I was talking with my young adult son yesterday. His father has ADHD; he doesn't, though he is dyspraxic. He said to me that when he was growing up, he always felt that there was something wrong with him, because his father never listened to him, but was always telling him off and getting cross with him for 'not listening'. It had baffled, confused and upset him and he had internalised it as a fault in himself. He felt at once to blame and completely unheard by his father. He said that when he found a friend who really listened to him, it felt magical. Such a simple thing but it felt amazing. He also said that I had listened to him, but that his father's attitude had really affected him, making him feel really bad about himself.
This was the first I learned of the impact of his father's inattention and poor self control on our child. I always knew it was battering me emotionally, but I thought the kids were broadly shielded from it by my efforts to be steady and attentive and a good solid presence in their lives. But all the time my sweet little boy was being made to feel faulty and to blame by his father's behaviour.
Thankfully the young man is reflective enough to understand the dynamic, and if it makes him attracted to thoughtful and attentive people as friends and partners, there are far worse ultimate outcomes.
But he struggled with his mental health throughout his teens, with a particularly scary depressive episode at sixteen which I helped him through, without, of course, any support from my husband/his father. And it breaks my heart that thoughtful, reflective, generous, kind, adorable little-him was made to feel like that by his father's inattention and lack of emotional regulation, and I didn't know and hadn't protected him from it.