No child deserves to be treated the way the man who was my father treated me.

Father’s Day is tough for me. I don’t have a dad, because the man who was my father made a choice, when I was a child, to be my bully, instead.

For my entire life, this man was implacable, inscrutable, and entirely unwilling to have any kind of relationship with me … yet he still felt entitled to my adoration an attention. Every day was a new puzzle to be solved, a new set of circumstances I had to figure out, so I could somehow evade his wrath and his cruelty.

In short, the man who was my father is an awful, selfish, cruel, racist, narcissist, and he made a choice to withhold his love and affection from me. Instead, he poured his rage, his shame, his scorn, and his cruelty into me. In my dysfunctional family, he made me the Scapegoat, and my mother went along with it.

I didn’t deserve it. No child deserves to be treated the way the man who was my father treated me. While he was bullying me, humiliating me, making me feel small and unworthy, my mother was enabling and protecting him.

And every Father’s Day, I was expected to worship and laud and celebrate that man, who may have contributed DNA to my existence, but is in no way, at all, my dad. I don’t have a dad, and I never did. I had a bully. Now, I have an endless black void where a father’s love should be, and it hurts every day. That man could have built a relationship with me, could have been a father to me, could have worked to build the same relationship with me that I’ve built with my sons, but he chose to bully me, and he invested a LOT of time and energy making sure I knew how contemptuous he was of me, and everything I did. (He didn’t have any compunctions about spending all of the money I earned when my parents put me to work against my wishes, but that’s a whole other thing. I’ve been able to earn more money; he’s the only person on this planet who could have been my dad).

So today is hard for me. I see pretty much everyone I know celebrating their awesome dads, who loved them unconditionally, the way a child deserves to be loved. I see them sharing memories of time spent with their dad, which I never got, because the man who was my father never made the effort. I’m doing my best to focus on how happy my friends are, and how lucky their children are, but it’s really hard for me to do that without feeling the massive black void where my father’s love and affection should be.

I want today to be a reminder of all the joy my own kids have brought me. I want to celebrate my own existence as a dad, to stand up and say that I did the work, I broke the cycle. I am not the selfish bully I had the misfortune of being born to. I’m a good man, and a good father. I love my sons, and we have a close and loving relationship. We don’t need a Hallmark holiday to celebrate and acknowledge the love we share, and my wife and kids know what a bastard my father was, so they’ve never imposed a celebration on me. But it still feels good when my boys call me their dad, and it still feels good when they tell me they love me. Being their dad is such a privilege, and I choose, every day, to be grateful for it.

Today, I’m going to make a deliberate choice to focus on my own children, my own experiences being the dad I never had, and I’m going to give a very special shoutout to my fellow children of bastards, who have the same complicated relationship with fatherhood that I have. This is a tough day for us, and if you grok what I’m saying, I’m so sorry. I see you, and I know.

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110 thoughts on “No child deserves to be treated the way the man who was my father treated me.”

  1. I never lived with my father. Spent some time with him over summers. I’m 50, so there’s a part of me that would love to think I don’t think or care about this stuff. But I called my dad this evening and he just started apologizing for being a bad father, and I got a little weepy. I was surprised at myself.

    1. Father’s day is hard for me, too. My father left us when I was six months old. The chain smoking, alcoholic philanderer only came around long enough to insult the way I looked or fight a child support increase (how dare any man pay more than $144 a month, right?). I’m 41 now, and am glad he’s not in my life. I’ve tried to be everything he wasn’t, but never did end up having kids. I think this was in large part because of the difficulties I had growing up, and fears of not being able to deliver the upbringing to my children that I never had. Anyway, just know you’re not alone.

  2. How painful! I can’t even begin to imagine the trauma you experienced, Wil. I can’t relate because my own father was extraordinary and heavily involved in my upbringing and welfare. He’s been gone 4 years now, and I miss him more than anyone else I’ve lost.

    I can only say that you’re making the right choice to be the father to your sons the way yours wasn’t to you. That’s actually the best revenge (for lack of a better term) than choosing to be angry constantly and forever – although you’ll never just ‘get over’ what happened to you.

    I don’t care what liberal extremists say. Fathers DO serve a purpose in the lives of their children and as valuable assets to a community; more than just a mobile ATM. On that note, Wil, Happy Father’s Day to you and all the great dads in the world!

  3. Hi Wil,

    It really breaks my heart to hear your story. I’ve listend to the podcast you did with Macaulay Culkin, and both your stories hit me so hard. It’s hard for me to wrap my head around, because I been so lucky myself, with a loving and caring dad. But both my dads parents were terrible, he was hit and emotionally abused, and he was the one to break the chain. Now my sister is raising 3 stepchildren and I’m raising 3 boys with love and kindness, trying every day to make our children feel loved and respected.

  4. Since you’ve been opening up about That Man for a while now, I’ve discovered that whenever I watch “Stand By Me” now (at least once a year, usually end of summer; I start the summer with “JAWS”) and it gets to the part where you/Gordie cries “He hates me”, I just pause the movie and weep. That part always made me cry, from opening night; you and River are just fucking amazing, and I always wondered how such a young actor could be so real. Now what I see is the you beneath the character, the sweet little boy whose father really was/is an utter asshole… and I cry for the you that was and the you that is now, powering through your pain and becoming an amazing man and father in spite of him. Shit. I’m kinda crying now.

    Last night, my best friend Baxter was over for our usual Saturday Night Burn Unit (i.e., we make fun of movies MST-style), and I reminded him about Father’s Day. He kinda grumbled and mumbled about it, like he does about every damn thing, and I checked his ass: “Dude, fuck that, you won the god damn Father Trifecta, fool. Your father is alive, he’s in your life, AND he’s a decent person. You are the ONLY person I know who can say that. Call him or I’ll clobber you, you ingrate.” He admitted I was right, called him, and told him he was/is a Good Dad; Mr. Baxter was positively chuffed.

    Your Pal,

    Storm the Klingon

  5. WOW Wil… This was VERY Deep and Heavy, but I SO Get it! My Dad was a strange Mix. He tried VERY Hard… But when my Oldest sister died in 1972 of Leukemia, It blew our WHOLE Family apart! My Brother left home RIGHT after high school at age 18. Both of my parents became Alcoholics from grief. My Two other sisters started to just not be home alot. My next oldest sister got pregnant at 16 and married at 17 and moved out. And me as the youngest… I just had to sit there and watch it all and take it. My Parents almost split up. My Mom slept alot. Dad worked alot so he didn’t have to be home. And I just sat there and watched it all and took it. When my family FINALLY started to heal… In Summer of 1985 my NEXT oldest sister died of a Brain and Aorta Hemorrhage. She was only 28 My family fell apart again. THEN in December of 1986 my Mom got sick and went into a coma and never came out. She died almost three months later in Feb. of 1987 at age 54. My family pretty much was almost done at that point. My dad died in April of 1994 a week before his 66th, birthday.

    Through all of this… he was an alcoholic. But at least he DID try! He tried to help me and be there for me as much as he could, physically, mentally and emotionally. He might have been a wreck and didn’t do alot of things right… but at least he did try and I miss him and ALL my family members EVERY DAY! 🙁

  6. Maybe i’m not the right person to comment. I have a dad. He is not a great dad. He is bipolar, a narcissist, and an all-around infuriating person. His mental illnesses make it difficult for him to function “normally”. OTOH, he’s full of love. There’s never been any doubt he loves his children and family, but sometimes he has a funny way of showing it. We have a relationship but I keep him at arm’s length. He does not know the intimate details of my life and, unfortunately, his inability to act as a stable adult means he doesn’t have much of a relationship with my kids either.

    Father’s Day is awkward for me because it’s hard to find a card (and I have to send him a card, or I get passive-aggressive comments sniped at me for months) that says “I love you, thanks for trying” instead of “you’re the best dad ever and our whole family adores you”. I grieve for the father-son relationship that we never had–because every time I tried, he did something to drive me off. My father figures were my maternal grandfather, who passed 15 years ago, and my Scoutmasters with whom I only have limited contact these days. Basically I have no classic father figure 95% of the time. Once in a blue moon my dad will have a clear enough head to have a real conversation with me, but it’s literally once every 5-6 years. It happens so rarely that I can actually recall the last time it happened and what the conversation was about.

    OK so that was a lot of setup for really no reason. I guess I just want to say I sympathize. Father’s Day is not easy for me if I think about it in terms of my own father. So instead, I think about it in terms of myself. This holiday is about ME, not my dad. It’s to thank ME for trying hard, for sacrificing, for making the effort to have the relationship with my kids that will reap dividends when they’re adults. So my suggestion, I guess, is to make this your holiday and not your dad’s. If you do that, the wife and family of which you speak so lovingly all the time will make it a rewarding day.

    I’d offer to be your father figure but I think you’re older than me by just a smidge. Plus we’re perfect strangers. But I think you’re pretty cool. Now go make your bed.

  7. Also, this quote/scene springs to mind:

    “It sounds like a boy Garry’s age needs a man around the house.”

    “Well, it depends on the man. I had a man around. He used to wake me up every morning by flicking lit cigarettes at my head. He’d say, ‘Hey, asshole, get up and make me breakfast.’ You know, Mrs. Buckman, you need a license to buy a dog, or drive a car. Hell, you need a license to catch a fish. But they’ll let any butt-reaming asshole be a father.”

    [IMO this scene is when the movie went from “great” to “incredible”.]

  8. Lots of children have the same relationship with their fathers as you do. Thank you for making sure your children are not among them. My only hope in this world is that I am at least half the dad you appear to be.

  9. Thank you so much for sharing this. My father is a wonderful, patient, kind, loving, and caring parent to my three half siblings, but has always been absent, distant, and aloof with me, the only child from his first marriage. It hurts to see him be so fantastic with his other children, and for many years I thought I was the problem. I tried everything I could to connect with him, and nothing worked. It all coalesced into a single instance of standing in the aisle at Hallmark when I was twenty years old, sobbing hysterically as I read through all of the cards, realizing that none of them described the way my father was with me. I stopped celebrating Father’s Day for many years, until I met my husband and we had children. Now every Father’s Day I take the time to celebrate the wonderful, patient, kind, loving, and caring parent to my two children and ignore the absent, distant, and aloof person who contributed to my DNA.

    1. Another way to look at it is, In spite of everything, you’re pretty damn successful. You have a long list of acting credits for a guy who doesn’t love the limelight. Lots of successful ventures, a blog that is read by thousands, long term relationships.You’ve read about a zillion child stars that crashed. We all should do as well as you. I think you could write a post about how you overcame all the obstacles.

  12. I see you, and I grok what you’ve been through. My story is different, but the same, as so many sad stories are. I spend father’s day celebrating my husband, who, like you, is an amazing father. I can also celebrate the way he’s now being able to connect with his own father, who was able to actually admit to and get treatment for the OCD that made their relationship incredibly challenging. I can find joy in his joy, but it will never be a joy I know for myself. I’m so glad you were able to find the love to give that you never received, and be the chosen father for your boys.

  13. Your sharing of your experience as a father has significantly influenced my own fatherhood for the better. Likewise your approach to mental health, politics, and social justice (I’ve passed on small-m memes from you to family, friends, and coworkers). Having grown up with the characters you portray and the views you share, you are some combination of a good friend and a loving uncle to me. I suspect many others feel the same way. Thank you for all you do!

  14. CW: Child abuse

    The warning may not be necessary since it’s a key element of your post. I would say my experience lies somewhere between yours and that of your sons. I would not wish my biological father on anyone. My first clear memory is being thrown across the kitchen breaking my left femur. I remember getting to the hospital, having my leg set, and fragments from the weeks I spent in traction and the months in a cast. I was three years old. Fortunately, from my perspective, he left when I was four. But my later memories of the times I spent with him are fragmented and highly elided.

    Fortunately my mother connected with a man, the younger brother of a childhood and college friend of hers, and they were married for a few years. During that period, he was willing to adopt my brother and me. I had to speak with multiple people. They required me to tell my biological father myself, which was an unpleasant experience but one I ensured happened in public at a theme park. I testified in court, both in chambers and on the stand. My Dad is not perfect. He has plenty of struggles and issues of his own and those sometimes spilled over onto me. My mother has her own as well. But he has been there for me now for 45 years and I’ve done my best to be there for him as well, especially as he has faced many health issues this past decade.

    And I worked every moment to learn how to parent as well as I could, to repair things with my children when I screwed up, and to also break that cycle. Like you, that’s what I celebrate first and foremost, though I do have a Dad who chose to be my Dad to celebrate as well. Celebrate your kids and let them celebrate you. Take care.

  15. From one kid with a bad dad to each of you who need to hear it:
    I’m sorry for those who endured childhood trauma. I hope each of you really and truly realize it was not your fault. I hope you can also forgive your parent. I don’t mean go and hug it out and pretend everything is fine. I mean let go of the hurt and anger they caused you. The thing about hating your abusers is that it only hurts you. The abusers don’t walk around feeling bad because you do. Forgiving someone frees YOU from the pain. It doesn’t mean you have to let them back into your life. It just means you won’t let those hurts hold you back anymore. It takes a lot of work and sometimes therapy and possibly medications when necessary. You CAN do this. We can’t help who we were born to, but we can keep them from hurting us further.

  16. Wil, you deserved better, and you did better. I’m glad for your sons that they have you.

  17. I’m so sorry…but I get it. My stepfather (who I grew up with as the father-role) was abusive and vicious and I hated him. He wasn’t kind or caring to anyone, and I rejoiced the day he died. I gather my blood father wasn’t much better. I literally have no father-figure, and that’s had to be okay. I’m so glad you can be a wonderful father for your own children–I literally rejoice that some of my friends had good childhoods. Seeing that gives me hope for the race. But I’ll never be a hypocrite about my own life…and I’m glad you aren’t either. When you fake love for someone who abused you, it eats away inside. You deserved better.

  18. Wil, I’m really proud of you for breaking the cycle and becoming the good father to your sons.

    I have a similar relationship with my mother, so I get how you feel. I haven’t spoken to my mom in over three years, and cutting ties with her has been quite healing for me.

  19. To have a bully as a father is absolutely horrible.

    But to have one who was there but checked out and emotionally absent was just as bad.

    In my case it was my step mother who was the abusive one, and my dad went along with it and said nothing.

    Dealing with psychological abuse from a parent, is the most destructive thing a child can ever deal with.

    The fact that you drew a line in the sand and said I won’t be like that, and have broken that cycle of abuse is you taking your power back.

    By breaking that cycle of abuse you are making the journey for your children much better than what your father did and that should make you proud.

    I raise my glass, and I tip my hat to you. I shake your hand.

  20. I don’t know who my birth father is. I tried everything to find out, but was a “closed adoption” in Blaur County, Pennsylvania. I petitioned the court to unseal my records and was successful, but father was “unknown”. However, I was blessed to have a wonderful dad who created a safe and secure home for me. He passed away in 2002 and I miss him everyday.

  21. My heart breaks for you and everyone who has suffered at the hands of someone who should have been a place of refuge. My wife is one someone who endured an emotionally abusive father and I have seen first hand just how cruel such treatment is. I am lucky enough to have a dad and a heavenly father, but only one of those has never let me down. Now being a father myself I worry constantly that I am going to fall short and it drives me to be the best I can be. I applaud you for breaking the cycle and making every effort to be a father to you boys in all the ways your own fell short.

  22. Please read:

    http://wilwheaton.net/2018/06/

    I think it exactly explains how you have changed such utter darkness into such a bright light. You should celebrate the milestone that YOU have created by bringing up your family (and certainly not negating the contribution your wonderful wife has made). Please, please reread it.

  23. Thank you for sharing this, Wil. If someone as wonderful as you can have a bullying father, then maybe I’m not so bad either. I got extreme religion, constantly being hit, and molestation, all behind middle-class doors. My mother enabled everything, and it took me a while to realise that I was angry with her as well as with my father. I never wanted children of my own – it seemed so awful, to make a human being who would have to endure childhood. Then I worked in a nursery, and loved the children to bits… anyway. My father got a top job and a Papal knighthood. I got PTSD and depression. Ah well. I got good stuff too, and eventually you make your own family whether you have children or not. Much love and solidarity. Xxx

  24. I love that you wrote this and I’m sorry you had to write this.

    My situation is very different, but my mom died when I was in 8th grade, and Mothers Day has always been painful to me. My dad has a great girlfriend who has been in our lives since I was in high school, but it’s not the same.

    Parents days are hard.

  25. I’ll echo what someone else wrote upthread, and with one further point. Wil, the worst thing you could do would be to alienate yourself from yourself, and live in an imaginary world detached from reality. That’s what Trump’s cult has done to his zombie followers. And it can happen to anyone who staunchly denies reality. The good news is that reality does not suck if you are its master.

    What do I mean by this? No matter how much hate you may feel for the man, your bio-dad will always be your bio-dad. He made you with his stuff, and you are something like half-composed of his stuff. Hating him will blow back into hating yourself, however sub-/un-consciously it may be.

    Happily, you can become the master of your own gene pool. Your bio-dad’s genes are neither good nor bad; what matters is what you do with them. He may have been a pile of shit, but you can plant flowers in that shit and grow a beautiful garden. Your health and success is the ultimate “fuck you” to an evil sack of shit, and you’ll know you’re on the road to healing/acceptance/whatever-you-call-it when you can look at his picture and say, “Thank you, bio-dad, for giving me the opportunity to be the man I am today, a man who made beauty where you made ugliness, and a man who gave love where you gave hate. When your hate turns to pity, you’ll know for sure: You won!

  26. Hi Wil.

    My best advice, which probably isn’t particularly novel and you probably don’t need, is to focus on the good. Celebrate the relationship you have with your sons, and know that you’ve done something worthwhile there. If you can, set down the relationship with your own father for a time. Even if it’s just for a day. Because life is hard, and we need to take every opportunity to celebrate our own accomplishments in this world. And remember, it’s just another day on the calendar. It only has the meaning you give it.

    On a related note, I’ve read through most of the comments on this post, and there’s something that jumps out to me. There’s a lot of middle ground posts, saying things like “my Dad’s not a total tool, but he’s close” or “he gave me money but not love” or something similar. This really made me think about my own Father, who was a decent man who genuinely cared for me.

    I think it’s easy to overlook the fact that we don’t really know our parents. I mean, we THINK we do. But we don’t. By the very nature of the relationship, parents typically only show us one side of themselves. The parent. Not the friend. Not the coworker. Not the jerk at the grocery store who cuts in line. Just the parent. And if you stop to think about it, in some ways there’s really no way for you to truly know your parents. The years they spent developing their core personalities all occurred before you were born (at least, for most of us). And the only window you’ll ever have into that is the stories they might choose to tell. But I’d venture to guess that my parents, who watched it all happen to me, know me better than I know them. And even at that, they didn’t see everything I experienced, so they also have an imperfect view.

    And for what it’s worth, raising my own kid hasn’t really changed my thoughts around this.

    So when people are saying things like “he gave me money, but not love”… well, maybe that’s true. But maybe that particular parent is a broken person with a rich backstory that fully explains why they use money to express their love. Or maybe not… but I think it’s hard to know.

    One thing I learned early in my professional career is that you ignore what people say and watch what they do. Actions are the truest reflection of a person, so I tend to think that how somebody uses their money means something. It may mean obligation rather than love, but it means something.

    My own father was a kind man, but had a temper. Which sounds contradictory, but… well, it’s still true. He yelled a lot when he was mad, and he spanked us as children because that was the norm at the time. At one point, as an adult, my brother decided that the spankings amounted to child abuse. I suppose he has a point by today’s standards, but there’s another truth here, too. My father got much worse at the hands of his father. This I know from vague stories that have never been fleshed out because they were too painful. And from comments my mother made.

    So does this make my father a bad man? No, I don’t think so. I loved him and I miss him, and I know that he did the best he could given his circumstances. And I know that he did better than his Dad. And I’m hoping that I’m doing better again. Because sometime that’s how life works. If you can move the needle just a bit for your own kid, and if they can move the needle just a bit for theirs… well, then we get there one day, right?

    As a final note, don’t misunderstand me. Some people are just bad news, and that includes some fathers. I’m not trying to defend them. But when you have a father who’s not a clear cut case… I think it’s easy to forget that your father is a complex and imperfect person, and there’s probably things that made them the way they are that you’re never going to understand.

    In any case, I’m grateful that I can say I miss my Dad. I don’t really understand half of what motivated him, but he was a decent Dad.

  27. I’m so sorry this happened to you. My own father was destroyed by poverty, alcoholism and WW11. He was an angry, scared man who kept the world at arm’s length in an effort to protect himself I think. I was scared of him my whole life, scared of his rages, even though he never laid a hand on me.

    I’m almost sixty now and I can better understand what a broken man he was and how hard he tried to be a good father. We did not grow up in poverty like he did and he did not drink like his own mother did. He did better but it still hurt. He’s been dead for twenty years now and I wish I could tell him that I forgive him now.

  28. Thank you for putting into words what I haven’t been able to, despite trying for a very long time Wil. My story (minus having children of my own, yet) is quite similar to your own. It is refreshing (if also a bit sad) to be reminded that I am not alone feeling that way at this time of year.

  29. Thank you for this, it helped me to better understand you and the (small) role you’ve played in my life. It also helped me to understand myself better. 90 min of pacing and it’s 2am so I appologise for the text and hope that the sentiment is coherent.

    I’m not in any way a therapist but I found my mental health has improved since I forgave my parents for the neglect. I think it would have been better if I had done it before they died – not so that they could know (I wouldn’t have told them) but in order to make the grieving process easier. I didn’t think I would grieve but I did and I was angry throughout the process.

    I never liked Wesley Crusher and I projected that dislike onto you Wil (sorry). When your career restarted I was surprised to discover that you were talented. I have consumed pretty much all your Youtube content and was again surprised this time that you were actually smart rather than just written (implausibly) smart. There are aspects of your behavior with your guests which made me think you were a bit of a bully but then other things which made me think you were supportive or nurturing so I thought you were a nice person with occasional accidental poor behavior, now I think (like much in life) it is more complex than that.

    Given the dysfunction in your biological family did you find that the acting fraternity gave you the support and nurture that helped you develop into the kind and decent person you are? In particular I am wondering if the strong trade union enjoyed by actors helped you recognise / realise your worth? I was lucky enough to be involved in industrial action quite young (20) and being able to impose my/our will on a vastly more powerful organisation changed the course of my life.

  31. You said you broke the cycle, that’s exactly right. You are forming new links in a chain. You are raising a new generation that will know how it feels to have a great father. That;s one heck of a gift. Your post hits me hard, I never knew how damaged I was until much later in life. However, I knew I would be a loving father even if I failed at everything else.

  32. Thank you for this. It helps to be seen and to know there are those out there that understand this pain.

  33. Thank you for sharing this. I spent the bulk of my growing up without a dad. My mom and dad split up when I was about 8 and then we moved and I had barely a relationship with him over the years.

    Every year when Father’s Day comes around, I see the endless sea of comments on Facebook and other platforms of people talking about their dad and all it does is make me angry. My dad was never there for me. Had nothing to do with my upbringing. He’s passed along now and there are moments where I think about him. But Father’s Day is a day I hate thinking about because it reminds me of him.

    I have two of my own kids and so they treat me to an extra hug or card or something on that day. THAT is what I do my best to focus on. I’m doing what my dad didn’t and breaking the cycle as well.

    Focus on being a great dad, which I am sure you are, and make that the point of Father’s Day.

  34. Wil, This resonated with me. My parents are BOTH awful people. They divorced when I was 8 and I was used as a pawn to punish one or the other for the next 10 years. You turned out great, I am very content with my life now and we BOTH broke the cycle of abuse. Here’s to you for putting my feelings into better words.

  35. Much respect and love, Wil. The fact that you managed to become a good father in spite of everything shows incredible heart and strength. Very inspiring.

  36. Got you Wil. You could be describing my father. I swore I would never treat my son that way, and made such an effort to show him love and not make him feel like he was useless and stupid every day of his life. It didn’t work. He hasn’t spoken to me for years and I don’t know what I did to make him stay away. Sometimes, I think it’s nature, not nurture, and bad wiring in the brain is passed on, no matter what one does or tries to do. At least your kids aren’t biologically yours so you don’t have to worry about that. Good luck. Raising kids is so hard; you never know if you’re doing the right thing until it’s too late and they hate you.

  37. Wil,

    This is a small thing, but it is also pretty big. A few years ago, I met you at the inaugural Undefeated board game tournament in Las Vegas. I met you at the GameWorks event and gave you a d20 to roll. You rolled low (of course) and incorporated that into your talk at the event on stage the next day.I was pretty pleased about that.

    What I did not know at the time, and what no one could have because you are a professional, is that you must have been going through a horrible time as a friend of yours known to the gamer community had just tragically passed away. But you were still there chatting with fans and making others happy.

    It turns out my son suffers from depression and bipolar disorder. Your blogs on your experiences with mental illness have really helped me gain some insight into him and have really helped me. You again have helped me simply by being a good thoughtful person and sharing your experiences to make other’s lives better.

    I am sorry that you had a difficult relationship with your parents. That is horrible and nobody deserves that. But you are a good man, a good father, and a compassionate man that has made positive impacts on many people’s lives, like mine and my son for a small example. And when you think that this is a small example, but aggregate it over the number of people you have touched through this blog, your performances and your writing, not to say your personal interactions, you have made a big positive impact on the world. Thank you.

    1. Unrivaled. It was Unrivaled, not Undefeated. But the rest of the story checks out. 🙂

  39. Late to the post here…

    Growing up on a diet of cruelty is a bitch of a thing to live with. Not just because it hurts; because that quickly becomes the way we understand how to relate to other people. It becomes our language of attachment.

    I kinda know this. My dad was a bit of an empty shirt. Self-absorbed in his own pain that he stuffs away and hides, he only comes out and interacts when he realizes something his adult self can cope with – and that is with adult judgements on childish actions. He struggled with his own stuff and never got help for it; I grew up with a capricious system of attachment and punishment.

    So I kinda know where you’re from.

    Relearning the attachment language is… a challenge. It looks like you have a place where you can explore that safely, which is a very good thing. You still know, after all this time, in a deep place, what you need.

    You also have a very sharp mind and… I suspect you may be wondering what good is it for if it doesn’t get you the most basic of things that you have been missing. I may be projecting, of course. When I read your posts and listen to you present your inner dialogue, however… I don’t think I am that far off the mark.

    Therapy helps and don’t argue yourself out of what you need is all the advice I can give from here.

  41. Good evening, Mr. Wheaton.

    Prayers and Sympathy to you and yours on the loss of your friend Grant Imahara:
    Mechanic, Engineer, Gamer, Author, Great Soul and Good Friend.
    We all are privileged to have been in his company in this place at this time.

    We are here for you and yours.

  43. I didn’t have a good dad either, but I don’t have the same aspect as you as I am a girl. Thank you for your vulnerability share. I admire you for this.

  44. Thank you for this.

    It’s hard for people who grew up in a reasonably normal relationship to believe that some of us had different, very damaging experiences with our parents. Father’s Day and Mother’s Day are the worst, because we get bombarded by messages from well-meaning people telling us that our parents did the best they could, that they’re the only ones we have, and we’ll be sorry if we don’t forgive and reconcile with them while they’re still alive.

    I didn’t communicate with my father for his last 10 years. I didn’t visit him when he was on his deathbed, and when he died I felt only a great sense of relief.

    When I watch my daughter with her dad, who loves her so much and treats her so well, I don’t have a place in my head to put that, so I’ve tried, and continue to try, to think of the two of them when Father’s Day comes around.

    Love, comfort, and encouragement on your journey.

  46. Hi Wil, I was hoping you still had a writing presence online.

    No, you don’t deserve any of what you have suffered – my father was a monster, so I relate to what you are saying about Father’s Day. It’s a tough, sad thing to get through for me. I never had a father, and neither did you, not really. How different my life could have been had those awful things not happened to me. So glad to read how you recognize what you have now; that you are appreciated, wanted, loved, and respected by your own family. Enough said.

    I actually came here to praise you. I just watched the HBO documentary Showbiz Kids, and you were so eloquent and articulate in talking not only about about your good and bad experiences in TV and film, but your friendship with River. As to your birth family, my blood boiled as I listened to the treatment of being put in abusive work situations. I know that it’s long over, but speaking out is important. I hope that in some way you will continue to be an activist to protect kids in the industry.

  47. thank you, good sir, i think i really needed to read this right now.

    while my father was not nearly as abusive as yours obviously was, and i am lucky enough to have a somewhat neutral relationship with him now, my childhood was no picknick when he was around and i am to this day struggling with baggage from back then.

    i am looking at my one year old kid as i write this and i am nothing less than amazed. amazed at how unconditionally i love them (i never understood the concept of unconditional love before and still think it is not sensibly applicable to adults… but having a child sure changes certain views), amazed at how unsignificant some problems seem, that drove panic and anxiety to my very core just two years ago. amazed that even though i just lost my job two days ago it does not feel like the end of the world as long as i have my wonderful family.

    you, wil wheaton, are a beautiful human being. i am proud of you for he journey you have behind you. judging from what i’ve read here over the years, i believe it must have been quite a bit tougher in some respects than mine, which still was really tough so far.
    thank you for doing what you do. it really helps.

  48. Wil,

    I am so sorry you are going thru all this pain. I think being in quarantine is causing a lot of us to reflect on our past.

    I had a similar relationship with my mother. Finally at 17 I ran down the street away from her as she was wielding a knife. I was never able to have a relationship with her.

    We may never understand why our parents were unable give us the love we deserved. We sure as hell can’t change what happened. All we can do is live in the present and be the best we can be to ALL those around us.

    Please don’t reflect on your father, it’s never going to help you. Instead reflect on all of us who LOVE you and Appreciate all you have given us.

    Take Care. Be Safe. Love to you.

    Rox

  49. Wow Wil!!! I know you’re not looking for pity or attention but reading this made me sad and very blessed too. My dad, is my (step)dad, he’s the greatest men I know and love him dearly. Like your sons do you. I luckily don’t know my biological dad having heard the abuse he had put on my mom and how he used me to black mail her, was enough for me to not even want to know him. The problem came when my dad, wanted to adopt me. And they couldn’t find my biological dad to give his consent. The social worker that came to see how we were doing wrote a praising report.
    I remember when she was there and 6 year old me came storming in and asking if my older friends and I could use his spanners to do something with our bikes.

    My old never even scolded me for loosing some of his tools and out of curiosity breaking a lot of his “spy gear”; as I thought it was. Later I found out were his radio manager projects.

    Even when my brother was born he never made a difference between us. This man instilled a curiosity in me for technology. But never pushed me or my brother to do anything.
    When 6 years ago my brother succumbed to his chronic pathological depression, I saw him breakdown in public for The first time.
    As it was in the hotel restaurant, I instructed my mom to bring him to the coffee corner and I payed the bill (we already had our immense sadness and anger, fit). The old man then said in between his sobs: “Now Ray’s laying for dinner I don’t want that”. I told him that it’s not important.
    The pain from losing my little brother in such a terrible way was suddenly overtaken by seeing my dad in sheer agony.
    When he hugged me and my mom and said: “I’m so happy with my family… what’s left of it…” We all started to cry.

    3 years later he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and he was once again the downe to earth one. When I asked him if he was worried he said: “not for me. But about you and your mom”. Again he didn’t think about himself but thought about us.
    After the surgery it went down hill quickly (a serious of infections). And at a point his heart was about to stop, and he must have had a TIA. During New Years (he was operated on Boxing Day). He said to my mom: “Marrying you was the best choice I ever made. And you brought a little tinker along and made me have that family I wanted.” Mum and I sobbed.
    Although neither of us ever doubted he would pull through he wasn’t so sure and there were moments he wanted to give up. But he said: “I couldn’t leave you guys, not after what had happened.”

    I’m so glad he’s still around. And that we still have time together. Last week when I visited with them I said agin to him: “We are so lucky to have you in our lives”.
    There were so many thinks I wanted to say to my brother that I never had the chance to. I’m not going to make that mistake again. Live can stop at any moment. So tell those people that you love, that you love them.

    I’m sad you don’t have that dad. But I’m glad you are that dad and that your (step)sons love you as their dad.

  50. Wil, I’m sorry to hear about your crap with your father. As someone who always wins the “bad dad” contest, I can appreciate where you’re coming from.

    For me, Father’s Day is a day I get to share with my kids. I literally don’t remember EVER celebrating Father’s Day, not because there wasn’t a male around, but because there wasn’t a father.

    I’m OK with it this way. It really sucks to say that.

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