When my dad FaceTimes me, he’s often multitasking — reading Facebook posts or watching a football game or an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond, oblivious to the fact that I can see his focus is elsewhere. I’ve grown used to it over the years, because even if he’s distracted, at least he’s checking in on me. I’m often preoccupied as well, just less visibly so: When we talk, sometimes I’m thinking about the next thing I want to say, or whether I remembered to turn the burner off on the stove.
We both have ADHD — and in my father, that manifests as an innate restlessness. As my siblings and I unwrapped presents on Christmas morning or during birthday parties, he’d hover over us with a garbage bag, never letting the wrapping paper scraps touch the floor. During family movie nights, he’d get up halfway through National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and start vacuuming. But meals out and car rides were different. At a restaurant or behind the steering wheel, my dad was forced to sit still, so he was easier to talk to. It wasn’t that we were discussing anything important. In fact, the subject matter was irrelevant, ranging from drama with former friends to a paper I’d written for class. What I loved was knowing that my dad was listening to me with no distractions.
Focused attention is harder to come by in 2025, even for those without ADHD. People listen to podcasts or audiobooks at accelerated speeds because they don’t have enough time in the day (or are just impatient). We add so many items to our to-do lists that they start to feel like an overstuffed garbage bag. There’s always somewhere we need to be, something we need to do. So it’s not surprising that serious conversations — especially with people who can already be tough to connect with — get pushed to the back-burner.
As I edited a new anthology for Simon & Schuster called What My Father and I Don’t Talk About: Sixteen Writers Break The Silence, I thought about the numerous reasons why conversations between dads and their adult children can be so difficult — or even painful. A common theme that emerged was an unwillingness to engage with difficult topics. Men aren’t encouraged to be direct about the emotions they’re struggling with, often the result of a lifetime absorbing the tenets of toxic masculinity. And if someone can’t discuss their own flaws or problems, how are they supposed to help their kids?
There are also plenty of good excuses to intentionally not talk to one’s father: Some of the contributors to my latest anthology wrote about dads who were harmful, whether they were emotionally manipulative, abusive, absent, or struggling with drug addiction. But when dads and their kids can fully open up to one another, it’s a beautiful thing. In Susan Muaddi Darraj’s “Baba Peels Apples for Me,” the eldest daughter of Palestinian immigrants writes about coming to understand her father after years of resistance. Darraj writes that she felt increasingly isolated during her divorce and the pandemic — until her dad told her the words she needed to hear: “It’s not easy to tackle this life alone, my daughter…That’s why I will always be here for you.” Her father sat with her in her pain and offered reassurance.
As I read those lines, I thought about a similar moment with my own father on a humid August day in 2021. I had broken up with a longtime boyfriend and called my father mid-run, sweat and tears glistening on my face. He doesn’t always know what to do when confronted with extreme emotions, so I was surprised when he didn’t tell me to “calm down and stop crying.” Instead, he said over FaceTime, “You’re going to be okay,” aware of the gravity of the situation and directing all his attention to me. Somehow, that made me feel like it would be.
For Father’s Day this year, I’m not buying my father a dense history book about World War II (he wouldn’t have the patience to read it, anyway) or noise-canceling headphones (a gift given in a previous year). Nor am I getting him a gift certificate to eBay, even though I know he’d make good use of it for a new vintage truck accessory. Instead, I’m treating him and my husband to a lobster dinner. Away from the distractions of computers and televisions and phones, I’ll ask my father how he’s doing and what’s on his mind lately. Who knows where the conversation could lead? All I know is that I want to listen.
Michele Filgate is the editor of What My Mother and I Don’t Talk About and What My Father and I Don’t Talk About. Her writing has appeared in Longreads, Poets & Writers, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The Paris Review Daily, Tin House, Gulf Coast, Oprah Daily, and many other publications.
