Transcription
Gen X dads didn't raise us. They just existed near us, quiet, distant, angry, and we thought that was normal. They came home from work, sat on the couch, turned on the TV, and called it parenting. They thought discipline was silence. They thought love was providing, not being present. They didn't teach us how to feel. They taught us how to hide. They taught boys to man up and girls to keep the peace.
We didn't bring them our feelings. We didn't cry around them. We learned real quickly that softness wasn't allowed in that house. And for a long time, we thought that was normal. We thought we were the problem. Too emotional, too dramatic, too much.
Until one day when we looked at our own kids and we realized that we never had the father that we're trying to become. Gen X fathers built houses but they never built safety. And some of us are still grieving the dad that we never had, even when he was right there.
And before y'all come crying in the comments, do you see the difference? The women broke and they chose to change. The men, they stayed the same because these men ain't. And the fathers that taught them how to be men, they set the damn blueprint. And we've been trying to rewrite it ever since.