When Will I Finally Say, “I Can Do What I Want; I’m an Adult!” to My Father?

It’s been a long time coming.

Photo by Guilherme Stecanella on Unsplash

I haven’t told my father that I’m not going to proceed with my master’s degree program.

I worry about the impending storm of doom — a mixture of anger and disappointment — that will greet me when I finally say the words.

My father has been one of my life’s greatest critics, and nothing I have done has ever been enough for him. Report cards would get a glance-over and then a comment about the single B in a column of what were otherwise A’s. Even with my recent job acquisition, he focused instead on how I was finishing up my semester rather than congratulating me for finally getting out of the retail cycle I’d been stuck in.

To say he’s very much on the black-and-white spectrum of thinking is an understatement.

My father found God again in the first few years after my mother passed away. His best friends became a deacon’s widow and her inner circle. I had no issue with this: just because religion wasn’t for me didn’t have to mean the same for him.

But once, while he was over for dinner, he made the proclamation that his greatest wish before he died was that I would be baptized as a Catholic. Awkward silence fell over the table. I don’t think…