CHAPTER ONE The Twelve Obstacles to Fathering
(and How to Overcome Them)
Make a commitment.
I will be the father I would have liked to have had.
The wisdom you have gained through years of experience allows you to evaluate your own childhood. Think about what you missed in your relationship with your father. Do some of the following come to mind?
I wish he had spent more time with me.
I wish he had talked more with me.
I wish he had asked more about my feelings.
I wish he had told me he loved me.
I wish he had been more interested in me.
I wish he had hugged me.
I wish he had encouraged me more.
I wish he had been more supportive of what I wanted to do and become, rather than pushing me in the direction that he wanted for me.
I wish he had been happier when he was with me.
What else would you add to your particular wish list? Write it down. It will help you focus on the important roles you can play in your children's lives.
Having a child may evoke previously repressed feelings of anger, frustration, deprivation, and resentment toward your own father. (Having a child also makes us appreciate how difficult it is to be a parent.) Those unconscious hurts may drive you away from your children or they may propel you toward them as you attempt to give your children what you never received. ("I'll never do that to my child when I'm a parent," you swore to yourself many years ago. Alas, how difficult we find it not to repeat the patterns which were inflicted upon us.) In either case, you need to be as aware as possible of the influences of the past on your present circumstances.
No one sits us down and teaches us about parenting. No one gives us a course as we go through school. However, girls, at least, are continually reinforced for acting in a nurturing, empathic manner. They often learn more than boys about parenting because of their identification with their mothers as role models.
Most boys grow up with no analogous opportunity. Your father was probably someone who left in the morning, came home in the evening, financially provided for his family, and spent relatively little time actually interacting with his children. He was not someone to whom you turned on a daily basis for help, advice, or reassurance. That wasn't his job, you assumed.
Even as adults, we find women's magazines filled with articles about parenting. You won't find any such articles in magazines which cater to men. Parenting is not part of my responsibility, you therefore continue to assume. It has nothing to do with being a man. It is irrelevant to being a success, you believe.
A few men were lucky enough to have had terrific dads. He played with you. He talked with you. He took you on special outings with him. He put his arm around your shoulder when you walked together. But most of us did not grow up with an involved father. Most of us did not grow up with an engaged father. For, unfortunately, your father was trapped in the role model which his father provided. We, in turn, often mimic our fathers' approaches.
The results of a survey published in the September 1991 issue of Harper's magazine reflect these attitudes. While thirty-one percent of Fortune 1000 companies offer paternity leave, only one percent of eligible men have taken advantage of it. Many men may not believe they can afford to take time off. But surely, more than one percent could weather the temporary financial deprivation, even if it were only for a brief period of time. Clearly, men want to go to work for powerful reasons having little to do with money.
Social barriers die hard, but institutional barriers to active fathering are gradually coming down. Thanks to the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, parents who work at companies which employ more than fifty persons can take up to twelve weeks of unpaid leave to allow them to care for newborns. Undoubtedly, many mothers will take advantage of this dispensation. It remains to be seen how many men will do the same.
Companies should encourage men to take a more active role in parenting. The reality, however, is that many consider taking leave to be tantamount to "career suicide." People at the top should set an example. However, Redbook (June 1993) reported that when Catalyst, a New York City-based employment/research group asked personnel directors and CEOs how much paternity leave would be reasonable, sixty-three percent said "none."
For most men, work comprises the greatest part of their identity. Ask a man who has been laid off from his job how he feels. You will probably hear, "I feel like I'm not worth anything any-more." The workplace is where men have derived their self-esteem.
But the reality is that today you have greater freedom than ever to choose how involved a parent you will be. You are neither bound by traditional cultural expectations nor doomed to repeat the patterns laid down by your own father. You can redefine what fathering will mean for you. You can make fathering an important, stimulating, rewarding, and significant part of your ongoing life.
Twelve Reasons Why You Might Not Want to Spend More Time with Your Children
Parenting Is Difficult
Almost all parents will tell you that child rearing is much more difficult than they had anticipated. Before your first child's arrival, your fantasies involved playing with him or observing him proudly. The scenes were always pleasant, always gratifying. You did not anticipate colic, tantrums, "I hate you," defiance, disappointment, or purple hair.
While it is true that "the years fly by," when you are going through a taxing developmental period of your child's life, time can move very slowly. Whether it is the sleep deprivation and resulting crankiness you experience during your child's infancy or the anxiety you feel during your child's adolescent forms of rebellion, fathering is stressful as well as joyful. By the time your child leaves home forever, you will have made thousands of decisions affecting his or her life, and you will have agonized about whether those decisions were the right ones. Fathering does not occur naturally or easily. But you can learn to be more patient, more giving, more loving, more generous, and more forgiving than you ever thought you would be.
You Wait Too Long Before Becoming Involved
You should bond with your child even before he comes through his mother's birth canal. It can begin when you first put your hand or your ear to your wife's bulging abdomen, when you participate in childbirth classes, or when you view the ultrasound image of the fetus. Unfortunately, many men view infancy as a time of closeness between mother and child. They may not want to "interfere." Many men also feel terribly awkward handling a baby or involving themselves in the baby's natural functions. ("I don't change diapers!" or "I change diapers, but not if the baby has diarrhea!") You may believe that you can't feed her as well, dress her as well, burp her as well, or understand her cries as well as your wife can. Oftentimes, men do not view their children as fun until they can play and become involved in activities which the father enjoys.
The relative lack of early contact with your child has a circular effect. The older your child becomes without a bond having been established, the more awkward you and your child will feel when you are together. And the more awkward you feel together, the less you will want to engage each other again.
The more time you spend with your child, the more you will enjoy that time. You and your child will build familiarity, a closeness. In addition, you won't have to deal with your child's resentment because of the lack of time you have devoted to him. When a father infrequently plays with his child, the child's resentment over his feelings of deprivation hamper the quality of the encounter. He is angry and impatient with you, which causes you to feel impatient and alienated from him, which causes him to feel even more deprived and angry with you, and so on and so on. This is one of the reasons fathers are so disappointed when, after having failed to spend time with their children for protracted periods of time, they plan a special day together and it bombs. You may come with the best of intentions, full of enthusiasm and energy. But your child greets you with old hurts.
Don't postpone your fatherhood.
You Made an Attempt to Engage Your Child and You Were Rebuffed
You approach your child and say, "Let's play together," or, even better, you say, "Let's play whatever you would like." Your child says, "No thanks, dad. I don't want to play now."
You feel rejected. ("Well, if he doesn't want to play with me, to beck with him.") You feel hurt and self-righteous about not offering again. "I tried," you say to yourself.
But certainly you would agree that, just because you found the time to play with your child at that particular moment, it is unreasonable to assume that your child will necessarily want to interrupt what he may be involved with in order to respond to your unexpected overture. He may also be reluctant to accept your offer for fear of being disappointed once again because your interest will not last very long.
Don't let your ego interfere.
Instead of walking away and shaking your head after your child says, "Not now, dad," simply respond with "Okay, let's make a specific date for another time. What do you think might be fun? When would you like to do it?"
You See Your Child as a Burden Rather Than a Joy
Oftentimes, fathers view play with their children as another thing they have to do. They already feel tired and overwhelmed by other obligations and worries. Perhaps they are unable to effectively compartmentalize their lives. They are unable to leave their work at the office. They are unable to prevent their marital frustrations from spilling over into their relationships with their children. They are unable to cease obsessing about their financial straits. Or...
