What My Father’s Lies Taught Me About Telling My Kids The Truth

Father’s Day Is Complicated... Let’s Talk About It

Jun 11, 2025

Almost four years ago, my biological father passed away. I hadn’t seen or spoken to him since I was an adolescent. Our lives had drifted so far apart that when his obituary was published, my name wasn’t even mentioned. I wasn’t invited to the funeral, and I didn’t travel to Missouri to attend. The distance between us wasn’t just miles. It was years of silence, separation, and choices made long before that final day.

TL;DR:

Two fathers died. Neither left a legacy worth repeating. But from their absence, manipulation, and silence, a new kind of fatherhood was born.

This is not a feel-good, Hallmark-card take on Father’s Day. It’s a raw, real look at what happens when your father figures teach you more through failure than example. I didn’t inherit a legacy. I inherited a warning. But instead of repeating the cycle, I broke it.

Now, as a dad, I’m building something different: a fatherhood rooted in honesty, vulnerability, and connection. Not control. Because being a real dad isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about being real enough to ask the questions, to share the scars, and to show your kids that strength doesn’t mean silence.

This is a tribute to the dads building new blueprints. The ones parenting without a map, leading with scars, and giving their kids what they never had.

Sorting Truth from Fiction in a Complicated Goodbye

Last week, my stepdad died.

Truthfully, I was closer to him than my biological father, but that doesn’t mean we were close. Our relationship was complicated. Tangled up in years of abuse, manipulation, and lies that never really stopped, even as the years piled up. For my own well-being, I kept a healthy distance. Sometimes that distance was emotional. Sometimes it was geographical. But it was necessary.

In his final years, his body broke down from years of hard living. He ended up severely ill and living in a VA hospital in Dallas. A few weeks before his death, he sent me a text message. His version of an olive branch, or maybe a last attempt at something. I didn’t respond. Not because I was angry. Not because I wanted to punish him. But because some conversations feel like trying to rebuild a house that’s already burned to the ground.

The message was hard to read. A garbled mess from a voice-to-text app that struggled to keep up with his failing health. But beneath the broken syntax, I could piece together the gist:

Every now and then, when I see you play guitar, it surprises me. Shocks me, even. You’ve grown into such a great young man. You’ve got a beautiful life. I hope it all continues for you. I’m proud of you. Sometimes I forget your face. My mind’s all screwed up. I know you’ve had to deal with some of my bullshit, and I’ve tried to keep the majority of my bullshit away from you. Hopefully, you’ll be able to sort it all out one day and find some good memories in there. Just know how much I love you. You’ve always been the one who stood out. You’re super smart. You’ve got a drive like no other. I love hearing from you. Right now I’m at the VA hospital in North Dallas. I’m in the paraplegic assessment area. Might end up out of state for treatment. I don’t have Tammy with me here. We built a house together in Waxahachie. We even rescued two dogs. Back on Super Bowl Sunday 2024, I got Guillain-Barré Syndrome. It put me on a ventilator. Since March, I’ve been fighting infections and pneumonia. I’m tired. Fighting hard not to lose my fight.

But the thing about Joe was… he lied. A lot. It was hard to know what, if anything, in that message was true. The dogs, the house, the girlfriend, even the diagnosis. Who knows? That was always the exhausting part: you never really knew where the truth ended and the fiction began. And that makes closure complicated.

After his death last week, it felt familiar. An echo of my biological father’s passing. No mention of me in the obituary. No invitation to the funeral. Just like before.

Blueprints of What Not to Be

I wasn’t particularly close to either one. Truth be told, I’ve spent most of my life figuring out how not to follow in their footsteps. Both men, in their own ways, handed me blueprints, not for how to live, but how not to. They taught me unintentionally through absence, through dysfunction, through dishonesty.

But today, I stand here with Father’s Day swiftly approaching, a holiday that has always left a bittersweet taste in my mouth, with something I am proud of. I’m a way better father than I ever had.

And let me be clear:
That’s not bitterness.
That’s not a grudge.
That’s simply the reality for a lot of us.

Some people grow up with great examples to follow. Others grow up with cautionary tales that serve as constant reminders of what not to become. Both can fuel you if you let them. The key is what you do with it.

For years, I tried to outrun the pain. I tried to compartmentalize the lies, the betrayals, and the disappointments. I thought if I could just stay busy enough, build a business, chase success, master my craft, maybe I could leave it all behind me. But you don’t outrun that stuff. You carry it until you face it.

Eventually, I realized running from the past doesn’t heal anything. Avoiding the ugly truth only lets it fester.
The only way forward is through. To look at it all, even when it hurts, even when you don’t like what you see. To strip away the lies and confront it with honesty. Because when you’re honest about where you come from, you give yourself the freedom to choose something better for where you're going.

That’s why I parent differently. I don’t pretend I have all the answers. I don’t pretend I’m flawless.
But I refuse to repeat the pattern of silence, of pretending everything’s fine when it’s not.

If I had to give one piece of advice to the dads out there today, it’s this:

Talk to your kids.

Becoming the Dad I Never Had

But I don’t mean that corporate HR-style “my door is always open” crap. You know, the one where you say; "Hey sweetheart, you can talk to me about anything."
…and your kid nods, says “okay, Dad,” and then never brings up anything real.

Because why would they? You didn’t actually give them anything to grab onto. You handed them a permission slip with no instructions, no map, and no real sense of safety.

That’s not talking. That’s not connection. That’s just noise filling the silence.

That’s a vague permission slip.

If you want your kids to open up…
You have to go first.
You have to crack the door open and show them what it looks like to have a real conversation.

And I don’t mean sitting them down for some dramatic, heavy “life lesson” speech once a year. I mean being real. Day in, day out. Letting them see you as a full, flawed human being who’s made mistakes, who’s still figuring it out, who’s fought through their own dark corners.

Tell them the stories you’ve carried, the ones that embarrassed you, humbled you, or knocked you flat on your ass. Not the ones that paint you as the hero of your own story and lionize yourself in their eyes. Tell them about the moments you felt small, scared, or overwhelmed. Share the regrets you carry, and the lessons those regrets taught you.

Because here’s the truth: your kids aren’t looking for a perfect dad. They’re looking for a present dad. One they can relate to. One who feels safe. One who admits when life is hard, when emotions are messy, and when answers aren’t easy.

When you go first, when you show them what vulnerability really looks like, you build trust. You lay the groundwork. Only then will your kid feel safe enough to say: “Hey Dad, can I tell you something I’ve been scared to say?”

And that right there is when the real parenting starts.

Tell them about being broke as hell when you were 22.

Tell them about getting dumped.

Tell them about when your friends had parties and didn’t invite you.

Tell them about messing up at work, getting embarrassed, having doubts, failing, and learning the hard way.

Tell them what scared you when you were their age.

Tell them what scares you today.

And tell them about how that made you feel. You’re kids are experiencing tough emotions all the time and they don’t know what to do with them. And if you don’t help them to understand how normal those emotions are and how much experience you have with those emotions, they’ll feel embarrassed and ashamed. They’ll be afraid to tell you how they feel.

Hard Knock University Fatherhood

Because when they hear that, when they hear your stories, they stop seeing you as this flawless, untouchable adult who "wouldn't understand."
Instead, they start seeing you as someone who's been there.
Someone who does understand.
Someone who's battle-tested.
Someone safe.

And that is where real conversations start.

By all means tell them about the wins. Absolutely. Show them what hard work, sacrifice, and grit can build. Let them see the mountaintops you’ve climbed. But don’t only tell them about the wins.

Because the lessons are in the losses.

Tell them about the times you failed. The times you were scared. The moments when you had no clue what to do next. Tell them about the business deal that went sideways, the relationship you messed up, the regret that still keeps you up sometimes. Those are the moments they’ll remember when they’re standing in front of their own fork in the road.

When you only share the highlight reel, they start to think they’re broken for struggling. They feel alone in their mistakes. But when you share the full reel; the bruises, the faceplants, the comeback stories, you give them permission to be human.

The world is loud right now. Loud and fake.

Social media is raising your kids whether you want it to or not. They’re bombarded with information, misinformation, anxiety, identity crises, and every dumb influencer flexing like they've got life mastered by 19 years old. Most of it’s curated garbage, and your kids know it, but it still messes with their heads.

Your voice won’t cut through that noise unless it’s authentic.

Don’t be the dad who only talks when they mess up.
Be the dad who talks before they mess up.
Be the dad who shares the hard-earned lessons before they even know they’ll need them.
Be the dad who creates the kind of space where they don’t have to carry their shame, their failures, or their fears alone.

That’s real leadership. That’s Hard Knock University fatherhood.

So this Father’s Day, I raise a glass to all the dads who are figuring it out as they go.
To the dads who don’t have a playbook handed down from some perfect father figure.
To the dads who are out here building the blueprint from scratch. Learning in real time, stumbling sometimes, but showing up anyway.

To the dads who lead with honesty instead of lectures.
To the dads who open up, so their kids feel safe to open up too.
To the dads who aren’t afraid to admit, "I don’t always know, but I’m here. And we’ll figure it out together."

And I especially want to toast the dads who never really had a dad.
Or maybe they had one, but not the kind with heroic stories to tell.
Or maybe they heard plenty of “heroic” stories, but when you pull back the curtain, those stories start to smell a lot like ego, exaggeration, or flat-out bullshit.

To those dads who had to separate myth from truth, to sort through the wreckage and figure out what pieces were worth keeping, and what needed to die with the last generation.

Because that’s not easy work.
That’s the kind of work that breaks cycles.
That’s the kind of work that changes bloodlines.
That’s the kind of work that turns Hard Knocks into Hard-Won Wisdom.

To you, the dads who face the hard stuff, who fight for something better, who choose honesty over image, and who give your kids what you never had.

That’s Hard Knock University fatherhood.

I’m rooting for you!

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