Rejection

This is a topic that I have postponed talking about for a long time. It is painful, it is raw, and at the same time, it is something no one has talked to me about in this role of being a parent as a cisgender man. My hope is to make men, especially dads who are going through this to feel seen and less alone.

Children are supposed to love their parents, no?

They do. My child does. I can feel his love and warm. I also feel his rejection.

My mom was a single mother for most of our lives together. My dad was actively present on my life, but he missed the day-to-day of what caring for someone entails, like cooking a warm dinner or making sure my black shoes for school had laces. As a result, our bonds for years were more about authority and fear, less about care. I don’t remember a single time I went for my dad seeking for care or comfort. I always went to him to share about my soccer games, my good grades, and questions about the economy.

He is of a generation for whom taking actual, day-to-day care of children was like speaking a foreign language, they knew it existed, yet they did not make any effort to learn it. They had women, who are fluent in the language of care. They had women who care for others, cook for others, provided emotional labor for others. Men like him, had the job to have a job, bring money to the table, impose discipline, and protect the family. Children then learn to confuse gratitude with love. As men-identified folks, we learn about being a man due to the absence or presence of our fathers. There is no escape from it.

Still today, many men strongly believe that care is the territory of women, in all ages and family roles. Many men are ready to go to war in a far-away place but do not venture to access their own kitchen. As silly and true as it sounds. Care does not equal women, in many ways, it is impossed on them.

As a parent, I have made the conscious decision to be the dad I wanted to have. Overwhelmingly present. Emotionally available. This has meant to work really hard on the fears and pains of my own life. Raising my child has offered me a pathway to redemption and healing, also, to a lot of old anger, sad memories, and disappointment. I have learned that I am done justifying my dad’s decisions, they are his to own and at the same time, to be grateful for the care I received to become the person I am.

But nothing has prepared me in life to be confronted with the reality that my child has a preference for my partner. Nothing. It has been a new companion in this journey of parenting, a companion I don’t want by my side, yet, it is still here, like grass in the pavement.

Every day, I wake up at 6 am and drag myself out of bed with the intention to give and provide all the care I can to my child and my partner. Every night, when I go to bed, exhausted and wishfully trying to read the same book I have next to my bed for the past year, I think about the sweet and sour moments before passing out.  As I do this mental tally, I realize that even if I try my hardest to provide comfort, emotional support, warmth and closeness, my child mostly prefers mom.

I get it. I have been a privileged witness of the beautiful bond between them. I love it. It makes me think about my own mom and the bonds of care I had growing up with my aunts and my grandmother. Seeing their interactions, their connection, how my child finds a haven under her arms, it is quite special. I want to be able to craft the same kind of closeness in our own ways. Yet, the older he gets, the clearer it becomes to me that this might not happen as I imagined. I still show up, every day to the job, yet some days I feel the frustation I drag weighting heavy on me. Some days reluctantly, some days relentlessly, yet always showing up.

This is less about them; it is all about me. It is about the expectations I had about parenting. I thought that by being the dad I wanted to have, we would have the relationship I yearned. Yet, it is about being the dad my kid needs what will help me create room for us to weave the togetherness I want in my life, in his life. Raising a child has made evident to my eyes the things I missed growing up, such as an emotionally available, present father.  At the same time, every day is a reminder that my child is not a lifejacket in the middle of the ocean and our relationship does not have to carry the responsibility to heal me. Still, on the day to day, it is very painful to be rejected by someone that you love viscerally.

When he was little, he cried a lot with me, only with me. He would refuse to do things that with mom were natural, like eating or sleeping. The more they grow, the more this preference becomes clear, just in case you still had doubt. As words emerge out of their mouths, the rejection takes specific shape. No one told me about this, no one told me I would have to deal with the loneliness of being the second choice available, sometimes the only choice available. There is no ill intend on his part and at the same time, that does not make it less painful.

This preference hurts me and at the same time, it makes me sometimes put emotional distance with my child. I hate this. I get disappointed at myself when this happens. It also, helps me understand my dad and many fathers who choose to be absent emotionally because they are not, we are not equipped to deal with this. It is easier to reject first than withstand the pain of feeling rejected.

There is also a fair amount of fear in this. If this is the best version of myself, the best I can be for this child and I am still being rejected, am I enough? If this is not enough, then, what do I do? I don’t ask these questions lightly. In good moments, I laugh at how dramatic I am being. In bad moments, it makes me feel powerless and lost.  In this covid world, working and caring at home, I can have 2 good moments and 3 bad ones before 9 am.

This rejection is something I have mostly endured alone. My partner is supportive and loving. At the same time, she does not understand the magnitude of the feelings this rejection has on me and for all the love of the goddesses, I will never want her to experience this. I have not heard men talking about this in public or private, which makes me think that perhaps, I am the only one dealing with this, feeding the fears and anxieties shared before. It makes sense, as men, we learn to put emotional distance, so we give the appearance of strengthen and control. I am tired of that, I am strong because I am vulnerable, especially in moments like this, when I have to sit with the pain and discomfort. I am ready to sit in this space in between, I must say, it is just really hard to sit alone.

I don’t have any answers for you. I am still trying to disentangle this within me. Feeling rejected by your child is quite hard yet the most difficult piece of this is the lack of validation of these feelings and the loneliness to process them with people who are on the same path. I have hope that there will be light at the end of this tunnel for me, in the meantime, I want to share this as a sparking light for those men, beautiful men who are invested, all in, in their caring parenting journey, feeling alone, rejected and unseen. You are not alone. Let’s take care of each other too.