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Last Updated on June 15, 2025 by Pen Pixel
What if the only “dad” you’ve ever known was absence? Or silence? Or hurt?
What if Father’s Day feels like a group hug you’re not invited to but you’re still standing there, pretending you’re okay with it?
What if all the good stories about fathers feel like fiction to you… but you still want to believe them?
Yeah.
Welcome. Let’s talk.
The Key Takeaway.
Not everyone celebrates Father’s Day with a full heart. Some of us show up with bandaged silence and cracked smiles, unsure if we’re allowed to feel anything at all. That’s valid too.
Fathers…
We grow up thinking a father is supposed to be your first protector. Your provider. The one who teaches you how to ride a bike, how to fight your demons, how to trust your own voice when the world gets loud.
Well, that’s the fairytale.
For a lot of us, father just means “someone who was supposed to.”
Supposed to be there. Supposed to care. Supposed to show up.
But didn’t.
- Some fathers are only present in biology, in memory, in trauma.
- Some are ghost stories that nobody tells properly.
- Some are alive, breathing, walking this earth and yet, completely absent.
- And worse, some of us still hold the guilt for their absence.
I know… it’s the part we don’t like to talk about.
Now, Father’s Day…
Oh, this one’s tricky.
- Because everywhere you turn, it’s “Shoutout to the best dad ever!”
- “Couldn’t have asked for a better father!”
- “Thanks for everything, Daddy!”
And you? You’re just there like…
“…okay cool. But what about the rest of us?”
See, Father’s Day is loud for people who got the love they deserved.
But it’s awkwardly silent for the ones who didn’t.
And I’m not talking about people who lost their dads to death. That pain is real, and I won’t dismiss it.
- But this is about those of us who are grieving someone who’s still alive.
- Someone who’s never really been a dad, even though technically, the title fits.
That grief is different.
- It’s the kind that keeps showing up on birthdays.
- On school award days.
- On nights you cried yourself to sleep wondering if something was wrong with you.
It’s the grief of having a dad-shaped hole in your story that no one talks about because “at least he didn’t leave” or “he’s doing his best.”
Is he? Or are you just used to settling?
- Sometimes, he was there… but emotionally, he was out.
- Sometimes, he only showed up to discipline you. Never to hug you.
- Never to ask how your day was.
- Never to see you.
- Sometimes, he only smiled at your achievements, but never comforted your failures.
- Sometimes, he made everything about himself.
- And sometimes, he left. Physically. Emotionally. Financially. Left you with questions. With fears. With standards that turned into wounds.
But every year, Father’s Day comes.
And you’re expected to post a picture, or buy a card, or smile through the pain just so it doesn’t look “weird.” Even if you don’t want to.
- Why do we normalize celebrating someone just because of biology?
- Why do we pressure people to perform gratitude they don’t feel?
No one ever asks,
- “Do you even want to call him today?”
- “Does he deserve the ‘Happy Father’s Day’ text you just sent out of guilt?”
- “Has he ever been more than a scar you pretend not to see?”
We sweep it all under the rug with this one phrase;
“But he’s your father.”
Yeah. And what about me?
- What about the child I used to be who waited by the window hoping he’d show up?
- What about the version of me that still people-pleases because I never felt good enough?
- What about the way I shrink every time a man raises his voice not because I’m scared, but because I’ve been programmed to believe I deserve it?
We don’t talk about that on Father’s Day.
- We just keep reposting quotes.
- Giving shoutouts.
- Sending gifts.
- Performing gratitude.
- Pretending healing.
Sometimes, I wish the world said;
“Happy Father’s Day to the men who tried. And to the ones who didn’t, you don’t get the badge just for showing up once nine months before birth.”
- Because effort matters.
- Consistency matters.
- Love, the quiet kind, the sacrificial kind, the I-got-you-no-matter-what kind… that matters.
So here’s what I want to say loud and clear…
- If your father didn’t show up for you, emotionally or physically, you don’t owe him celebration. Not today. Not ever.
- If your father made you feel small, unworthy, invisible, you’re allowed to unlearn all of that.
- If your father broke you in places he never bothered to fix, you don’t have to pretend you’re fine just to protect his image.
- And if your father did show up, fully and completely, cherish that man like gold. Because so many of us never got that. We got excuses. We got guilt. We got crumbs and called it love.
Either way, Happy Father’s Day…
But, Happy Father’s Day to the real fathers.
And to the rest?
We see you. But we’re not clapping.
Not anymore.
