Fatherhood

[poliphilo]

What's with this this father-son thing that Hollywood keeps shoving
at us?

Spielberg can't leave it alone. Catch Me If You Can was sharp and funny so long as Leo was sticking it to the Man, but then we found out that his delinquency was down to the lack of a father figure and all it needed to reform him was for Tom Hanks to offer him unquestioning love.

Yesterday I was watching Finding Nemo. Great film in its way, but Albert Brooks's fussy lttle everyman of a soccer-dad made me feel queasy. If Ellen DeGeneres hadn't happened along I might well have walked out.

It's like the nineteenth century cult of motherhood. It gives off a sickly smell. I think there's something rotten that's being covered up.

Actually, I know perfectly well what it is. A very high proportion of dads who walk out of a marriage lose contact with their kids within two or three years. And a high proportion of those who stay behind are bullies, brutes and abusers. Of course there are good dads, but there are an awful lot of absolute shites as well.

Do families need fathers?

We daren't say "no" because if we did it would hurt the feelings of men. And that would be tricky because it's men who run the world. So we tell ourselves these cute little stories to keep ourselves from thinking too much about the facts.

There was once a little fishy and his wife got eaten by a barracuda so he had to look after his baby son all by himself and he loved his little son so much that he got a weeny bit over-protective; and then one fine day...

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Like you, I'm inclined to think that children react to adult hysteria and a motherless/fatherless child suffers less from the actual absence than from the fluffing around of concerned adults - "o, you poor little thing!"

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

The hardest part for the children wasn't the lack of support or the lack of their father's presence. It was the moment of truth when they realized he didn't love them.

That was tough. The rest was easy by comparison.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Here's another part of the equation.

My first wife and I split up when the kids were still small. Staying in touch with them over those years of childhood and adolescence was the most demanding, practically difficult and emotionally wrenching thing I have ever done.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Staying in touch with them over those years of childhood and adolescence was the most demanding, practically difficult and emotionally wrenching thing I have ever done.

I'm sure it must have been very hard for you, but you did it, and you did it for them. Now that they are grown, they can understand and appreciate the effort you made to forge a relationship and offer your support to them.

Without that great effort, there would be nothing there now, no way to have adult friendships and care, which is the great surprise and gift of later parenthood.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes it was worth the effort. I can only guess at how much I would hate myself if I hadn't done it.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

My husband cried when his son was born, but within three years he said, while I packed, "I now consider these your children."

He gave away two people who would have loved him very much.

He almost died last winter. My children felt sad for him, and my daughter went to see him at the hospital. But it was compassion for a stranger they felt. Such a loss for all three of them.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's such a shame.

I wonder if he regrets it now. And if he feels guilty.

There was a difficult patch- as the kids moved from adolescence to adulthood- where contact became strained and patchy, but we're through it now I think. One of them, the soldier, has gone of the radar at the moment, but the other two I talk to regularly.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

One of them, the soldier, has gone of the radar at the moment, but the other two I talk to regularly.
link


He's still very young, and circumstances may bring him back again. Many children pull away from awhile, for many reasons that have little to do with their families--especially boys, I think!

Anyway, I hope you will hear from him soon.

You did your best, and that counts for everything. I can only imagine how hard it must have been, but I admire you very much for having done it, having seen the pain that not making a relationship can cause a child.

And I think I can also say that letting go and attempting a clean break ("I now consider them your children") doesn't really work. There's still something left.

You can't shut off bonding like a faucet, I don't think.

I still care for the boy I once knew whom I married and loved, who was with me when our children was born.

I was glad to think about him after he got out of the hospital, still not breathing well, but with his kind and patient wife to take care of him (as I never could). I still like to think of him sitting by his window, reading.

Even though he lives 18 miles from my house, and never calls my daughter.

What remains is: Why wasn't what we offered him enough? And does he have regrets? Guilt? We'll never know.

I can't just shut him out of my heart. I remember him when he was a boy, when he got his first three-piece suit and was so proud of how he looked; and how much he wanted, for awhile, to be a good person.

I guess, because I can't love him now as a woman, I love him as a mother might. That will have to be enough. It is enough.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

"You can't shut off bonding like a tap"

No, I've felt it from the other side. I came north as much as anything to get away from my parents (who whether they meant to or not left me feeling I didn't matter) but I haven't been able to break the bonds. I had something like a reconciliation with my father just before he died, and I am now closer to my mother than I ever was. She's a spirited woman who has embraced the opportunities of widowhood and now (in her 80s) has a much livlier and varied social life than I do.

These relationships play out over decades and only death can really end them.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

P.S.

My daughter is in Leicester- a town about 100 miles from here.
My eldest son is in Japan.
And the youngest may be in the Falklands or he may be in Cyprus- accounts differ.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Is that your son who recently went to India? Did he like it?

My daughter went off alone to London and Germany when just after she graduated from college.

I think it's very brave to go off to another country, particularly one in which the language is different, alone.

My sister was in England and Wales, and while they were in London, she went grocery shopping. She accidentally ran into a woman with her cart. "Oh, excuse me!" she said to the woman, who was very insulted for some reason.

Janice found out later that most people in England say "Sorry!"

She went back to her hotel and cried for loneliness! She felt all Englanders hated her for a moment.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

My son, manfalling did a year in Japan teaching English. Then he decided he wanted to see the rest of the world. He came home, toyed with various schemes, then settled on the trip to India. He stayed there for about a month, found it was much like anywhere else (only with beggars who were more aggressive) and has now returned to his Japanese girlfriend and is teaching in a high school outside Tokyo.

Yes, "excuse me" doesn't sound contrite to English ears. It sounds dismissive, even sarcastic. Ah, "two nations separated by a common language"!

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

Where in Japan is your eldest son?

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

I absolutely believe that. And I think you've exactly hit on why fathers are becoming so idealized. The ones who haven't been able to step up feel guilty, and the ones that have, well, the ones who write screenplays consider themselves saints. And they may well be.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe we need all these films about loving fathers. Maybe us men will learn from them.

A friend of mine just said that one of the greatest things John Lennon ever did was to set an example (with Sean, not Julian) of loving fatherhood.

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

I think that's true that we need these stories about good parenting.

My Evil Twin (the person most like me in the world) is a divorced father of two. His kids are in their mid-to-late 20's now, but he's told me stories of the divorce and the aftermath. I think it takes a lot of patience and courage and love to keep a good relationship with your children during and after a divorce--perhaps after more than during.

In the case of my ET, he has a lot of mothering instincts, too, perhaps more than his ex-wife. We've talked about this, mothering and fathering. They are clearly different attributes, if not skills. We had a lot of trouble quantifying them, though, and gave up, though we agreed that neither is gender-specific. Good parenting is clearly a combination of both.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've wondered who the E.T. was :)

Yes, I've been particularly hard on fathers, but I know that good mothers are also a rare commodity.

I think good mothering has to do with what happens inside the home and good fathering to do with what happens outside. (This is off the top of my head.) I agree that neither is gender-specific.

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

I've wondered who the E.T. was :)

We are best buds and more than that. (And less than that since he lives in NY state and I live in Texas.) I don't remember what my life was like before I met him, and I caught myself once looking at old family pictures and wondering why he wasn't in the picture...

But anyway. The division of inside the home and outside the home is superficial. What happens inside the home affects your life outside in a profound way. The best managers I've had, for example, were also good parents. (They want their children to grow up to be autonomous, healthy, loving, individuals.)

[catvalente.livejournal.com]

Of course, since I am the child my father ignores, while adoring my brothers and sister, I don't think it's all that great an example of fatherhood to love one child and not another. That's ego, not parenting. I feel for Julian--it sucks to realize that your deadbeat dad is capable of being a good parent--just not to you.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Point taken.

My friend is a great fan of Lennon's. My own attitude is, well, he was an endlessly fascinating guy....

[catvalente.livejournal.com]

Very much so. But when you decide to be a good parent to your new child and never make an attempt to fix what you did wrong with the old, no longer interesting one, that's not being a good parent, that's preening over how good a father you are because it makes you feel good about yourself. A good parent doesn't play favorites just because there's a new mommy around.

I'm a fan too, just not of his personal life. Music is separate from the person.

I did find this a fascinating post, though. There is a big emphasis on fathers--I'm not sure if it's because society is trying to encourage it or enforce it or what...but single mothers are almost always shown as somehow deficient in film, and single fathers are noble, self-sacrificing, and kind. It's really a load of crap--but of course single mothers are the spawn of the devil. Especially if the child in question is a boy--we all know that a woman cannot raise a man effectively--she'll just make him a sissy...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

This is humbling.

I guess Spielberg is fixated on fathers because he comes from a broken home.

And maybe the reason I'm so down on fathers is that mine- who died a year ago yesterday- was such a distant, emotionally unreachable person.

I wote the post as if from an Olympian height of objectivity, but in fact one can never discount the personal.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's odd. I have this dislike of fathers, but I am one myself- and fought very hard to stay in touch with my kids after divorce.

I'm not sure I can do the math....