My ESFP Dad

What was my ESFP (Extroverted Sensing Feeling Perceptive) dad like?  He was fun! I remember his reading the funny papers to me, complete with all the voices. He played the ukulele, sang, danced, and drummed on every surface.  When I was little, he gave me a Sugar Daddy lollypop whenever I went on an errand with him.  With excited shouts of  "Daddy's Home",  my brother and I ran to greet my dad. He would swing me up on his shoulders and carry me around. He taught me to hike, pack, swim, dance, ride a bike, roller skate, canoe, do math, and drive a car.

Dad helped to give us fun birthday parties. He led the games and kept the excitement up. Once he had us play skunk tag where we were only safe if we hopped on one leg and held our nose. He made a tepee house for me of logs, a toy cabinet out of orange crates, and helped us make tents to play in. We didn't have just plain pancakes, but pancakes in the shape of swans, silver dollars, or Micky Mouse. He was creative and tried to amuse us. During the long stretches across the Nevada desert as we traveled from California to Idaho, he would make up Prospector stories to make the time go faster. When my grandpa was fishing and we had nothing to do, Dad would take us on a hike.


Dad loved to be with people, especially to help them in concrete ways. He had a great sense of humor  and was the center of attention in any gathering as he acted out stories about his dad, or things that had happened in his life. He was happiest playing Santa for children, or leading a troop of scouts, or preforming a humorous skit he had written.

Dad was a Navy corpsman when I was young. He took me to his lab and let me look through the microscope. When I was sick or hurt, he was always there to care for me. He enthralled everyone with his movies of his Navy cruises to the orient and my brother and I with the gifts he brought home to us. Dad enjoyed life and made life exciting for everyone near him.

Yes, life was exciting and fun when Dad was around, but it was also stressful for a quiet INFJ (Introverted Intuitive Feeling Judging ) intellectual person like me. I always sensed that I was a disappointment to my Dad. He wanted someone like himself.  As I pondered ideas, to him I was just chattering. When I was hesitant in crowds of people, he put me in the spotlight. When I won scholastic awards, he said that he was proud of me, but it was obvious that he instead wanted someone that was "fun, warm, and spontaneous"  which really isn't me. I love deeply, but not in his loud demonstrative way.

What was it like being the audience for an ESFP entertainer?  Though, I wish he could have appreciated my quiet ways instead for constantly trying to make me be more like him, I'm grateful for all he taught me, for encouraging me to become a teacher, for his being there, his creativity, and for his making life more fun.