How do you see your Dad?
#3: Good or bad—and why your first answer is almost always unfair.
Today, immediately after I woke up, my mind drifted to two things: my dad, and my Substack. Then I looked at my son sleeping right next to me and it struck me—it’s Father’s Day in the UK tomorrow.
So why not celebrate the day by thinking about your father for a moment, and asking a few questions that might help us learn something?
Honestly, what do you think about your dad?
Stay with that question for a moment. Observe your thoughts. Watch the answer resurface in your mind.
I’m not sure if you noticed, but whenever you’re asked a question about something, your mind goes straight to good or bad. The same applies to people—and in this case, to your dad.
The moment I asked, you were already thinking either good or bad things about him. Which is fascinating—but also unfair. It’s worth keeping in mind how quickly we jump to conclusions about another human being and label them. It’s surprising how fast we simplify something as complex as a lifelong parent-child relationship and smack “good” or “bad” on it.
Zero or one? Black or white? As if there were nothing in between. I love my dad, and I believe he’s a good person—but he has his bad sides and his good ones, as we all do.
I’m not sure which classification surfaced for you first. But if it was negative, remember that’s just how your brain operates—and it’s worth taking a moment to look under the bonnet of that good-versus-bad mechanism.
Binary thinking
When asked “what do you think about your dad?”, you might think my old man was good because he paid the bills and never left, even though in reality he was emotionally distant. Someone else, like me, might say my dad was bad—because he was harsh and strict most of the time, even though his intentions were always good. He just wanted to teach me discipline.
The reality is that our brains take many mixed experiences and compress them into one simple label, because that’s easier to hold.
So the same father can be loving, strict, absent, protective, disappointing, and admirable all at once—but when answering a question like this the little voice in your head can reduce him to “good” or “bad.” The result? Your brain one, your dad nil.
Memory about your dad is emotion-weighted
You may barely remember the ordinary weekday moments with your dad, but the one time he shouted in anger has stayed vivid for years. (I have moments like that with my Dad too.)
At the same time, a single good memory can become emotionally huge. My dad could shout like a madman sometimes—but he also spent a lot of good time with me. He took me to table tennis practice, played football with me, even spent a whole day with me and my mates building a little football pitch in the back garden.
So when you think of your dad, remember your brain isn’t recalling a full archive. You’re seeing a few emotionally charged scenes layered on top of each other, and whichever feeling is strongest in the moment tends to win.
Questions act like search prompts
When I asked “what do you think about your dad?”, your brain searched for a summary word: good, bad, strict, loving, cold.
But if I asked, “what was it like being with your dad when you needed help, or when you fell ill?”—your brain would go somewhere more specific.
And that could completely change your answer, and put your dad in a different light. A broad question invites a broad judgment. A narrow question invites a memory—and that memory might change everything.
Dads are loaded symbols
For you, “dad” might mean the man who taught you to drive, bought you your first Nike shoes, and felt like a great guy. For someone else, “dad” means criticism, silence at dinner, tension in the room when he came home—or worse, things I won’t get into here.
The truth is, “dad” is never just a person in the present tense. He carries your old childhood feelings, your family’s rules, the kind of love the people around him expected, and the approval you might still be hoping to win.
What can we learn from this?
This question lands even closer if, like me, you’re a parent. Because what I learned is this: most of us think of ourselves as good parents—most parents do—when really we should focus on the experience we give our child, day to day.
So rather than asking whether I’m a good or bad parent, when I’m with my Alex—who is six right now—I ask myself: does he feel safe with me, at all times? Am I confusing the living hell out of him? What can I do better, so that his experience is a positive one?
The more positive experiences he has with me, the more he’ll remember me in good and warm terms.
And if you still see your dad in a negative light—and don’t get me wrong, I’m not discounting your lived experience with your old man in any way—I just want to point out one last thing.
The eternal battle of good and bad
Nothing is either good or bad. We love to judge and classify—people, experiences, decisions—as good or bad, right or wrong, wins or fails. But neither is ever quite true. Even Shakespeare summed it up in Hamlet: “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
Picture a piano. Joseph Nguyen, in his book Don’t Believe Everything You Think, explains it well. A piano has 88 keys. You can’t point at one and say “that key is good” or “that key is bad.” A key only sounds wrong inside a particular piece of music—outside that context, there are no bad keys, only notes that combine in infinite ways. Just as there are no wrong keys on a piano, there are no right or wrong decisions in life. Only different paths.
Sometimes your dad, or my dad—both only human beings—takes a different path. Years later we label it right or wrong, but his intentions may have been good all along. So before we’re harsh on our dads, let’s keep that in mind.
So next time someone asks what you think of your dad—or you catch yourself answering—pause. Notice the word your brain reached for. Then question it. Ask a narrower question. Pull out a different memory. You’ll almost always find a fuller, fairer man than the label suggested.
That’s the whole point of this place. Question, then think.
Tomorrow is Father’s Day. So tomorrow, I’ll introduce you to mine—the man who taught me to question everything, including him.
Take it easy and do your thing,
Jack