Turns out my all was just medium

Tuesday morning and I'm babysitting the kiddos. Well, not yet, but I'm waiting for them to arrive. I didn't think I could adore any child as much as my own but these two are close.

I had the strangest conversation with my Dad this weekend and I needs must vent. Methinks as far as kids with no supportive parenting go, I turned out just fine. Better than fine, in fact. I'm a healthy person with a nice home, decent job, great career, a Ph.D. (well, almost), people who love me, and a completely well-adjusted teenage kid. I'm hardly a Dr. Phil show candidate.

So I'm having lunch with Dad and he does this awkward conversation thing where he tells me something at a random moment that always seems uncomfortable. Example: mid-bite of my veggie salad (while watching him eat enough steak for two people and a potato that is hardly recognizable beneath the heap of butter, sour cream, and salt), he says "you have no idea how proud of you kids I am." To which I respond, "yes, I do; you tell me all the time." [Meanwhile, I think 'new subject, please.'] I mumble something about how great my salad is, and he keeps going "I'm most proud of you," he says, "because you did it with a kid." I'm sure he means my education, of course, but it's especially odd for him to say this at lunch, and because I know it really means that he thinks I need this kind of recognition from him - that I somehow need him to judge me favorably. Which I don't. And what's worse is that he thinks this is support rather than judgment and that he's doing me some great favor; I think it's because he is the one who needs to be constantly judged favorably and be reinforced as a "great Dad" even when we both know that he wasn't bad, but great is a real stretch.

In my father's revisionist history, he was always there for us, supportive in every way, encouraging, and lovingly attentive; in my far more accurate history he spent the bulk of my childhood at work or in front of the television set eating junk food without a single thought about my spiritual or emotional well-being. In my historical account, we hardly ever had a real conversation about anything at all, and the man scarcely knows me. And I scarcely know him. I cannot predict his moods, his thoughts, or even crack the code of what he feels about any situation ever. He is either the keeper of a medieval fortress or just an empty shell - and I doubt I will ever know which.

But our relationship as adults has been civil. He helped me with money and moving heavy objects, and occasionally spoke to me about how much he loves me, but I would not consider us close in any real way. Thus, after the awkward "I'm-such-a-great-Dad-right?" routine, he proceeds to tell me that both he AND Mom "were sure I was never going to make anything of myself." So on top of the unpleasantness of unsolicited praise, I realize that much of his pride rests in his complete surprise that I'm not a failure.