Growing up, my dad and I didn't get along. Now that I have kids, I understand his faults.

• I'm the second child out of six and the eldest daughter of my family, and was a wild child.
• My dad was very present, but we didn't know how to communicate with each other.

"Dear Dad" I write, and then pause. How do I put into words what my dad means to me this Father's Day? He's loving and selfless and creative and generous. But he also has a short temper and strong opinions, and I don't think there's a card that says, "We've had a complicated relationship over the last three decades, but now that I'm a mom, I finally understand you a little more." Hallmark, are you listening?

My dad loves me, but love can be messy and confusing. It's driving cross-country to take your 3-year-old daughter to Disneyland, then screaming and throwing her Barbie in the hotel room because she had a meltdown. It's bringing her flowers to her college graduation, then telling her she's stupid for the way she voted in the presidential election. I love my dad, but I've also been hurt by him — and healing is a complicated process.

I was the wild child

I'm the second-born of six kids and the eldest daughter in my family. I was told I was the wild child, who regularly got locked in my bedroom, screamed at, and spanked. I remember never feeling heard by my parents, especially by my dad. He was a "because-I-said-so" parent, and I was a "but-why?" kid, and that didn't leave much room for open communication.

My dad had a temper, which he dealt with by convincing himself that we deserved the yelling and broken toys because it was the only way he knew how to discipline us. After all, his own dad left when he was a kid, and his single mom worked too hard. By the time he was 24, my dad had a wife, two kids, and the stress of supporting a growing family without a college education. It would be a lot for anyone to handle, but I didn't understand that as a kid who just wanted his full attention every time he came home.

As a teenager, I tried my best to be home as little as possible, which led to my dad being stricter than ever about my friends, activities, and dating life. Neither of us knew how to communicate with the other — and our identical stubborn personalities couldn't — or wouldn't — admit when we might have been, maybe, just a little bit, in the wrong.

I moved out at 17 to attend college, where I learned to talk about school and my accomplishments with my dad. He would hug me and tell me how proud he was of me, and it would feel incredibly validating. But then we would disagree over something I learned in my feminist theories class, causing another little fracture in our relationship. We would both pull back a little, hoping time and distance could restore our relationship like words never seemed to.

Now I'm a mom to 3 kids and have a new perspective

Fast-forward through years of navigating our relationship as adults, and things have healed significantly. Now that I have three sons of my own, ages 5, 4, and 1, I have a new perspective on parenting. Somehow, my kids know exactly what buttons to press to make me lose my cool. The shame I felt after yelling at my toddler for the first time was a wake-up call about how hard it is to control your emotions while parenting — despite how much you love your kids.

There are so many more tools to help parents now that my dad didn't have — from gentle parenting Instagram accounts to more social acceptance around managing anxiety and depression — and I don't fault my dad for how he handled things. I may be breaking a generational cycle by skipping spanking and going to therapy, but my dad broke one too. He was a present dad who was always there at every Tae-Kwon-Do show and color guard halftime performance. He taught me how to play football and make home movies and keep showing up and working hard, over and over again. That's pretty incredible, considering he didn't have a dad around to show him the way.

When I see my dad push my baby in his little car around the backyard or play video games with my oldest or keep his cool when my 4-year-old throws a fit, my heart feels like it could burst. Here is the patient and calm man that I couldn't often bring out in him when I was younger. Now, I see him loving his grandkids with abandon and being an active part of his adult children's lives. He cares deeply and he's made mistakes — and those two things are not mutually exclusive. I would know because I am the exact same way.

I love my dad, and I understand him, too. Kids are exhausting and chaotic, and emotionally triggering, but we love them anyway. My dad may have been too harsh at times, but he showed his love in a million quiet ways through hours of playing with us and being silly and making us laugh, and taking care of us. It's taken years of growing — for both of us — but I know now that I'm pretty damn lucky to be his daughter. So, thanks Dad. For everything.