wants to bask in the warm glow of being wanted.

If you see scenes from a relationship between such a father and daughter, you might even think you’re witnessing something healthy. The needy child is eager to see the father who has been so emotionally absent — and the father is happy in that moment to be wanted and needed. That sort of man wants those moments of joyful adoration, but he’s not interested in taking care of the simple everyday needs of his children. (Or his wife, for that matter.)

That’s not love. That’s a narcissist looking for what’s called “narcissistic supply.”

What I see from my neighbors is different. I never see him scream at his daughter. I never see him telling her she’s no good or that she’s doing everything wrong. I just see him patiently showing her how to do things right.

I’ve watched them having batting practice in the back yard. Whether she’s hitting the ball or she’s missing everything, he’s smiling and teaching her how to do better, but in a way that makes her relaxed and happy.

I’ve watched her help him wash their cars. He shows her how it’s done and picks her up when she can’t reach a spot on her own. She doesn’t do a great job — she’s a child, after all — and he simply fixes what she didn’t do well enough. And the time they spend doing it seems happy, not like work.

I’ve watched him teach her what he’s doing as he assembled an above-ground swimming pool for her. She seemed to want to know how it all worked. He didn’t brush her questions aside. He patiently explained — and made it fun for her.

I’m envious of what he has with that little girl.

I know that good father-child relationships are common — maybe not as common as they should be, but still pretty routine. It’s just that he has something I don’t have. He has something which I want very much.

There are few things in this world which are as exciting and potentially world-changing as raising emotionally healthy children. Almost anybody can produce offspring, but far fewer are emotionally mature enough to manage their own needs and wants and demons well enough to give their children the start they need in life.

I’ve always known I wanted children, but for many years I was afraid to have kids, because I was afraid I would be too much like my narcissistic father. Both of my parents came from dysfunctional families. I was determined not to continue their unhealthy psychological patterns.

I finally know I’m emotionally healthy enough to give children what they need — and I’m eager to have that sort of relationship. I always know that intellectually, but there are certain times — and certain relationships — that bring it home to me emotionally.

They’re next door right now living normal life as a loving family. They have no way of knowing how much I want the simple and loving relationship which seems to come so easily for them.

He’s a good father. She’s a good daughter. They’re lucky to have one another.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: daughter, family, father, parenting, softball, sports

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On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

I should have expected this, but I honestly didn’t. The article I wrote last week about disagreements over treatment for autistic children brought me angry emails. You could almost call it “hate mail.” Of the five emails about it so far, two have been to tell me that I’m wrong to even listen to critics of the most popular therapy for autistic children — and the other three tell me I’m wrong for not condemning the treatment as the “obvious” abuse it is. If you read the article, you know I didn’t take a position on the issue, because I simply don’t know enough to have an opinion. But by talking about the issue, I stepped into a heated controversy. The emails from the two sides convinced me of nothing. But they did give me even more empathy for the unfortunate parents who have to figure out for themselves where the truth lies for their children.

Have you ever had what you thought was a new idea — and then discovered that “old you” had the same idea years ago? I had that experience tonight. And it’s been wonderful. I came up with an idea tonight for a very short satirical film that would be a promotion for a fictitious college. The point is to make the college promote — as good things — everything which is actually terrible about most modern colleges. Then I remembered a fake college that I invented back when I was in college. I had created student recruitment brochures and various newsletters back then, so I decided to call my “new” college by the same name I’d invented years ago: Ochita College. As I searched my computer for any old material I might still have about Ochita from the past, I discovered an email I sent to someone in 2009 — outlining essentially the same idea which I came up with tonight. Since I didn’t remember writing that, it felt like magic. So my next film project just might be this one instead. If all goes well, you might soon see “Ochita College: Your Future Starts Here.” This should be fun.

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