Fathers, be good to your daughters

"Any man can be a father. But it takes a special man to be a dad." So read the plaque on my father's dresser. Ironic, considering we have been estranged for nearly 15 years. By my choice, not his. Recently divorced, he reached out to me via my sister, the only member of my adoptive family with whom I have stayed in contact. She reluctantly informed me that he requested my presence at a family dinner for father's day.

My initial reaction was to think of as many excuses as I could to justify not going. For one, this is my husband's first father's day, and I intend to make the day about him. I'm in a good place, I have my own family now, and I want -- need -- to protect that. Then there's the the impossibility of showing up and pretending like I grew up in a "normal" loving family. And the fact that I have no desire to have a relationship with anyone from my adoptive family, including him.

Then, the more I tried to justify my feelings, I got angry. Why, after 15 years, do I still feel like I have to justify my decision to define family as the people with whom I choose to surround myself? And who does he think he is, asking me to recognize him on -- of all the holidays -- father's day? Suddenly, I am 16 years old again and seething with angst.

The day I moved out of my parents' house was the day my father pinned me to the dining room floor and hit me repeatedly. It wasn't the first time things got physical, but it was the last (at least with him. I wish I could say he was the last man who ever hit me, but that's another story for another time). There is no way to justify how something so stupid as a radio playing in the morning escalated to that. My mother picked the fight, there were heated words, and suddenly my dad got involved. It shouldn't have been a big deal, but that was just one of many incidents over years of feeling marginalized within my own family. The irony is that it was my mother who initiated most of the abuse. But it was my father who refused to stand up for me. Refused to protect me. And occasionally became the aggressor himself.

Both mothers and fathers are supposed to love their children unconditionally. But fathers, especially, have a responsibility to protect their children. To stand up for their children and themselves. To show their daughters what a real man is made of, so that their daughters will know to settle for nothing less in a mate.

Well-meaning strangers have attempted to give credit to my parents for the fact that I appear to have "turned out" all right. What they don't know, what my close friends don't know, what even I didn't realize until now, is that maybe I'm still not all right.