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

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

I don't reckon father's are indispensible, just as I think a child can be perfectly happy without a mother. (Well; apart from the trauma that society imagines the child to have over this, which eventually becomes real to the child...)

I think a rolemodel of each gender is preferable to have, but I've seen plenty of examples of these being provided by soembody who happens to have had nothing whatsoever to do with the actual conception of the child...

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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....

[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.

[jourdannex.livejournal.com]

I applaud you for doing what you did, making the effort of keeping in touch, because as hard as it must have been, it most likely made your children realize how much you loved them. It's very odd now in my life to have a man ring me up once every few years and pretend we have this father/daughter relationship...it's rather like having a neighbour you don't know ring you up.

I would say that families do need fathers, regardless if they live there or not, or at least a positive father figure in some way.

[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.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

You've reminded me that's it's been a week or two since I last spoke to my daughter. (I hate the telephone.) So I've just given her a call...

Thanks.

[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.

[egilsdottir.livejournal.com]

Do families need fathers?

i grew up with a father who possessed far more maternal/domestic instincts than my mother did. so much so, that when my parents divorced, my brother and i both lived with my father.

people are puzzled when i tell them that in addition to holding down a demanding job, my father was the one who took my brother and i to doctor and orthodontist appointments, and packed our lunches, and baked chocolate chip cookies.

to me, it's very strange (and sad) when people tell me that they hardly had any contact with their fathers at all while growing up. but then again, that's probably how people feel about me when i tell them the same about my mother.

my boyfriend, for example, has almost no memories of spending time with his father when he was a child. my boyfriend is the product of a chilean father and an american mother. his father very much fit the machismo latin stereotype of constantly working to provide for his family. occasionally, he would lose his temper and yell at my boyfriend and his brothers to sort of "keep them in line", and that was about it. his role in the family was limited to financial support and disciplinarian.

i don't even know where i'm going with this rambling, i suppose i just wanted to add my two cents to the jar. although my family is a somewhat unusual case, the effects of my background have produced a very different concept of gender roles in the family in me.

[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.)

[morrison-maiden.livejournal.com]

I think that fathers are important, but honestly, I think that some children don't have problems getting on without one. I think that in the early part of the century, it seemed that a lot of children grew up with one parent, as the result of a sudden death, or even raised by an older sibling. I think now, many people assume that fathers are totally necessary, but I don't know. My parents are still together, but my father has spent much of his time away from home. I miss him when he's away, but I don't think it really hindered my growing up :\

[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]

My father was usually there- but living in his own, closed off little world.

That's right about the early 1900s. You read children's books of that period and the parents (if they exist at all) are well in the background and the kids (there are often lots of them) sort of bring one another up.

[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.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

"autonymous, healthy, loving"- yes, that's the goal. And too many parents find that a big challenge- especially the "autonymous" bit.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I guess the thing is that children need parents, but the parents don't need to be two in number, they don't need to be one of either sex and they don't need to be blood relatives. What matters is that, whoever they are, they
provide the child with nurture and love and unquestioning acceptance.

[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]

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.

[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.