"My dad is my enemy? I often ask myself, I've been asking myself for years.
Today, living in a house of my own that is not small enough to believe in the myth of the hero's father, I say that he has always regarded me as his enemy. The story begins with my birth. He wanted a boy to call his father's name. It was fun to see that I was a girl. It left me two months nameless out of anger. My whole life just scolded me, even with anger, as if there was something wrong with me. Nothing I did was right for him. Even the fact that I resembled my mom more and more didn't go down well.
He continues to treat me as an enemy today, like a child who never got into his heart. In my teens, I squeezed my brain to find some way to enjoy it: by cooking something I liked, I behaved exemplarily, I learned at school to be proud of it. As in fairy tales, he would turn into a friend's father, a hero, into the father my friends had. But that did not happen either then or today that he is old.
He continues to be rude in words and gestures, though I care for him. I want to refuse her as a parent, to never speak to her again. So excessive is the injury that causes me. Perhaps many of you will think that he is one of those narrow-minded, patriarchal, uneducated men to justify this behavior. But no, none of that. I've spent almost half my life feeling guilty, though I couldn't find fault with whoever.
Parents are not chosen, like children - to model them the way we want. "
Written by an anonymous woman. First published in April 2015
