Letter to My Dad (for whom I’ve lost of respect)

5-31-2020

Hi Dad,

Do you know that I love you? Of course, I tell you often, but has it just become a series of words said to go along with “good-bye,” to end a conversation or a potentially upsetting email? Is it just a reminder to soften the blow of not liking you very much anymore?

Sure, we disagree on many things, but still, you’re my father and I love you. I’ve always felt that I understood you, but lately, I’m not so sure. I never imagined that we would diverge on issues of compassion and ethics. That our very impressions of reality would differ so greatly, it would appear we abide in separate worlds.

You’re not a monster—just a fallible human, like the rest of us. Still, I have to wonder why the apple fell so far from the tree. Then I remember, the apple didn’t fall that far. The tree moved. And it continues to move, further and further away.

I miss you, Dad. I miss the days when I could ask you for an explanation or for your opinion and I would learn new things. We didn’t always agree, but I always felt like you listened to my views and presented the opposing point of view in a logical and persuasive way. Sometimes, we’d debate an issue, and at a later point, I’d hear you arguing my point against someone else.

I vividly recall a debate we had when I was in high school. I argued, for all of the usual reasons, that marijuana should be legal, while you argued it should not. We finished at an impasse, which I counted as a win because you hadn’t convinced me to change my mind. About a week later, I overheard you talking to my cousin at our Thanksgiving get together, but this time you posited that marijuana should be legal, while he argued it should not. Indignant, I interrupted to accuse you of using my arguments. You winked and laughed...and continued to use my claims to support your new point of view. When I told Mom, she also laughed, explaining that you just liked arguing. What I heard was, you liked challenging expectations and exploring different points of view.

Now, I’m afraid I may have been wrong. You don’t relish the opportunity to hear opposing points of view. You look for circumstances to shoehorn your talking points into conversations, to attempt to show others you know more by repeating the phrases you’ve allowed to be programmed into your head by your daily viewing habits.

We don’t have productive debates anymore. Now, I can hear the evidence of the unoriginality of your thoughts, your repetition of talking points on Fox “news” that you try to pass off as your own. I believe you used to think for yourself, but now I wonder if I was just too young to recognize that you were repeating the opinions of others. I no longer recognize any of the critical thinking skills I thought you were passing on to me.

I know that people are complicated creatures with multiple facets to their personalities, and often their actions contradict their beliefs. I know you to be a generous, affectionate, fun-loving man who easily makes friends and feels comfortable around all different kinds of people. I also know you blindly support the policies of a racist president and GOP completely lacking in compassion and morals. I want to believe that you haven’t always been this way, that at one time, you would have noticed the hypocrisy in what they say and what they do. I want to blame it on brainwashing and aging, and those factors may be to blame, but sometimes I wonder. Do I, too, have the potential to turn out like you?

I think this is what scares me more than anything.

With love, from your daughter.