Editor’s Note: The author of this post requested, and was granted, anonymity for this article to protect the identity of his family members. This post originally ran in 2018.

When I was a child and having one of my many disagreements with my mother, a retort from her would often be, “Wait until you’re a parent. Then you’ll understand.” Since becoming a dad myself several years ago, I’ve been thinking about that phrase a lot.

Like many contemporary dads, I am a different kind of parent than my father. Broadly speaking, I’m more present than he was in my childhood. The conventional wisdom is that social and cultural norms were different “back then.” We should cut, say a distant father, some slack because of this. Not me.

My father appeared to be a nice, gentle man. He never disciplined me, rarely even raised his voice. But then, I didn’t see much of him. He would leave the house for work before I woke. He would be back for dinner. He often worked weekends.

He never did the school drop-off or pickup routine. Never read me a bedtime story. Never came to a “parent’s evening” to meet my teachers or classmates’ mothers and fathers. He rarely spent time alone with me.

Now, as a father myself, I find this almost unthinkable.

A specific example of how little time my father and I spent together is this: I can count on one hand the movies my dad took me to see. On two fingers to be precise (ICYI: Bronco Billy and Airplane). I’ve been taking my daughter to see movies since she was 3 years old. I’ve lost count of how many hours we have shared together, side by side in a darkened theater.

To me, it boils down to this — I LOVE spending time with her, and sharing in those things she’s enthused about (like movies). My dad’s lack of this in my own childhood seemed at best lazy at the time. But it wasn’t simply that.

Distant father started as a prison dad

When I was a teenager, I discovered my father had been in prison (no one told me — I found some letters in the attic). He was incarcerated from when I was a baby until I was 4. He didn’t see me at all that entire time. In contrast, I spent this equivalent period with my daughter as a stay-at-home dad. When I think of the amazing time I spent with our daughter, the heartlessness of his subsequent decision to not spend time with me is amplified.

It gets worse.

Despite the prison time — for embezzlement — he somehow had a successful career as an office manager. He would often work late and on weekends. Ah, that explains why he spent so little time with me. He was too busy funding our house and home.

Nope. He was too busy having an affair.

An affair that began within a few years of him coming out of prison. An affair that lasted until I stumbled upon it when I was 19. He eventually co-owned the property she lived in. He was living a fantasy second life there, where he didn’t have a family to live with.

There’s a sucker punch. He took out his mortgage with her in my name.

This all came to light when I opened a piece of mail I thought was addressed to me (my father and I have the same first initial). The letter turned out to be about the property he owned with her. I still remember the sarcastic “thank you” he repeatedly directed at me while my mother screamed at him.

The full scale of his betrayal only came to light a few years ago, when he randomly blurted out a confession to my mother (they’re still together) while reacting to a melodramatic plot on a TV drama.

His sorry behavior is alien to me. Abhorrent. I’m supposed to dismiss this as “things were different back then”? No.

I haven’t confronted him about any of it — the lies, the betrayal, his lack of interest in my childhood. He has a heart condition, and I can’t trust myself to not explode at him. But I can barely stand to be around him, and I do my best to avoid speaking to him.

So I simply seethe with internal anger whenever I think of this whole sorry scenario. Fuck that guy. Never be that guy. Never be ANYTHING like that guy. You’re a good dad, I tell myself. That guy is an asshole.

Then I think about my daughter. My amazing daughter. Who I love and adore. And who will never – ever – have a father like that.

Photo: Trym Nilsen on Unsplash

My journey into the world of AI-generated art began two weeks before Thanksgiving. I sat down in front of my computer to experiment with Midjourney, an artificial intelligence program that creates images from text descriptions. I entered the command “/imagine” and a message from the Midjourney bot appeared: “There are endless possibilities …”

Excited, I typed out the image in my mind:

A young african american man wearing a white t-shirt, jeans and sneakers, is flying through the clouds and space as if in a dream.

Midjourney generated four versions that the beloved painter and art instructor Bob Ross might have called “happy little accidents.” In each, the clouds look like unruly cotton balls. The man has no discernible face. He also does everything but fly through the clouds: he walks on them, sits on them, or has his head lost in them. The images were garbage.

After a few days of studying the text-to-image prompts of other users, I refined my descriptions. Finally, through trial and error, I learned how to guide AI to generate images closer to my vision. I’ve turned my daughter into Princess Leia, myself into a guardian angel, and reimagined Santa Claus as Batman.

AI-Generated art and Black fatherhood

As a Black dad who blogs, I was curious to see how AI imagines fatherhood. One day I typed: young african american father holding sleeping baby, illustration. Midjourney produced four touching images that evoked my early, sleep-deprived days of dadhood when I cradled my daughter in my arms to help her fall asleep. I posted one of the images to Instagram and titled it “The Whole World in His Hands.”

The comments from other Black dads were positive. I imagine they felt seen.

That inspired me to create more AI-generated art drawing from my own experiences or those of fathers I know. I made images of Black dads teaching their sons how to tie a necktie. Reading books with their children. On date nights with their spouses. Spending time with their daughters. Essentially, Black dads being present in the lives of their loved ones. Images that are all contrary to the “absentee father” myth prevalent in news media, politics, and pop culture.

I would occasionally forget to use the descriptor “African American” before “father” in my image prompts and Midjourney would, predictably, generate images with white fathers. It didn’t bother me at first. But after the second and third time, I started thinking, “Why aren’t Black fathers included in AI’s default definition of fatherhood?”

So I did an experiment. I typed “fatherhood” into Midjourney 10 times. The bot generated four images each time creating 40 images of what it was programmed to associate with fatherhood.

Only one image was of a Black father. One out of 40.

And none appeared to be people of color.

According to AI, the default image of “fatherhood” is a white father holding or hugging a child.

“I am invisible”

The issue of bias in image generation systems shouldn’t be surprising. As digital artist and academic Nettrice Gaskins noted in a recent Instagram post: “The processes by which machines learn to recognize images is like how humans see things. Neural nets are fed millions of images from databases; they use input from humans to classify and sort image data and come up with probabilities of what the final images will be. Artists can change the parameters for how a network or system identifies, recognizes, and processes these images, which gives them a certain amount of power to influence or make decisions about which images are generated.”

Still, it felt like the kind of distortion Ralph Ellison famously described in his 1952 novel Invisible Man: “I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination — indeed, everything and anything except me.”

Representation matters. It matters because it validates experiences and lifts aspirations.

That’s the reminder I’m taking with me into February — Black History Month — as I continue my artistic adventure with Midjourney. As Gaskins encouraged, I have the power to influence the images generated by AI. I have the power to widen the visual representation of Black fatherhood.

“There are endless possibilities …”

Seated at a table this past spring in the courtyard of a nursing home, I squeezed into the frame of my iPhone camera and snapped a selfie with my parents. In this fifth decade of my life, it’s the only photo I have of the three of us together. It’s among my most valuable possessions.

This family portrait is neither flattering nor joyous. My mom and I are covered head to toe in the garb required of nursing home visitors in this Age of Corona. A face mask covers our noses and mouths. A curved face shield extends from our foreheads to our chins. From the neck down, we’re draped in a flimsy gown of blue plastic that if it were yellow, could easily pass for the infamous hazmat suits from “Breaking Bad.”

My dad, 90, is in the center of the scene, clad in a faded navy blue polo, smiling as a big as he can despite missing teeth and oxygen tubes running from his nose. His thin, frail body has been ravaged by time and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, but it’s clear he’s happy to be with us in this moment — he mustered the strength to sit upright and pose.

It’s a family portrait that had been in the making since 1974, the year I was born.

No pictures exist of me and my dad before 2006, the year I concluded my journey to find him, arriving in the lobby of a senior housing complex in Inglewood, Calif., where he anxiously waited to greet me.

He was 74 at the time; I was 31. I’d last seen him when I was six years old. It was the only time I’d seen him. And it had been 25 years.

My dad missed out on becoming a father. He met my mother in 1973. They carried on a relationship for two months, maybe longer. Then, she stopped coming by his place.

“I didn’t know she was pregnant when she left. I really didn’t,” my dad once told me, reflecting on the memory. In 1981, when I was 6, my mother arrived unannounced at his home — with me in tow. She was married by then but apparently felt it was important for us to meet. That was the last time I saw my dad.

When we reconnected a quarter century later, my dad took those first awkward lurches toward a bond with me, those wobbly steps at becoming a father. During our first Father’s Day conversation, he shared stories about going fishing with a favorite uncle and hunting raccoons and soft-shell turtles as a young boy.

As I’ve gotten to know my father over the past 15 years, he’s shared his discomfort with being called “dad” — he says doesn’t feel worthy of the title. Instead, he prefers I call him by his military nickname, “Watashi,” Japanese for “I.” It’s how his friends greet him.

Where my father was out of the picture, my mother was front and center. For nearly every milestone moment in my life — the day I was born, my favorite childhood Christmas, my college graduation, my wedding day — there is photographic evidence of her anchoring presence, from holding me swaddled in her arms at the hospital to dabbing tears from her eyes as my wife and I exchanged vows in a Hawaiian garden.

Now here she was with me, visiting Watashi in the twilight of his life while bringing closure to a piece of her past.

Photos are memories you can touch. And the memory that eluded me most was a photo of me with my parents, a family portrait. It took 46 years, eight months, and six days —from the day I was born to that nursing home visit in May — for the timelines of our lives to finally intersect, placing us in the same place, at the same time. As it turned out, when I was growing up in Los Angeles, my father never lived more than six miles away from me and my mom.

The layered and complex narrative behind my one and only family portrait is what makes it so priceless to me. It represents the culmination of the steps I took as a man to find my father and fill the holes in my origin story.

But my photo also reminds me of something else: the important role dads play in documenting family life.

From camcorders in the 1980s to the camera phones of today, I’ve witnessed fathers joyously capture everything from baby christenings and weddings to family holidays and exotic vacations. The technology of this digital age allows us to snap scores of photos and video clips with the press of a thumb and edit (or delete) them on the spot. At times, we have to remember to simply live in the moment instead of fussing over how to get the perfect shot or angle, something I’m totally guilty of myself.

All I ask is that you fit as many people into the frame as possible—mothers, sisters, brothers, grandparents, cousins, good friends and, last but not least, yourself. There will no doubt be one photo in the bunch that will come to mean the world to your loved ones, today or years from now.

Don’t let it take 46 years to make.

While working as an elementary school substitute teacher early last year, a student spilled water on the floor during snack time. Of course, neither a napkin nor a paper towel could be found in the classroom.

I called the front desk and asked if the custodian could bring a fresh supply. Minutes later, he appeared and did a bit of a double take.

“Are you the sub today?” the custodian asked politely.

I had only subbed at this school a few times before. While he sees me occasionally when I drop off my son there in the mornings, it’s likely he just did not recognize me.

“Yeah,” I said. 

What he did next truly surprised me.

He extended his arm and gave me a hearty handshake. “That’s great,” he said. “I never see a male sub. Thanks so much for being here.”

I was shocked.

I chose substitute teaching to make a positive impact on children, but I had instead affected another adult. It was one of several positive interactions I had that day, but that particular encounter made me realize the power of being present.

My years as a stay-at-home dad opened my eyes to how effective I could be at teaching. I enjoy being around kids because, by nature, I am silly. I enjoy helping them learn and laugh at the same time. So, I started substitute teaching at my twins’ day care center and my son’s elementary school. (Numerous times, I’d dress up to teach science lessons as Dr. Professor with his puppet sidekick, Captain Vernon.) But in a field filled with many wonderful, loving, caring and nurturing female teachers, I have come across very few male teachers.

Supportive presence makes for memorable moments

My subbing gave those kids the opportunity, even if only briefly, to see a man as a schoolteacher. Maybe it even gave some kids something to talk about when they went home. And, as a man of color, I try to be involved positively in the lives of my children as much as possible. I work on a daily basis to break the stereotypes often associated with Black men. My being present in the classroom gives children a chance to take a new view of teaching. Some might even see it as a future career to aspire to.

We as parents, especially fathers, unknowingly wield immense power by just being physically present. Be it in a classroom, at a dance recital or at school drop-offs — places some would say traditionally are the domain of mothers — we can alter the narrative of masculinity and parenting. 

The power our presence has on children, ours and others, and the adults who see us in these moments can change preconceived views of fathers. We are more than just breadwinners or disciplinarians or, in some situations, not present at all. While earning a steady income to support your family is valuable, being there in moments big and small, must also be applauded.

I’m not the best candidate to be a soccer coach, for example. Instead, I do my best to cheer on my son and his teammates at their games. In these moments, my son can see and feel my support. At the same time, fellow parents see the way I support him. I am also not a PTA board member, but I attend meetings when I can. I stay involved so I can be aware not only of what is going on in his school, but also and more importantly, to create a good visual for others who see me there. It could have a positive ripple effect for fatherhood long after the meeting has concluded. Our presence holds emotional value for our children, for our spouses, for ourselves and for those in our community who might be watching. And you can’t get those lost moments back.

So give your child a quiet shoulder to cry on after a disappointing baseball loss. Be the only dad sitting on an undersized chair during story time at the library. Push a cart full of groceries at the supermarket while your toddler play in the child seat. While we can’t get back moments we already missed, we can make new ones that we — and our children — won’t ever forget.

Photo: © Jacob Lund / Adobe Stock.

Many people grew up without fathers around. For some, it was an untimely death, others incarceration. I know of friends who had a father in the military.

For me, I grew up with a father who couldn’t and didn’t live up to his responsibilities. I spent the majority of my life without my dad, by his choice.

So, when people ask me to reflect on my father during this time of year, I get a little resentful. I still remember a second grade project I was required to complete. It was a Father’s Day card. I told my teacher that I didn’t have a father at home. The teacher said that didn’t matter. I needed to do this assignment or I would have my report card ripped up.

But what if I responded to these requests for the “lessons that you learned from your dad?” with answers from my absent dad? It would be something like this:

Make promises you can’t keep.

Tell your child you will be there to spend the day with him or her and don’t show up. Or when you do show up, do something completely different from what you promised. My absent dad was a culprit of this practice.

Threaten the personal safety of your child.

Nothing better represents the maturity needed to handle fatherhood like threatening the well-being of your child. My dad once told my mother that he would kidnap me from my school.

Buy the cheapest quality products for your child.

Buy toys that last minutes, and not because your child broke them. Search far and wide to find toys that no child has probably ever owned. My dad once gave me a Man doll. Seriously. It was just a man in boxer shorts. No accessories, not even a pair of shoes. Said Man on the package. Where did he even shop?

What I have realized over the years is that my mother is one of the primary reasons I am the father I am today. She helped me understand that a father makes sacrifices for his child. She made it clear that a father should put an emphasis on his child’s education. I even learned from her the importance of not stifling a child’s creativity.

So, I’d ask folks who pose these types of Father’s Day questions to perhaps broaden their line of questioning. Be more inclusive and less simplistic. Because you might be missing out on a good story and stifling a voice.

A new national study backs the belief the relationship between a dad and his daughter is important not only now, but later in the daughter’s life.

The October study, by digital data collectors, Research Now Group Inc. finds that 75 percent of women, ages 18 to 34, said having a close relationship with dad is “very important” with 47 percent going as far as saying their father is “the most important person in their life.” A majority of women with a positive relationship with their father growing up said they were happy, far more than those who went their childhood with negative or no relationships with their fathers, according to the findings.

Having no father at home as a child had many negatively impacts, according to the study. Of those polled who grew up without dad around:

• 63 percent said they have troubling trusting men
• 61 percent said their romantic relationships were negatively affected with 40 percent without ties to their biological fathers say they have “trouble forming stable romantic relationships.”
• 50 percent said the negativity in their lives was partially caused by not having a father in their lives

The survey was released Monday by Oxygen Media to promote the cable network’s new series “Finding My Father,” which focuses on young people searching for the fathers they never knew.

When my dad was 1 year old, his father Eddy abandoned his mother and three kids (he was the youngest). I’m not sure why he left. He clearly wasn’t happy. I asked my grandmother about it years later, and she said she was not an easy person to live with. That may be, but leaving your kids — I just can’t fathom it. I can understand the urge to leave, and I can imagine leaving, but I can’t imagine actually leaving.

Years later, Eddy made contact with my dad, trying to repair the relationship. My dad refused to see him. He felt that wound deeply.

I had a pretty good relationship with my dad overall. He was very focused on work, and as such was absent a lot. He would often take extended business trips of several weeks at a time. He was also a duplicate bridge Grand Life Master, and often would combine business trips with bridge trips. He’d leave for several weeks at a time, in some ways repeating what his father had done, but my dad always coming back. Until he didn’t.

My dad was killed in an auto accident in 1987. I was 22 at the time. It just seemed like he was away on an extended work/bridge trip. For a long time I had recurring dreams that my dad was still alive, just on a secret mission, but had now come back.

My dad was obsessed with making sure that I had everything he didn’t have  He bought me a new bike every chance he could get, because he had never had a bike. We went out to eat a lot, because when he was young they could never afford it. When I was 16 he didn’t want me to work a summer job because he had worked at a number of jobs since he was 10, including selling balloons at parades and sweeping up hair at the barbershop.

In turn, when I became a late-in-life father, I wanted to make sure that my son had all the things that I didn’t have. Those weren’t material things. I wanted to make sure that my son has someone to read with him, and make jokes with him, play ball with him, and hold his hand when he’s scared to go into his first day of gym class. I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t absent. I don’t want to helicopter, but I want to be involved.

The statistics on the fate of fatherless children are as frightening as they as depressing. Fatherless children in the United States are more likely to abuse drug and alcohol, commit suicide, drop out of school and more.

Now that my son is older, at age 6, I do have some fantasies about traveling for work — going on tour, trying to find a cruise gig. I used to go on the road a lot. I don’t think I could spend that much time away from my family.  Maybe when my son is older, 10 or 12. But I don’t want to miss anything. And I want to be there for my son.

My father being fatherless continues to affect me — mostly in my resolve to be a better father.