Why I hated my Dad

When I was a young boy, I used to find

what my dad was doing outside in the

garden to be quite interesting. He was

always digging holes, laying concrete,

knocking things down, chopping stuff up,

and this was kind of interesting to me as

a kid. I used to enjoy going outside and

helping him out. I got to do fun things

like digging holes and knocking stuff

over. I remember going out in the garden

and lifting up rocks, and underneath the

rocks would be all these

disgusting-looking insects. Centipedes,

woodlice, earthworms, ants. Sometimes I

would find ants' nests in the garden and I

would start jumping up and down on it,

and then all these ants would come out.

Some of them had wings and they would

start flying all over the place. I

remember that satisfying feeling of

helping my dad out in the garden all day

and then finishing something or getting a

lot of work done, and then it would

become— it would start to get dark and And

evening would come and my mum would start

cooking and I could smell the smell of

food wafting out from the kitchen. Food

always tastes a lot better after you've

done some physical activity and you feel

tired and you've worked up an appetite.

When I got to the age of around 9 or 10,

I started to lose interest in going

outside into the garden and helping my dad

out, and I started to become very, very

interested in video games. There used to

be this guy called Chris who lived behind

us in a house. He had a wife and a

daughter, and I really liked him. I really

liked going over to his house, mainly

because he was a bit of a computer games

nerd. He had long black hair which was

tied up into a ponytail. He had tattoos

all over his arms, and he was into heavy

metal music. The reason why I loved going

over to his house so much was because he

had this huge collection of PlayStation 1

games. He had this big box, and he must

have had hundreds and hundreds of games.

And I didn't really have many of my own

games, and I didn't have any money to buy

games, so I would always used to phone him

up and ask if I could come over to play on

his PlayStation. Now that I think about

it, it must have been a little bit

annoying having this 10-year-old kid

coming over to your house all the time

trying to play on your video game

consoles. I remember there was this one

time when I went over to his house and he

told me something about controller adapter

that plugs into the PlayStation which

allows you to plug in more than 2

controllers, and at the time I thought

this was pretty fascinating. I came home,

my dad was there, and I started talking to

him about it. I started telling him about

this new amazing thing that I just found

out about, and I don't know why, but my

dad was in a bad mood and he just told me

to shut up. I was pretty shocked that he

told me to shut up, and I still remember

that to this day. He must have been

stressed out about work or something.

Also, I had a pretty important exam coming

up, and I think he was stressed out and

angry because I was playing— I was

spending all my time playing video games

instead of studying. After he told me to

shut up, I kind of lost confidence in

talking to him, and I stopped talking to

him. I stopped telling him about things

that interested me, like video games or

video game consoles. Around that time, I

kind of realized that my dad just wasn't

interested in video games at all, so I

felt as though it was kind of pointless

talking to him about those things. As I

grew older and became a teenager, I got

more and more into video games and nerdy

things like Warhammer 40K and Star Wars

and Lord of the Rings, things like that.

And my dad was, you know, just how he

always was. He was always out in the

garden digging holes, laying concrete,

building things, knocking things down.

And I just wasn't interested. I wasn't

interested like I used to be when I was a

9-year-old boy. I still used to help him

from time to time, but only because he

gave me some money and I was desperate for

money to buy more video games. But apart

from that, I wasn't really interested in

doing stuff outside in the garden. We

started talking less and less to each

other, and I felt as though there was this

big distance between us. I felt like we

didn't really have anything in common. I

didn't really feel very close to my dad.

When I reached the age of 16, that was

when I really started to hate my dad,

and this was because I got really addicted

to online multiplayer games, games such as

Star Wars Galaxies, Guild Wars, and then

World of Warcraft. My dad was pretty upset

because I gave up my studies at school. I

quit education and didn't go on to higher

education because I was so addicted to

these games. Me and my sister would fight

a lot over who got to use the computer.

At the time, we only had one computer,

and I used to hog it all the time because

I wanted to play World of Warcraft. But my

sister also wanted to play her games

sometimes or do homework, and when it was

my time to stop using the computer and I

had to hand it over to her, I would get

very upset, and we would have these big

fights which would usually end up with me

hitting her, making her cry, And then my

dad would get very angry with me. As

punishment for making my sister cry, he

would often take away the cable that

connected the computer to the internet

when he went to work. So I'd wake up in

the morning all excited to play World of

Warcraft, and then I'd find out that there

was no internet because he took the cable

with him to work. And I felt so angry with

him for doing this. I, I really hated him.

Because of that, and I would just sit in

my bedroom crying most of the time because

I couldn't play my game, waiting for him

to come back from work. And then when he

came back, I would start begging him to

plug the computer back into the internet.

There was one time when I started to get

very desperate for gold, in-game currency

for World of Warcraft, and I, I knew my

dad's PayPal login details, and I used to

buy gold from these Chinese gold farming

websites using his PayPal.

I think I spent around £500 in total

buying gold until he found out. One day

he, he logged into his PayPal to check it

and he noticed all the payments to this

website. He asked me, Daniel, what are all

these payments to this website? And I

just admitted that I was using his PayPal

to buy gold. Surprisingly, he didn't shout

at me or scold me or tell me off. I just

said to him, I'll pay you back, and he

said, okay. And his face— well, he just

looked really disappointed in me. There

was another time when I was playing World

of Warcraft, and it was around 1 AM in the

morning, pretty late. He told me to turn

off the computer several times earlier,

but I kept saying, I'm not finished yet,

I'm not finished yet. We were raiding

Molten Core, some 40 Some kind of 40-man

dungeon in World of Warcraft. And I didn't

want to turn it off because we were just

about to start fighting this boss. So I

carried on playing, and then my dad just

suddenly came out from his bedroom and he

switched the computer off by the mains.

And I was so angry. I couldn't believe he

just came out and switched the computer

off like that. And I started calling him

all these names, and I was swearing at

him. It was the first time I ever swore at

my dad. I said some pretty horrible things

to him. I called him effing this and

effing that, and I hope you die, and I

hate you. It was terrible. I went into my

bedroom, I started crying. I was even

punching the wall. I was a complete mess.

And surprisingly, my dad didn't really do

anything. He just went back to bed, went

back into his bedroom, closed the door.

He didn't tell me off for swearing at him

or saying all those horrible things to

him. And then the next day came, and it

was just as if nothing really happened.

The next year I was around 17 and I was

still really addicted to World of

Warcraft. My dad suggested that we would—

we should go to France to go skiing. He

really liked skiing, he was really into

it, and it was our first time going as a

family, going skiing, and he was looking

forward to it, I think. Before we went,

he took us to some ski lessons. We went to

this dry slope, artificial slope. We had

several lessons and I found it kind of

boring. We just stood there listening to

this guy explain how to stop and how to

go. It was fairly obvious. You just put

your— put your skis into a V-shape to stop

yourself from sliding down. Didn't really

feel as though I needed that to be

explained to me. And all I could think

about was playing World of Warcraft. I

couldn't stop thinking about that stupid

game. And then we went to France and we

went skiing, the real thing. And I didn't

really enjoy it, to be honest. It was kind

of boring. You just went up the mountain,

then you came down the mountain, then you

went back up the mountain. Just felt like

doing the same thing over and over again.

And by the second or third day, I just got

fed up and I was so homesick. All I could

think about was playing World of Warcraft.

I wanted to play that game so much, and I

just had no interest in skiing. My dad,

my mum, my sister went up the mountain,

and I just sat at the bottom I just sat at

the bottom of the slope, sitting there by

myself sulking, and my dad got fed up and

he got angry. He said to me that he spent

all this money on this trip and he was

very upset that I wasn't showing any

interest, and when we go get back to

England, he's gonna unplug the internet

and disconnect the computer and I'll never

play World of Warcraft ever again. He

didn't mean it, and when we got back to

England, I just carried on playing. As if

nothing happened. Now that I think about

it, I feel pretty bad because, well, I

just wish I showed more of an interest in

the things that he liked. I wish that we

could have bonded over things like skiing

or DIY or gardening a little bit more. I

always saw my dad as this obstacle in my

life, this person who would get in the way

of me playing World of Warcraft, who would

get in the way of me doing the things that

I enjoyed, or someone who would try and

get me to get a job. There was one time

when I was unemployed and I was making

money by doing online surveys, and I would

just sit there all day long doing online

surveys, making maybe 50p a day. And he

came home from work one day and he was

pretty angry with me, and he came into my

room and he said, I'm fed up that I have

to work so hard all day whilst you just

sit here Earning 50p an hour. I could

sense how disappointed he was in me, that

I wasn't working, that I wasn't studying,

that I was just sitting in my room all day

not really doing anything. When I was 19,

he got me a job at the company he worked

at as an office junior. I also helped him

out a bit. I was a bit like his assistant

as well. I guess he was hoping that I

would show an interest in his work or

become a full-time employee at his

company. But I just found it all very

boring. He was designing machines.

I had no interest in machines or

mechanical things. I didn't really get on

well with the other people in the office.

Had a bit of a falling out with this guy

who wanted me to make tea for everyone

every day, and I ended up losing the job

mainly because I told my boss that I

wasn't happy working there anymore. So he

said that he'll have to end my contract

then. So I quit the job that my dad got

me. He must have felt pretty disappointed

about that. He must have managed to

convince his boss to give me the job in

the first place, and then I didn't even

appreciate it, and I just gave up after 5

months. I feel a bit bad about that. I

just always thought of him as kind of lame

and uncool. I always thought everything he

did— gardening, DIY, mechanical things—

working hard, repairing cars.

I just didn't want to have anything to do

with any of that. I thought it was boring

and lame, and it looked like it was too

much hard work. Hard work that I didn't

want to do. When I was 18, I started doing

driving lessons. My mum managed to

convince me into doing it,

and he helped me out. He took me to this

parking lot And he let me practice using

his car and he tried teaching me

how to drive. And I ended up giving up

driving as well. I took the test once and

I failed it and I never got back into a

car. I never drove a car ever again. He

tried to help me so much. He tried to get

me into skiing. He tried to get me a job.

He tried to teach me how to drive. And I

just shoved it all back in his face. I was

so ungrateful, and I feel so bad about

it now. And the worst thing about it is he

blamed himself for how I turned out. I was

reading some emails he was sending people

after he passed away, and in one of them

he was talking about how he recently found

out that I was bullied at school.

He said, I recently found out that Daniel

was the victim of racial abuse at school,

and this has probably traumatized him and

mentally scarred him for life, and I only

blame myself for that. And I just felt— I

felt so sad reading that. I didn't realize

that he blamed himself so much, and I wish

he didn't blame himself. It wasn't his

fault, and he tried his best.

I wish I showed him that I appreciated

him. I wish I could have appreciated him

more. I wish I could have showed him how

grateful I was to him while he was alive,

but it's, it's too late now because he's

gone. I was a terrible son and I

took everything he did for granted and I

never appreciated him, and he

didn't deserve to have a son like me. I

just hope that he didn't think I hated

him. I hope he knew that,

that I did love him, even though I never

said it and I never showed any affection

to him. I hope he knew.

Hey, so this is kind of an unplanned

video, but my dad's gonna cut down this

gigantic tree in the garden, and I thought

it'd be interesting to show you it falling

down. So my dad's going to be cutting down

this gigantic tree. Should be interesting.

And, um, keep an eye for if it starts to

move and tell me when it starts to shout

out when it's moving. Because I've got to

then get out the way and I've got to try

and pull it in the way of the tractor.

It might possibly go the wrong way,

depends how the balance of the tree is.

If it goes that way, it will be a disaster

because it will be all messed up in those

nut trees. But once

it starts to move, I've got to get out the

way. I've got those branches. If it rolls

over, the branches will come on top of me,

so I've got to be careful.

And it's when you're cutting it, you can't

see it start to move at the top.

So it might take 10 minutes or so because

it's quite thick to cut through.