Although our mom started the reminders about her Mother’s Day wishes at least a month in advance of the day, Father’s Day was never much of a “thing” in our family. As an immigrant/refugee with mixed feelings about everything “American” our dad was somewhere between dismissive and contemptuous about all the customs and holidays that were not decidedly “ours.” Father’s Day was one of them, which was something of a relief to me, since my feelings were similarly mixed about him for many years. So now, as my husband is not a father, and both of our fathers have passed, it is easy enough for us to ignore the day. Except perhaps that there is a new generation of young fathers in our family who seem to take the passage and the role very seriously. I want to honor and nurture that. And being for many survivors, part of the trauma story, I though it would probably make sense to write something about fathers here.
As has become my practice in these times of transition in the world, I want to acknowledge the poverty of our language which is starkly binary in its characterization of gender and family, acknowledging male and female, and nuclear family as the norm. I do my best to avoid the pitfalls and I am sure I continue to fall short, so I hope you will bear with me.
Depression
Recently I heard an interview with a local physician named Christopher Choukalas, about his recent book Even the Darkest Night: A Father’s Journey of Hope and Healing from Paternal Depression, (Harmony, 2026.) It sounded like a book I should probably read, especially as I am immersed in study about male violence and male development in general. I wondered about any connections there. And if nothing else, perhaps it would offer something of relevance to our topic of Father’s Day. So, I proceeded to order the book.
As I began to read, I noticed my own critical attitude rearing up. It almost resembled my dad’s snarky-ness about “alien” ideas, which rather embarrassed me. I found I did not particularly like the author. Something about his tone, which seemed to have a sarcastic or ironic edge did not evoke sympathy but rather guardedness, or my arrogant quickness to write off whatever seemed too much like “pop psychology” or “pop” science.
Choukalas began the book recounting his own childhood, which sounded like a classic neglect story. He described his own absent father, and increasingly his story sounded like countless neglect stories I had heard. He wandered around invisible in his family, taught himself to read at an early age, and unseen, he was not encouraged in any of his interests. His parents were unaware of his extraordinary aptitude in school, and sadly so was he. Although all his test scores were far above the average. He was encouraged to go to college only by teachers and counselors at school, with the same later being true about the recommendation that he pursue a medical career.
“For whatever reason,” his first interest and master’s degree was in psychology, certainly not unusual for neglect survivors unwittingly trying to figure out what is “wrong.” It was only later that he changed course from psychology to medical training and became an anesthesiologist, and quite accomplished, ending up here in San Francisco’s highly regarded University of California Medical Center, where he is both a physician and a professor. From the outside, like many the child of neglect, he looks like he has it all. Meeting his wife Lindsay, completed the picture.
Lindsay sounded like the “perfect” woman and mate, and the marriage seemed idyllic and wonderful at first. But as it progressed, it sounded increasingly like a neglect narrative. He described himself mired in what I call the “one person psychology,” simultaneously appearing to be acutely focused and aware of the feelings of the other, while living in a solitary siloed world, utterly self-reliant. Until he was awoken out of his dissociative oblivion by his wife’s complicated pregnancy, which brought her close to death before his very eyes. His helplessness terrified him, and although she survived it, it awakened in him a terrified anxiety that persisted throughout the remainder of the pregnancy and beyond.
Transition to Parenthood
The remainder of the book is a description of what the author characterizes as Paternal Post Partum Depression. The couple “welcomed” twin girls who although significantly premature, thrived and grew. However, Choukalas found himself increasingly anxious, unable to connect with the infant girls or his wife, for that matter. He was irritable and moody, resentful and even more withdrawn than before. The marriage was badly on the rocks, and they turned to couple’s therapy and he also began individual therapy where with the help of his therapist and in a decidedly medical model kind of way, evolved his description of what he calls Paternal Post Partum Depression, PPPD, a “new” iteration of “Three P’s of Neglect.” The more he talked with other fathers, the more he discovered how very ubiquitous he finds it to be. I guess I had to admit, he reminded me of myself when I began to compile what I came to call the “neglect profile,” and people seemed to come at me from every direction, saying “OMG, that is me!” So of course, I could slowly come to believe that maybe I was on to something. Clearly, he was describing something that ultimately seemed to help him and others. And I slowly became able to summon some humility and see if there was something here that was of use to me.
John Gottman, the marriage researcher, identified the transition to parenthood as the single most challenging and precarious juncture for couples. He described that very often the downhill cascade toward divorce begins there. That was certainly the danger that the author clearly felt when his two daughters arrived. And as sweet and adorable as everyone else found them to be, he had a terrible time connecting with them, even spending time with them. Experiencing the two infants as being the ones who most occupied their mother’s attention and her body, readily awakened resentment, rejection, feeling left out and unimportant. It sounded to me like florid activation of unknown latent neglect trauma.
Gottman reminds parents that this is a time when special attention to their relationship with each other, including if not especially the sexual partnership, is essential. That was certainly true for this couple, and appears to continue to be, as the book ends. But I began to wonder about something else…
Re-experiencing
It occurred to me that perhaps the transition to parenthood, and the arrival of helpless, vulnerable infants, is a potent trauma stimulus. Infant neglect has no narrative, being the story of “nothing,” or what did not happen. Could it be that the arrival of these infants awakens memory material is that is so early that it is only sensory, somatic and emotional, or implicit memory? Perhaps PPPD is another name for trauma activation. As we know, trauma is not remembered but relived. Perhaps the appearance of vulnerable infants is a potent unconscious reminder of a lost part of the self. At the very least, if the PPPD diagnosis or designation makes any parent(s) more conscious, makes any blindly neglectful young parent, more aware, that is a win for our larger mission.
Meanwhile, I find myself remembering my dad and view him through all these various lenses. He had a terrible trauma story, much more than I will ever know. Some of it he passed on to me, and I had to spend years healing from. But also, some of my greatest and most cherished strengths came from him and are in his image. Wishing you a gentle Father’s Day, if such a thing exists in your country.
