Desperate to Provide: On Suicide, Fathering, and Self-Esteem

I wrote last week against suicide. In a comment below that post, a reader named Nathan introduced me to a 2010 essay by the poet Jennifer Michael Hecht. Hecht writes:

I’m issuing a rule. You are not allowed to kill yourself…When a person kills himself, he does wrenching damage to the community. One of the best predictors of suicide is knowing a suicide. That means that every suicide is also a delayed homicide. You have to stay."

Hecht turned that Typepad post into a book.

I found that extraordinarily helpful. I wonder if others find it the same? For people who struggle with all-consuming self-loathing, telling us we are worthy of staying doesn’t carry a great deal of weight. Telling us that our killing ourselves will likely lead to someone we know killing themselves? Naming that as a “delayed homicide?” Making it clear that our suicide is an act of aggression against others? That is very, very useful.  

My therapist Danielle makes the same point. She has said to me more than once, “You think of suicide as finally getting to be at peace. But you need to see it as abandoning others, leaving your children afraid, alone, and cold.”  I suppose to others that might sound harsh and unsympathetic, but time and again, it’s been what I’ve needed to hear.  I do not call others who have taken their lives “murderers” and “abandoners,” but I deploy those terms for myself. Sometimes, love alone isn’t enough to get some of us to stay. Sometimes, we have to be shamed into staying.  It sounds so counter-intuitive and cruel.  And yet, it works. And as good utilitarians in these matters, we go with what works.

I am always reluctant to talk about my financial struggles, for fear that my readers will interpret it as a none-too-subtle plea for help. Yet I shouldn’t let that fear silence me entirely.  

As it is for many men, my self-worth is very closely linked to my ability to provide for my family.  (I need money, but I do not expect to be given it merely because I need it! Though I have writing work at the moment, most of it involves finishing projects that will only pay after publishers’ acceptance – in other words, not for a long time.) When I am able to support my children -- pay for their braces and their clothes and their food and so forth – I feel pride. When I can’t, the shame wells up and I think of the life insurance policy that will pay out if I leave.

Part of me finds this very embarrassing. I should know better. I have been in and out of therapy for nearly forty years! I taught courses on men and masculinity! I did the retreats and workshops on the deep masculine, and on the importance of uncoupling our self-worth from our capacity to earn and provide. And yet all that  work, to put it mildly, did not take. Especially since 2013, when the loss of my teaching job and subsequent disgrace sent my children and their mother plunging into financial precariousness, I have defined my mission on this earth as making sure that Heloise and David have what they need.  They need me to stay, yes, but they need shoes that fit, and medical insurance, and and and and….

On Thursday afternoon, after multiple tryouts, David got an offer he’d longed for. He has been invited to join a soccer club. Like all such private clubs, there are fees. This one, typical for Southern California, charges $3,600 a year.  His mother, knowing where I am with my work and aware of our myriad other expenses, suggested we wait and try again next year when there might be more money. David called me yesterday, heartbroken. I told him I’d pay for it. I maxed out a credit card, but as of this afternoon, it is done. David is on the team.

Did I do it for him – or for me? My son wants badly to play club soccer, but he knows that is a privilege that not all can afford.  Plenty of kids long to join club teams their parents can’t pay for, and those parents – usually with expressions of regret and reluctance – tell their children that the answer is “no.” Isn’t it supposed to be character building to go without? In the great scheme of things, it is not even a particularly great deprivation! Come what come may, they will still have food on the table and clothes of some sort on their backs. So, perhaps I only maxed out the card to pay the club fee in order to give myself the treat of feeling like the dad who can provide. Perhaps, by not saying no, I not only put myself in a worse financial position, but I also robbed myself of the chance to grow as an adult by allowing my child to be disappointed. Perhaps I took away David’s chance to learn a lesson.

If debt makes me anxious, and my anxiety undermines my mental health, is it possible I am actually hurting my son by paying for his soccer club? If I become more tense, my stress even more evident than usual, is it worth it?  I don’t have an answer.

The Times this week has the sad story of Brandon Miller, a New York property developer who killed himself in early July. Miller, a husband and the father of two daughters, was hopelessly in debt. He had built the proverbial house of cards, sustaining a lavish lifestyle for his wife and kids, all while falling further behind on his payments. In the end, he was nearly penniless. At age 43, seeing no other option, he took his life. Brandon Miller left behind two life insurance policies, his suicide note expressing the hope that somehow, those would help him continue to provide from beyond the grave.  (As I know well, most life insurance policies have a clause denying payout in the event of suicide, but those generally expire after two years. If the policy was more than 24 months old, in most states it will pay regardless of cause of death.)

I am not giving my kids a Hamptons lifestyle. I am not taking them on trips to the Amalfi coast. I am giving them orthodonture and soccer clubs and taking on debt to do both. Millions of other parents do the same. In a sense, Brandon Miller and I belong to a vast cohort of American fathers and mothers desperate to please their children – and desperate to have the deep satisfaction that comes chiefly from providing.

I do not judge Brandon Miller. I would judge myself harshly if I made his choice. It is necessary to believe that most children would rather have a living bankrupted disgrace for a father than a gravestone and a life insurance payout.  I understand Brandon’s choice, though, and I am haunted by it. Perhaps if he had said “no” not only to his wife and daughters, but to his own longing to feel like a provider, he would still be here.

I am here, in any case, and I am staying -- and after publishing this piece, I will get back to work.