super weird, and now it’s gone lol

in the end, yeah. but from the time he left until the time she realized the gravity well in her bedroom was her father she would have resented the hell out of him. I forget how old she was but that’s like 20 solid years she tormented herself why she wasn’t good enough to have dad stick around, coming from someone who hasn’t spoken to their father in 20 years. it would take a lot to overcome that and as you said she did but she lived a lot of life before then

you can’t just have your characters announce how they feel, that makes me feel angry!

after a little re-reading I think OP made this thread to tell us how much he loves his future children

I think he might be, yeah but it doesn’t take away from the story for me. there can be a few ways to look at it, he did walk away from his children but in an effort to save humanity. but he did it for his children in a way, and for his grandchildren and those who come after. I own this movie so i’d have to watch it again for the nitty-gritty but there also the paradoxes that come into time travel. it has to be him because it is him. he sends himself the coordinates for the lab/base which causes a domino effect that led to him eventually leaving (because he already left) and didn’t he say that the people from millions of years in the future who opened the wormhole chose him?
also he’s a brilliant man who served his country in whatever effort was his past life and now he’s a farmer (don’t get me wrong, farming is amazing and i’d love to sell it all and buy a farm and live a more simple life but i’m also not facing extinction). this could be argued as a sense of duty towards his nation which is hard to overcome; parents leave their kids all the time to go on deployments with promises of coming home.
also, i’m not sure I agree that this is his dream. yes I agree that being a pilot was a big part of his identity and there’s def ‘fish out of water’ context throughout the set up for the movie but none of it comes off as his dream.

also as a side note, there is an argument in there somewhere that Tony is adopted in the MCU. been thinkin about that a lot since my last Endgame rewatch