On Father’s Day every year – every year, that is, that I’ve been on Facebook – I read with profound curiosity the many Father’s Day posts by my women Facebook friends paying loving tribute to their fathers.  I look at these posts and their accompanying old family photos — proud daddies holding up their adored little girls — and think, What must it have been like to have had a dad like that?

(Painting by Judy Schubert)

And then I think, What tribute could I possibly give my own father on this Father’s Day? Up until now I haven’t been able to think of anything.

But this Father’s Day, yesterday, I dug deeper. I can now say that without trying to do so, he taught me things. 

A college and law school graduate (though he never practiced law), my father had had high hopes for himself when he was young. He’d wanted to become a writer, another F. Scott Fitzgerald, he once said. But he and my mother, who was one of his many worshipful girlfriends, were forced to marry when she became pregnant with my older brother. So my father’s youthful dreams quickly turned to ever-increasing rage.

He didn’t want to be a married man. He wanted to be free to be himself – a handsome, dashing, charming playboy. He didn’t want to be a father, yet the children kept coming. He didn’t want to live in suburban New Jersey, which he found stultifying – nor work to support this unwanted family at a boring, uncreative, nine-to-five, middle-management office job and report to a boss he loathed.

He could have hit the road, of course, as other men might have. I often wished he did. Instead, he hit the bottle and became a raging alcoholic. When he was drunk, which was often, he behaved like a wild animal in a small cage – mostly in the privacy of our small suburban home. But sometimes even in public.

Eventually, he left, which was a huge relief for all of us; and my heroic mother kept things afloat.

So what did my father teach me? Primarily, not to be like him. Not to turn to alcohol as an escape. Not to blame others for unfulfilled dreams. Not to waste God-given talents. Not to hurt anyone.

Thanks to him, I learned important life lessons early on. I learned not to look to him for anything and how to stand up for myself in every situation. Yes, thanks to him, I learned how to be independent and self-sufficient. He used to say to me when I was small, “You’re on your own, kid!” Now I can say to his memory, “Thank you for that.”

I learned that the line “Father Knows Best” is sometimes a lie. I learned that fathers can be totally wrong. Like the way he used to tell my siblings and me repeatedly that we were all “stupid-and-good-for-nothing.” He couldn’t have been more wrong about that.

I learned that the prevailing system, the patriarchy we all lived under, was not benevolent.

I don’t remember ever celebrating Father’s Day when I was growing up. Nor since. I can’t post glowing Father’s Day remembrances on Facebook, and I have trouble relating to those who do. But I can accept and acknowledge the father I had and appreciate some of what he did. Without intending to, he taught me valuable things.