Mr. J, a Former Professor Series – Entry 52: Can an Abuser Be a Good Father?
Reading Paternal Performance Through the Lens of Control and Coercion
It’s easy to perform fatherhood on paper — to sprinkle affectionate words in a birthday card, or to tell the world how much you “care” about your child. But when the performative father meets the manipulative man, a different question arises: can someone who treats partners with coercion, threats, and symbolic violence genuinely be a good father?
A man who threatens, controls, and humiliates a partner inevitably reveals his understanding of power — and thus his model of parenting.
When fatherhood is reduced to a narrative prop
We see a man who:
Used his underage daughter to threaten me with exposure if I didn’t comply with a financial demand.
Attempted to convert emotional manipulation (inheritance shares, birthday gifts) into currency to overshadow months of psychological abuse.
Repeatedly published sexualized and racialized content about me, even after police warnings and multiple institutional complaints.
Mocked my family background and implied my city and language, violating explicit boundaries and humiliating me publicly.
A father who instrumentalizes his own child in an extortion scheme does not protect — he recruits. He turns the idea of “family” into a narrative weapon, a bargaining chip for power plays.
The ripple effect: What does it teach a child?
A child learns not from slogans but from patterns. When a father models manipulation, vengeance, and disregard for consent, the child absorbs these as tools of survival or replication.
If your daughter watches you weaponize women, degrade autonomy, and treat love as currency, what is she really learning about dignity, trust, or respect?
The masquerade of “soft love” and literary affection
He might say:
“I wrote poetry for you, I included you in my will, I still love you.”
But love without respect is not love — it is a script, a costume.
When you threaten to destroy someone’s career while sending them affectionate words, that isn’t fatherhood either. That is performance, fueled by ego rather than responsibility.
The “fatherhood as performance” paradox
We see it in academia, too: the well-dressed “mentor” who demands admiration but punishes dissent.
The “devoted father” who harasses women in the shadows, while publicly discussing “ethics” and “art.”
The man who tries to control the narrative — but never truly builds safety for those around him.
Can such a man be a good father?
It depends on whether fatherhood is viewed as:
A checklist of financial provisions and occasional “I love you”s, or
A lifelong commitment to protecting, empowering, and modeling dignity and kindness.
In this case, the record — threats, coercion, symbolic violence, financial manipulation, public humiliation — suggests that fatherhood was, at best, a prop.
Final questions
If a man threatens and humiliates the mother of his child, can he truly teach his child respect for women?
If a man uses emotional currency to manipulate, can he show a child unconditional love?
If a man obsessively controls narratives and boundaries, how does he teach a child about freedom and trust?
What we choose to tolerate
Ultimately, the question is not only whether this man can be a good father, but whether society, academia, and family systems will continue to tolerate his double life — the poetic mask and the violent reality.
A father is not measured by poems or promises, but by the safety and respect he builds into every life he touches.
Photo by Jon Tyson via Unsplash
Read the full series
- Entry 1: The Man Who Taught Me Ethics by Failing All of Them
- Entry 2: The Disappearance of the Public Poet
- Entry 3: The Hanging Tree Case Study
- Entry 4: Hidden Like Accountability
- Entry 5: The Collapse of Assumptions
- Entry 6: The Ethics of a Tinder Bio
- Entry 7: How He Ate Told Me Everything
- Entry 8: What Makes a Scholar Dangerous
- Entry 9: Fragment of Life, Fragment of Accountability
- Entry 10: Anatomy of Disappointment
- Entry 11: Legal Defense Challenges: A Framing Statement
- Entry 12: Six Years After Ronell – What Academia Still Doesn’t Get
- Entry 13: QUT and The Man Who Raped Me
- Entry 14: Why Sarcasm Toward Institutions Can Backfire
- Entry 15: P*ssy or Toxic Masculinity?
- Entry 16: Who is Your Favorite Comedian?
- Entry 17: And What is Your Favorite Song?
- Entry 18: Grant Proposal — Narrative Ethics as Survivor-Led Forensics
- Entry 19: The Coward Behind the Clone
- Entry 20: [URGENT HIRE] CRISIS COMMUNICATIONS SPECIALIST
- Entry 21: [URGENT] Legal Counsel Needed for Complex Reputation Rehabilitation
- Entry 22: YOU’RE AN ABUSER. STOP CONTACTING ME
- Entry 23: Seeking Counsel for a Fallen Academic
- Entry 24: Internal Legal-PR Briefing
- Entry 25: For Journalists – Legal & Ethical Clearance Summary
- Entry 26: Symbolic Prostitution, Transactional Intimacy, or Just a “Loan”?
- Entry 28: Why He Simply Cannot Shut Up
- Entry 29: Forensic Commentary on “LARGE Language Muddle”
- Entry 30: Don’t Just Threaten My Future. Because I’m Going To Archive Your Present
- Entry 31: Open Letter to the Person Who Tried to Break Me with Defamation
- Entry 32: Defamation, Harassment, Doxxing Class 101
- Entry 33: Confidential Crisis Recovery Proposal
- Entry 34: Forensic Behavioral-Somatic Report
- Entry 35: Forensic Commentary on the Tattoos
- Entry 36: QUT and the Abuser They Once Had
- Entry 38: When Poetry Becomes Revenge Porn
- Entry 40: A Man Built for Applause, Not Accountability
- Entry 41: Neurobehavioral Addendum
- Entry 43: Why Does It Sound Like a War Metaphor?
- Entry 44: Forensic Commentary on Racialized and Fetishizing Language in “Hidden Like Rice”
- Entry 45: Public Misuse of Former Academic Affiliation
- Entry 46: The Two Things That Didn’t Leave a Bad Impression
- Entry 47: When Affection is Just an Alibi (A Bundy-Inspired Reflection)
- Entry 48: Humbert, Lolita, and the Fetish of Fragility
- Entry 49: The Fetish of Smallness as Symbolic Violence
- Entry 50: Motif Risk Analysis
- Entry 52: Can an Abuser Be a Good Father? (you are here)
- Entry 53: Who Protects the Children?
- Entry 54: From Blackmail to Children
- Reflection: The Miscalculation
(More entries coming soon)
→ [Back to Start: Introducing Mr. J, a Former Professor Series]
© 2025 Linh Ng. All rights reserved.
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