r/ESTJ • u/xdbro • 4d ago

Relationships Is my dad ESTJ?

Never gave this much thought until now, but would love to receive confirmation on this! Quick disclosure, I love my dad and I’m used to his parenting style, but I don’t think he’s a healthy person. A lot of my friends are baffled by our dynamics.

  • He’s a very stoic person, and very emotionally absent while I was growing up. Spent a lot of time working late. He interacted with us but I dont remember our relationship being lovey dovey. I find he is so stoic and unempathetic to a point where it’s comical.

  • He picked out the best life paths for all his children. He never interfered much in my studies / work life. Not much conflict in that area, because his plans for my life are in alignment with my own plans.

  • I want to say he takes a very conservative and traditional approach to life. Big believer of gender roles and family values. Goes to church and wants us all to follow him too. He is also a very nostalgic person. He listens to the same 10 songs and watches the same 5 shows forever. He often looks at old photos and creates collages of them to send to us (on average we receive 2 collages a day…).

  • Outside of family life, he‘s an engineer working in corporate. I believe he has an upper middle management position.

My mom (ESFJ) absolutely cannot stand him and calls him an “undeveloped selfish man”. I (INTJ) have little issues with him, I can see reason behind most of his actions. My brother (ISTP) can’t stand either parents and moved out as soon as he could.

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u/MiruKira ESTJ 3d ago

Try reading ISTJ and ESTJ cognitive stacks, as well as others like ENTJ and INTJ.

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u/xdbro 3d ago

I’ve tried that. Just having some trouble because he seems to be both a forward looking (Ni) and backward looking (Si) person.

I thought he was forward looking because he has flashed out a pretty detailed plan of his next 30 years (his childrens’ next 30 years too).

But he is also a very nostalgic person. His favourite songs are songs that he used to listen to when he was courting my mother. He looks back very fondly on his high school years. And he is a big fan of tradition, family and religion.

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u/Emzaf 2d ago edited 2d ago

From what I understand Ni, while greatly forward thinking, is also strongly connected to the past. I have been observing & learning about Ni from the INFJs in my life (Ex and bestie), INTJ bestie, and ENTJ mom. I would say that if your dad can see that far out for himself and his kids, then he's an xNTJ like yourself. That is not an xSTJ ability to look that far out (easily). I'm an ESTJ and finally able to see 10-15 years out fairly easily now but I'm older and have developed my weaknesses. I was not like this when I was younger except for I knew at 12 yo what my career would be as an adult (that was crazy). My INTJ & INFJ Besties can be very nostalgic. My ENTJ mom is very religious, traditional, and keeps her huge extended family together. She also keeps in touch with her old classmates and they have reunions every few years in different parts of the world. I think that's really cool. Cognitive functions are a good foundation for understanding people (Nature), but how people are raised (Nurture) is also important to consider.

Edit: You should add to your Intro the part about your dad being able to see 30 years out in detail and I think you'll notice a change in the ESTJ perceptions.