Edited by Jim McCrory, Friday, 18 July 2025, 07:55
The Father Wound
I have yet to meet someone who does not carry, in some form, a scar shaped like their father.
Some wear it openly and rich with exaggeration and embellishment — an ache wrapped in anger or longing. Others tuck it away, quiet and folded like an old letter never sent. But it is there. Behind the eyes of grown men who still seek approval. Beneath the strength of women who learned early to protect their hearts. In the silence between generations, where things are felt but never said.
There is something universal about father wounds. They are not always born of cruelty. More often, they arise from absence — of words, of warmth, of presence. Even in homes where the father stayed, there are many ways a man can be gone.
Part of the weight lies in what the father represents. Across cultures and centuries, “Father” has not only been a man but a metaphor — for authority, protection, provision, and identity. In scripture, God is called Father. In myth, the patriarch is the one who bestows names, blessing, and land. He is the one we turn to, or run from, or try to become. Or, failing all that, the one we write about when we finally find the words.
No man can bear that symbolic weight. To be called ‘Father’ is to be cast in a role written by divine hands and performed by mortal ones; imperfect and flawed. Is it any wonder so many stumbles under its gravity? This is more acute when a child is sensitive.
And so the ache passes down. Generation to generation. A man unloved becomes a father unsure of how to love. A boy raised on correction but starved of affection may either repeat the pattern or break under the strain of resisting it. Even the most tender-hearted father wrestles with the tension between authority and gentleness, between providing and being present. And many father complainers who become fathers learn this lesson. A man once said, "I let my son do as he wishes." But this came back to bite when the son's life spiralled into depression through wrong decisions and later said to his father, "Why didn't you guide me?"
These days there are many fathers walk out in their marriages and leave a child feeling lost and confused. This produces mental and emotional scars that live with them for eternity. My father closed his eyes in my early teens and I know that pain.
Sons often grow up trying to earn their father's blessing, even if it was never offered. Daughters may grow up seeking the kind of safe embrace that protects without control. Both may enter adulthood still reaching for a word that was never spoken: You are enough.
Some of us spiritualize this longing, casting our eyes upward. We learn to speak of God as Father — a perfect parent who sees, knows, and understands. And yet even here the wounds speak. Many find it hard to trust a heavenly Father when their earthly one was distant, angry, or absent. The metaphors of scripture are not always healing at first. They must be lived into, slowly, like sunlight warming a long-shadowed room.
What does it mean, then, to grow beyond the wound?
If the ache is universal, so too is the hope of healing. Our stories need not end where they began. For many, healing comes slowly through self analysis and re-parenting the child within. For some, it comes in becoming a better father — or even a spiritual father — to others.
And for others still, it comes with the quiet conviction that we are not alone. That the One who called himself “Abba” meets us in our longing. Not with judgment, but with presence. Not with law, but with love.
No father can be perfect. But in the ache left behind, there is a strange kind of invitation — to look inward, and forward.
Image generated with the assistance of Microsoft Copilot
The Father Wound
The Father Wound
I have yet to meet someone who does not carry, in some form, a scar shaped like their father.
Some wear it openly and rich with exaggeration and embellishment — an ache wrapped in anger or longing. Others tuck it away, quiet and folded like an old letter never sent. But it is there. Behind the eyes of grown men who still seek approval. Beneath the strength of women who learned early to protect their hearts. In the silence between generations, where things are felt but never said.
There is something universal about father wounds. They are not always born of cruelty. More often, they arise from absence — of words, of warmth, of presence. Even in homes where the father stayed, there are many ways a man can be gone.
Part of the weight lies in what the father represents. Across cultures and centuries, “Father” has not only been a man but a metaphor — for authority, protection, provision, and identity. In scripture, God is called Father. In myth, the patriarch is the one who bestows names, blessing, and land. He is the one we turn to, or run from, or try to become. Or, failing all that, the one we write about when we finally find the words.
No man can bear that symbolic weight. To be called ‘Father’ is to be cast in a role written by divine hands and performed by mortal ones; imperfect and flawed. Is it any wonder so many stumbles under its gravity? This is more acute when a child is sensitive.
And so the ache passes down. Generation to generation. A man unloved becomes a father unsure of how to love. A boy raised on correction but starved of affection may either repeat the pattern or break under the strain of resisting it. Even the most tender-hearted father wrestles with the tension between authority and gentleness, between providing and being present. And many father complainers who become fathers learn this lesson. A man once said, "I let my son do as he wishes." But this came back to bite when the son's life spiralled into depression through wrong decisions and later said to his father, "Why didn't you guide me?"
These days there are many fathers walk out in their marriages and leave a child feeling lost and confused. This produces mental and emotional scars that live with them for eternity. My father closed his eyes in my early teens and I know that pain.
Sons often grow up trying to earn their father's blessing, even if it was never offered. Daughters may grow up seeking the kind of safe embrace that protects without control. Both may enter adulthood still reaching for a word that was never spoken: You are enough.
Some of us spiritualize this longing, casting our eyes upward. We learn to speak of God as Father — a perfect parent who sees, knows, and understands. And yet even here the wounds speak. Many find it hard to trust a heavenly Father when their earthly one was distant, angry, or absent. The metaphors of scripture are not always healing at first. They must be lived into, slowly, like sunlight warming a long-shadowed room.
What does it mean, then, to grow beyond the wound?
If the ache is universal, so too is the hope of healing. Our stories need not end where they began. For many, healing comes slowly through self analysis and re-parenting the child within. For some, it comes in becoming a better father — or even a spiritual father — to others.
And for others still, it comes with the quiet conviction that we are not alone. That the One who called himself “Abba” meets us in our longing. Not with judgment, but with presence. Not with law, but with love.
No father can be perfect. But in the ache left behind, there is a strange kind of invitation — to look inward, and forward.
Image generated with the assistance of Microsoft Copilot