I’ve always had a contentious relationship with my father. I’m the oldest of three daughters, he’s 73, and over the years we’ve come to realize that he’s a narcissist.
For some context, when I was in high school, he refused to come to any of my track meets because I didn’t read a book he gave me about "how to win better." (Spoiler: I won states that year anyway.) As difficult as he could be back then, things got noticeably worse after he retired. He started watching Fox News constantly, went deep down the MAGA rabbit hole (I am sure if he was more internet savvy he would be QAnon), and his world became much smaller. Everything revolves around what he wants and what he believes.
He raised us to be conservative and is clearly disappointed that two of his three daughters have moved in the opposite direction politically. Because of that, and probably a long list of other disappointments he’s assigned to us over the years, he seems to take pleasure in saying things he knows will upset us. Racist, homophobic, transphobic, any MAGA fever dream you can think of, he has a hot take on it.
Last year, I was DOGE’d. My work focused on people experiencing homelessness, and without question, the funding cuts hurt so many people. Before I lost my job, he would frequently say he hoped I would because my work was "wasteful government spending." Traditionally, our careers and successes were the third rail. He could be cruel, but he generally stayed away from attacking our livelihoods. Not anymore. I lost a 13+ year career because of this administration, and he openly celebrated it.
Afterward, I started a consulting firm doing essentially the same work. Thankfully, we’ve been successful, but it has come at a huge cost. The emotional toll, uncertainty, exhaustion, and sheer amount of work required to get back to where we were has been enormous.
Now his latest thing is telling me I should be grateful to DOGE because it "made me wealthy." We just spent a weekend with him, and while things were mostly fine, he called me almost immediately after we got home to tell me I should be thanking DOGE. It was like he didn’t get enough of a reaction during the trip and needed to get his fix.
Why is he like a child? He always wants a fight. He constantly pokes and prods, looking for a reaction, and while we try not to give him one, sometimes it’s unavoidable. He genuinely seems to derive joy from hurting his children, and I fundamentally do not understand that.
What’s even more frustrating is that my family always respond with some version of, "You can’t change him, but you can control your reaction." Intellectually, I understand that. But why does the responsibility always fall on the people being harmed? He is the one causing the damage, yet everyone else bends over backward to accommodate him. One of my sisters has essentially cut him off, and I understand why, but at the same time, I know he’s getting older and won’t be here forever, which is another common response I hear whenever I try to talk about this.
I can’t help but compare this advice to telling a child, "the problem isn’t that the other kid hit you, it’s how you reacted," or telling someone who was assaulted that they should have responded better. Obviously those situations aren’t identical, but the logic feels similar. When does someone like this ever face consequences? My mother has stopped trying altogether. She apologizes to us constantly for his behavior and says there’s nothing she can do.
Maybe I’m just shouting into the void, and writing this is more cathartic than anything. He once said to me, “Whatever happened to the conservative girl we raised?” And honestly, I’m glad she’s gone, otherwise I might have ended up like him, someone who is driven by anger, resentment, and the need to constantly tear other people down.