He’s too young to understand that his dad is a neurotic mess who doubts every decision immediately after making it.

I sat alone watching The Last of Us last night—a show I’ve felt hot and cold about—and a particular scene leapt out at me. Joel is sitting at the table with his father, trying to cover for his little brother, who had tried to buy weed and ended up in a fistfight (I’m generalizing here; the details are fuzzy). The father sees through it. Then, suddenly, they have what feels like their first honest moment.

Joel’s dad breaks down and talks about the violence his own father inflicted on him. Joel pushes back, asking why, if that’s the case, he has continued to be violent toward his own sons. And in that moment, Joel’s father says something quietly devastating: that whatever abuse he handed down was nothing compared to what he endured.

I understood that so much. It felt like having a conversation with my own father.

My dad’s father abused his sons so viciously that my grandmother kicked him out when my father was just eight. She raised eight kids alone. My dad had a mean streak too—nothing like his father’s—but still, it lingered. Never more than a belt to the behind, but enough that today, it’d be frowned upon. We never really saw eye to eye. There’s something about being both the protector and the one who causes harm that violates a fundamental trust.

I’ve never hit my son. I couldn’t fathom it. But I do know that my expectations are high, and I can be neurotic and demanding. What I come back to is this: my father believed he was better than his father—and he was. I hope I’m better than my dad was.

In a very modern twist, I often ask my son, “Am I a good dad to you?” (See what I mean about being neurotic?) He always replies, “You’re a great dad.” He’s young. He’s getting what he needs from me now. But I wonder: will I be the man he needs as he gets older? Will I weather the challenges and disappointments well? Will I let him fail without crushing him the way my father did? Will I celebrate his successes enough?

My own failures were noted—often. My accomplishments? Rarely. It was as if meeting expectations was simply doing the job. My father didn’t know joy. He died at 48, unhappy for most of those years. I wonder if the reason he couldn’t express joy to me was because he’d never felt it himself. How do you show love if you’ve never experienced it?

“I love you” wasn’t something we said in our house. After my dad died, we started saying it more, but it felt performative. Now, I say it to my son multiple times a day. I want him to feel something I hadn’t—I want him to know that the love he has is real and unshakeable.

But I also want to be better around the edges. Softer. More joyful.

It all comes down to something Joel says to Ellie at the end of that episode:
“But if that day should come, if you have one of your own, I hope you do a little better than me.”