The Source of Masculine Toxicity.

[electric_blue68]

156. So my dad ...

A complicated mix of smart, caring, friendly, fun loving, a good sense of design, interested in science, enjoyed nature, and the places he visited when he traveled during a certain job to meet with regional represetitives, involved on the community board, then with later serious depression in middle middle age that with 3 bouts of it onward got him meaner, and meaner verbally. His parents were both serious alcholics so their were hidden issues.

Anyway, I'm the first of 2 (have a younger sister). I think my dad lucked out with me because I had mixed passions (late 1950s into the '60s) when it came to "gendered" interests. I loved fashion, jewelry, and also building things (tinker toys, legos, etc), science, wooden trains & tracks, sports.

He (nor my mom) ever discouraged me from any of this. He might been happy he had a daughter who loved "boy" pursuits.

Now weirdly when I was 16 or 17 he showed me an article from a Ukrainian Catholic newsletter about the woman being behind the man influencing him (?vs her going out there, and doing it herself - at least that's how I read it, and only read it once). Didn't like it but he never went on about it.

Then decades later at one our extended family Christmas get togethers the MIL of my cousin's hosting the get together was on about women not needing (or something like that) to go to college. My dad got all huffy saying how proud he was that both his daughters went to, and finished College. Made me happy.