Donald L. Miller - Father Fiction: Chapters for a Fatherless Generation

Other books by Donald Miller

Through Painted Deserts

Blue Like Jazz

Searching for God Knows What

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years

Father
Fiction

Chapters for
a Fatherless Generation

Donald Miller

Previously published as
To Own a Dragon

Father Fiction 2010 Donald Miller

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Howard Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

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Certain names and identifying characteristics have been changed.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Miller, Donald, 1971
Father fiction : chapters for a fatherless generation / Donald Miller.
[Rev. ed.].
p. cm.
Rev. ed. of: To own a dragon. c2006.
1. FatherhoodReligious aspectsChristianity. 2. Miller, Donald, 1971 I. Miller, Donald, 1971 To own a dragon. II. Title.
BV4529.17.M55 2010
248.8'421dc22 2009044014

ISBN: 978-1-4391-6916-2
ISBN: 978-1-4391-6919-3 (ebook)
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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Previously published as To Own a Dragon.

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Edited by Philis Boultinghouse
Cover design by David Carlson/Gearbox
Interior design by Level C, Inc.

Scripture quotations are taken from the King James version.

For the staff, the interns, and especially the mentors at
The Mentoring Project

Introduction
Rewriting the Story of Fatherlessness

Rewriting the Story of Fatherlessness

I used to hate talking about father issues. It made me feel weak, honestly. I felt like a sickly kid, complaining about life. And I loathe self-pity in almost any form. Thats why I hated writing this book. I went up to my friends cabin on Orcas Island and holed up, me and my father issues. Lots of crying, lots of deleting everything Id written the night before. And the whole time I was feeling like half a man.

It took about a year to write this little book, and another couple months in that cabin to edit it and get it right. Its the hardest book Ive ever written, I think, not because it was a literary challenge but because it was an emotional challenge. I kept having to go places I didnt want to go, to think about things I didnt want to think about. Id wake up and get emotionally emasculated every day, complaining about how Dad wasnt around when I was a kid. Part of me wanted to admit it hurt, and the other part of me was too numb to care. He left, so what? I didnt need him. I made it without him.

Im thirty-eight years old, and I still need a father. Right now Im sitting in the back of a tour bus, on a sixty-five-city book tour where lots of people come out to hear whatever my new book is about. But in so many ways Im still that kid, not sure exactly how to be emotionally intimate with a girl without feeling weak, not sure my work is good enough, not sure if the people who are clapping would really like me if they got to know me. I attribute a lot of those insecurities to father issues. And any confidence I have I attribute to having worked through father issues. Everybody is insecure, and not everybody who grew up without a father lacks confidence and emotional health, but the connection between the two is undeniable.

I released this book with a small publisher a few years ago, and even though it hardly got placement in bookstores, it sold a lot of copies. Everywhere I went people would come up and say this book affected them more than any other. I wanted to take them aside as though theyd read some truly secret journal Id written. I wanted to pull them into the alley behind the venue and say, Look, man, if you tell anybody else I struggle Not sure what Id do. Im not much of a fighter. But I was ashamed of the crap I had to work through in order to feel like a man.

Things are changing, though, and men are beginning to talk about their issues. We are moving the conversation out of the alleys and into public forums. Improvement has been made in the talkability of fatherhood issues. Tim Russert wrote about it from a positive perspective, writing that wonderful book about his father. And President Barack Obama talked about it from a position of strength, openly discussing his hardship as a young, fatherless man and the mentors and figures that helped him overcome.

Even though this book is about fatherlessness, its certainly not only for men. Women suffer from father issues, too, obviously. They may suffer more. I believe something magical happens when a father tells his daughter she is beautiful, that she is a woman, and that she has a reason to be respected and loved by a good man. If she doesnt get this message from her dad, she will look for it from men who have less pure motives. Women tend to become victims when they grow up without good fathers. Men tend to become oppressors. I heard recently that 94 percent of people in prison are men. And 85 percent of those men grew up in fatherless homes.

If we have a crisis in this country, its more than a fatherless crisis, though. Its a crisis of manhood, of masculinity. Its affecting our families, our schools, its filling our prisons, and its killing the hearts of our women.

Ive started a mentoring program that offers resources to the 360,000 churches in America, to provide mentors for the 27 million kids growing up without fathers. I am convinced that within twenty years, we can shut down prisons because we have provided positive male role models for kids who would otherwise be headed for trouble. I am convinced we can curb teen suicide, unwanted pregnancy and abortion, and turn back the tidal divorce rate if we step in and provide mentors for kids without dads.

That said, this book is not about a movement that is happening, because a movement isnt happening. The statistics are getting worse. This book is about the hard, shameful, embarrassing stuff you and I have to work through as an individual. Its about me secretly admitting to you I needed a father, and how I felt like half a man until I dealt with those issues honestly. And if you let it, this book is an informal guide to pulling the rotted beams out of from your foundation and replacing them with something you can build a life on.

Its time to rewrite the story of fatherlessness in America. Its time to start a movement in which we openly and honestly address our weaknesses so we can find strength. My hope is that Fathers wont be Fiction much longer. The movement starts with you.