Becoming My Own Father Figure

The Next Hurdle In Consciousness

This Sunday, June 15, I am giving a Father’s Day talk at a Unity Church in Boulder. As my daughter jokes and says, “My how the turns have tabled.”

It’s been 15 years since I first learned about the Unity Church. A Jewish friend mentioned it to me when I told her that I was going to seminary. When she heard that I was going, she was almost heartbroken. And it didn’t make it any better that I was wearing a cross when I told her.

Even though she knew that I was into Jesus (Yehoshua), she didn’t experience me the way she experienced other Christians. She felt like I was more like her. Even though she was Jewish, she actually attended a Unity Church and really loved and respected the mystical Jesus who she felt embodied the “Cosmic Christ”. But, growing up, she saw the cross as a symbol of hate. So even though her rational mind knew me as the same person who loved her and respected her, seeing me with a cross on an dtalking about going to a Christian seminary freaked her out. And she asked, “Won’t you consider Unity instead?”

My short answer was that I didn’t know anything about Unity and that I was still going to go to seminary. But, I would not wear the cross in front of her if it made her uncomfortable because I knew what is was like to see symbols and feel uncomfortable such as with the Confederate flag. It didn’t matter how much my White step family said that it wasn’t a flag of hate, I still wouldn’t feel comfortable walking into a place with a Confederate flag out front and a bunch of White guys wearing that flag anywhere on their person. She was visibly relieved. And I even agreed to go to a Unity service.

It was a pretty cool experience. But, at that time, I still needed a more dirt under his finger nails, accessible to the people, knows what it’s like to go through shit Jesus. So, I felt like Unity was not for me. Now, fast forward 15 years and I am about to give a Father’s Day talk at a Unity Church that I first got connected to because they hired the organization I worked for to give them a JODIE (Justice Opportunity Diversity Inclusion and Equity) Training. By that time, I had finished seminary, become a pastor for over a decade, and finally come to a place where I had to let go of Jesus’ hand and learn to walk on my own. I didn’t need him to be my daddy anymore. And now, over a year after I completed that training with them, I am speaking at Unity on Father’s Day. And I find that very symbolic. Because just like those symbols—the cross and the Confederate flag—can mean different things to different people, Father’s Day can hit people differently depending on their relationship to fathers and father figures.

Healing the Daddy Wound

For about 47 years now, I’ve worn the habit of being a “man.” Not just any man—but the kind I imagined when I was two years old and my father left our family to start a new one. I built an entire identity around that absence. In place of his presence, I constructed a concept—a blueprint of manhood defined not by experience but by longing.

I loved my dad. Maybe more than loved him. When I first learned about Jesus, I projected Him onto my father. Jesus, in my imagination, looked like my dad. His words sounded like my dad’s voice. And until I was around fifteen, that image held strong. In my mind, my father and Jesus were fused—divine, strong, loving, never absent.

Because I was so desperate for a father who would never leave me, I became deeply devoted to Jesus at a very young age. If something had His name on it, I was reading it. Watching it. Memorizing it. Way before those WWJD bracelets came out, “What Would Jesus Do?” was already tattooed on my soul. Like a son longing for his father’s approval, I lived for the expectations I imagined Jesus—and, by extension, my father—had of me.

Determined to be the best son I could be, I made it my life’s mission to live out the two greatest commandments: love God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love my neighbor as myself. But as anyone who’s ever tried to embody that knows, there’s a cost—especially when your identity is built on trying to find the strength not to defend yourself. I won’t go into the details, but aside from actual death, I’ve experienced most of the abuses a person can endure. Still, I believed that suffering was part of being like Jesus. As Scripture says, “Do not marvel that the world hates you, for it hated me first.” So I didn’t marvel. I just endured.

In James 1, I read that we should “count it all joy” when we face trials because they produce perseverance. That promise kept me going. But by the time I was 16, I’d internalized the idea that I probably wouldn’t live past 18. My sole goal was to live in a way that wouldn’t embarrass my grandmother at my funeral. I had no dreams. No future plans. Just be a good son to the Jesus I projected onto my father and don’t bring shame to my family.

Then, at fifteen, the illusion shattered. I finally saw my father’s humanity—and his fallibility. At first, I wanted to take it out on him. But I realized that I had to own my own projections. I had turned him into something he was never meant to be—perfect. Once I could admit that, I had to redefine what being a man meant. And the first framework I came up with was this: be like Jesus—but not like my dad.

I made a conscious decision to reject almost everything I thought he represented. Everything except one thing: he paid his bills on time. That’s what my mom always said. And so, that became the thread I held onto—the one way I could still claim him. Paying bills on time became the standard I used to measure my worth as a man, and eventually, as a father.

There’s a quote attributed to Carl Jung: “No man becomes a man until his father dies.” But I think, for many of us, the death we reckon with is symbolic—the death of the idealized father. The death of the man we thought he was or needed him to be.

Who’s the Daddy Now?

When I first found out I was going to be a father, I was terrified. Not just because of the responsibilities ahead—but because I had once come close to being a father before. My ex-partner decided not to have the baby, fearing she’d end up raising a child alone. Though I was committed to not repeating my father’s abandonment, I couldn’t overcome her fear. The choice she gave me was to accept her decision or raise the child alone. That decision basically haunted me for 15 years—even after my oldest daughter was born with the woman I am married to now.

When I finally became a father at 32, after thinking that that window had passed me by, I had to admit something I’d been avoiding: I didn’t actually know how to be a father. I only knew what not to do. So I clung to the one positive trait I inherited from my dad—financial reliability—and tried to build the rest from scratch. My daughters will be the true judges of whether I’ve been successful. But until recently, no one could say I hadn’t kept the lights on and paid all of the bills. I hustled, side-gigged, and juggled jobs—anything to make sure I did the one thing he did right. And on top of it, I paid many of my mother’s bills until she moved in with my brother before having to move into a memory care facility. In my mind, I did what a man was “supposed to do”. That is until I chose to step out on my own without the structure of a stable institution.

Ever since I left my role as a pastor, my income has been unstable. I started out strong. But with the changing of the political tides, my income was decimated. Hit by the DEI backlash and the decreased interest in bringing people together across differences, my paid work all but evaporated. So, I had to pivot again. I took a temporary role as a pastor again for a friend’s church, started creating customized training, have done some public speaking, written articles, rented my house out, did some catering, and drained my savings all the way to the point where I was forced to face the fear that I may have to let go of the one thing I tried to emulate about my dad. And suddenly, I see my father and mother differently. Again.

What Goes Around Comes Around

I remember being seven years old, crying and begging my dad to let me live with him.

His response:
“I would love to have you live with me. But I can’t take time off work to fight for custody. If I lose my job, how can I provide for you? I have to work.”

That moment embedded itself deep in my psyche. His words told me he couldn’t show up for me in the way I needed—not because he didn’t love me, but because he didn’t know how to make love visible without money. So I doubled down. I became the father to myself that no one else could be. In a neighborhood where you could count the active dads on one hand, I vowed to be different—even if it killed me.

Growing up with my mom, we were frequently on the brink of homelessness—lights turned off, evictions, rent overdue. But, my mother worked for herself all of my life starting at when I was just about to turn 7 years old. She did it out of necessity. I respected her for it. But, I also used wish she could just get a regular job so we didn’t have to live like that. I told myself that if my dad had stayed, that wouldn’t have been our reality. And I swore that if I ever had kids, they’d never have to experience that.

Up until now, I kept that promise. But as I try to build meaningful, purpose-driven work that honors my whole self, the financial stability that tethered me to my father’s legacy is disappearing. And now all I have left that is Christ, who I have come to realize wants me to let go of His hand too.

How Boys Become Men

When boys are young, many of us idolize our fathers. We want to be like them, sound like them, walk like them. We look up to them as superheroes. And when we find out they’re human—that they make mistakes, feel fear, or can leave—it’s devastating. So much so that many of us never get over it. And in our failed attempts to close that wound, we look for someone outside of ourselves to teach us how to be in this world.

In the window between my dad leaving and me projecting onto Jesus, I literally used to walk up to men on the street and ask them, “Will you be my daddy?” Most of them just laughed. Some asked what my mother looked like. And a few stepped up and gave me little glimpses of what a dad could be, like my Uncle Kitabu, Uncle Hamidullah, Uncle James, my older cousin Morris, and most especially my mom’s old boyfriend Chico. And holding it all together was my concept of who Jesus was. But, as I learned about my parents, all of these relationships were way more complex than the role I needed them to play in my life. At some point to be the Father you are called to be, you have to let all of your other father figures go. And in realizing this, I realized that at some point, I was going to have to let go of all of those men and even Jesus from playing that role because as Jesus told the disciples in John 16 in the Farewell Discourses:

But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you.“I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you. But now I am going to him who sent me, and none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.

Tending the Father Wound

For Black men carrying the weight of a father wound, healing often begins with allowing ourselves to feel what we've long denied: grief, anger, confusion, longing, love. It means naming the hurt without shame. Therapy, spiritual practice, men’s groups, or storytelling spaces can offer powerful tools. But mostly, it requires the courage to be soft in a world that tells us softness is dangerous.

For those who love us—partners, children, friends—it helps to know that holding space means listening without trying to fix. It means seeing the little boy behind the armor. The one who once asked strangers to be his dad. The one still learning that becoming a good father doesn’t mean becoming perfect. It means being present. Being real. And choosing to love, again and again—even when it’s hard.

Believe me when I say that I know that no one owes us to be anything for us. But wouldn’t it be beautiful if we were afforded the space to usher in the new masculinity that is not threatened by the femininity that equally needs space for fullest expression. What if we were able to get past of of the historic tensions and finally become rest for one another.

Becoming My Own Father Figure

In a moment of self-reflection
I determined something sad
Perhaps I will never have a child
Until I become the father I never had

As a kid I’d approach different men
And ask if they had a son
If the answer they gave was ever “no”
I’d ask if I could be there one

Little boys need their fathers
I am a testament to that
I have spent my whole life chasing mine
And being how I thought he should act

I watched the rest of the “single mother crew”
Trying to find acceptance among our clan
But I didn’t want to be raised by kids
So I continued to pursue the Man

I had a grandpa who died when I was four
I had an uncle who was pretty cool
A guy named Chico who my mom once loved
And a couple of teachers from my school

They all had an impact on me
But it still was not enough
And though I still saw my real dad from time to time
I still needed a father’s love

So in every man I met
I looked for the best part I could find
I knew that all of them couldn’t make one dad
But part of them could be mine

So I guess you could say I’m blessed
That’s why I still pray for all my niggas
All of us who deep inside
Are still looking for our father figure

© Copyright 2019 Pedro S. Silva II

I wrote this poem almost 20 years ago—before I had my kids obviously. I came across it when looking for something in the garage. It was in a cardboard box next to my high school year book. For a moment I hesitated looking at them both. But lately, I have been thinking a lot about the presence of my father’s absence. You read that right—the presence of my father’s absence.

It is strange how we can feel someone’s distance. I felt my dad’s. Every time I found myself in a situation where I felt like I needed a dad, I could feel that my dad wasn’t there. And I imagine, that a lot of other boys in my situation felt that way too. And as men, I bet a lot of us still wrestle with that presence of absence.

Now that I have my own children, I cannot imagine intentionally being out of their lives. Still, I don’t blame my dad for not being able to be who I thought I needed. One reason I don’t blame him is because I know that I can’t judge him. First of all, what good would it do? Second of all, he must have been carrying something very painful to not have the capacity for fatherhood in the conventional sense.

To make up for the absence, I allowed the space to be filled with God and the Frankenstein father I created from the pieces I picked up–and am still picking up–along the way.

As I reflected on this and on who I experience myself as now, I like to think that everything that happened was perfect. And yet, I can’t help but wonder about those other people in my position who were never able to fill that absence—people who to this day long for what we’d hoped for in a father figure. I wonder and I pray that they become who they have always been looking for.