Daddy Dearest

Father’s Day is the time to honour all the great fathers out there – the guys who do their very best to parent children that will grow up to be healthy, happy, well-adjusted, productive, responsible human beings.

Last year, in honour of Father’s Day, I wrote a kind of mixed-feelings post about my own father. So this year, as a bit of colourful contrast, I thought I’d do a round-up of some of the worst fathers ever.

The world of sports seems to foster some really bad dads. Take George Foreman  , for instance. He had ten children with five different women and named them all George (the kids, not the women) — except for the daughter, who he named Georgetta. And then he gave them all retarded nick-names (Like Big George and Little George) so he could tell them apart.

Or how about Evander Holyfield who had 9 kids with 9 different women and refuses to pay child support. Or Travis Henry who has 11 children with 10 different women  and owes so much in unpaid child support, (while under a $22 million contract) that he was arrested. There seem to be a lot of sports figures with a pile of kids from different women.  Rock starts have groupies, too, but at least rock stars seem to know a little something about contraception.

The entertainment world has also seen more than its fair share of really horrible dads. 

Bing Crosby (Der Bingo), who always seemed like such a happy-go-lucky, white-christmassy,  pleasant fellow turns out to have been a master of mental and physical cruelty both to his kids and to his wife. Two of his kids were so scarred they eventually shot themselves. The only one to survive, Gary, wrote a tell-all book about his experiences.  It ain’t pretty.

Ryan O’Neal,  is/was arguably the worst Hollywood father ever.  Among all sorts of other weird and creepy parenting abuse, he once beat the teeth out of his 14-year-old son Griffin’s head. He also shot at him a few times and forced his daughter, Tatum to snort cocaine so she wouldn’t be such a “fat pig”. Tatum eventually tried to kill herself by slitting her wrists. Helpful dad pointed out she was stupid because she’d slit them the wrong way.

Woody Allen, who I can’t even bear to watch anymore after that whole Soon-Yi thing, says their relationship has, “ a more paternal feeling to it.”  Yuck. Really. Yuck. Yuck.

Linsay Lohan  and Jessica Simpson  both have dads from hell.  Their dads keep claiming credit for whatever success the kids have. They keep trying to take control of their kids’ money. They keep getting themselves in the spotlight at the expense of their kids. Their kids are a freakin’ mess and still they won’t let up. Can’t these guys be locked up or something?

They need some up-locking because they’re influencing other men to think that cashing in on your kids is a good idea. People like bad and stupid dad, Richard Heene,  aka Balloon Boy’s dad.

Then there are the ultimate whacko dads like Winston Blackmore,   former “bishop” of his polygamous splinter fundamentalist Mormon society in Bountiful, British Columbia. At last count he had some 25 wives and 101 children. There was also a lot of talk about child brides, incest, psychological abuse and other fun stuff.

Josef Fritzl, though, probably takes the cake for being a really, really bad father.  And by “takes the cake”, I’m hoping the cake he takes will be made of rat poison or toxic sludge or something. You may recall, Josef Fritzl as the Austrian guy who kept his daughter locked in the basement for 24 years and forced her to have 7 kids by him.

However, the grand prize for worst father ever, I think has to go to G.O.D., right? According to his own autobiography,

• He drowned 99% of his children in a big-assed flood;
• He did freaky shit like telling one of His sons to kill his own kid and then at the last minute, when He’s reduced the guy to a blubbering mess, yells “Psych! Ha ha, I really had you going…. You were actually going to do it, weren’t you, you nutjob?”;
• He has his favourite kid, (who incidentally He let some other guy raise) be tortured and murdered while He watched. Then He tells him to stop whining when the kid says he can’t take all the hanging around with nails in his hands and feet anymore;
• He only talks to some of his kids personally, telling them to do all sorts of crazy, killy, embarassing stuff which makes them seem insane and gets them locked up or pumped full of drugs;
• He randomly punishes his kids for no reason, inflicting them with diseases/pestilances, deaths and other shitty stuff  — just because He can;
• He rewards some of his other kids that really don’t deserve it. Like, He’ll look around and find the stupidest-looking kid – the one with one hand up his nose and one hand down his pants – and gives him an entire country to rule;
• He seems to love watching his kids fighting over Him and spends a lot of time pitting one kid against another kid just for the fun of it; and,
• He is forever threatening His kids with burning-in-hell type stuff, if they so much as even think about breaking any of  His 90 million totally arbitrary and inexplicable rules.

So who do you think is the worst father ever?

Or, if you want to be more positive on this auspicious occasion, tell us about a great dad.

Meanwhile,  a very Happy Father’s Day to all you guys out there who do your  loving, caring, selfless, supportive daddy thing each and every day. Have a good one!

Oh Mine Papa

Yesterday was the 25^th Father’s Day my father has missed. He died just before Father’s Day in 1984.

Except for a few years when I was very young he was kind of a mean father – in all senses of the word. I have a handful of fond memories of him and he was always there and provided for us and everything, but he was a very angry man; very intense, very anti-social, very broody. I think he would have been much happier if he hadn’t had any kids, or maybe not quite so many kids.

He was madly and passionately besotted with my mother and very possessive of her. I think all those kids took too much of her time and energy away from him.

My father was also a very creative guy with not enough of a creative outlet. I think this left him very frustrated with his life. He would have been happy in a garret somewhere alone with my mum, painting or sculpting or writing poetry.

Instead he had to earn a living and support 7 people.

We used to fight a lot, he and I. About everything. He was often violent, insulting, demeaning. He wanted total control and I was exceptionally unruly. He tried so many crazy things to get me to submit, from whoopings, to yelling,  to locking me out of the house, to locking me in the house, to not allowing me any food, to once sneaking in my room while I was asleep and cutting off my hair – though I’m not sure exactly what that was meant to accomplish. In any case, none of it worked.

I must have driven him crazy.

I hated him and feared him. I loved him and ached for a kind word from him. I was in awe of him and the things he could do; the things he knew; the things he created. And I felt sorry for him because I knew he wasn’t happy and knew he wasn’t doing what he really wanted to be doing with his life. And I knew it was because of us kids and I always felt guilty about that, though I now know that was totally stupid.

And I blamed my mother because she’s the one who wanted a large family and he could refuse her nothing. And because she didn’t seem to get it, or him, at all. Again, totally stupid of me.

And then, a few years before he died he decided he’d had enough of earning a living and spending all his time working. So just like that, he quit his job to pursue his dream. It was kind of scary, but also very cool and very obviously the right thing for him to do.

He changed so much in those last years. He almost became a happy person. And he tried really hard to make amends for the past. So much so that I was very surprised to find out, during her recent visit, that my sister still has nothing but pure hatred for our father. (We had a long, drunken conversation about that and learned a great deal about each other in the process).

But back then, with me, at least, he tried his best to open up some channel of communication. He showed me that he wanted to try and be a good father, if it wasn’t too late. It was clumsy and awkward and more than a little strange, but gut-wrenchingly good at the same time. I hope I was able to convey to him that I understood and appreciated it.

Anyway, we only had a couple of years of this floundering new relationship before we found out he had a terminal illness. My sister thinks he got exactly what he deserved, but man, nobody deserves the long, horrible progression of brain cancer. It was heartbreaking to see him in such pain. To see what he had to go through that last year. To see him become confused and afraid. To see him become so helpless. To beg for death.

This man, who had always been so fiercely strong and robust and healthy was suddenly reduced to something that gutted me each and every time I saw him.

This man never got to see any of his kids become adults. He never saw them get educated. He never knew what careers we chose for ourselves or how we succeeded in those careers.  

He never knew any of his 6 grandchildren. He never got to be a grandpa.

He never got to grow into his wisdom.

He never got a chance to enjoy the dream he finally allowed himself to fulfill. Never got to relax and enjoy the fruits of his labour.

And he’s been without my mother, the love and light of his life,  for such a long, long time.

And he never got old.

Happy Father’s Day, Papa wherever you are.