Do dads make a difference?

IT IS FASCINATING how the birth of a child can transform a life. My best example of this is my wife Pamela, who I first knew as a carefree 20-year old. She has changed tremendously, focusing on what is most essential to her as a wife and as a mother. She has become a great supporter of parenting and an extremely effective advocate not only for our children but for children generally. Did I foresee the extent to which motherhood would affect her? Never! I knew having children would change things, but I could not have predicted in what way and by how much.
At times, in looking at myself and others, I have wondered if fatherhood brings about such drastic change. During pregnancy, our bodies are not the ones changing and we are not carrying the child. It is possible to continue as always, albeit with a partner who is undergoing tremendous change. Likewise, with one or several children, a man can keep on living as though he were single, even if the results can be disastrous for himself and his family. Indeed, with so many marriage break-ups, single-parent families and such possibilities as artificial insemination, many are asking questions about a father’s role. Are fathers really needed for raising children? What are their specific contributions to family life?

Dads count too!

Although children raised by a single mother or father can turn out great, a growing body of research indicates that children raised by only one parent are prone to certain risks and that children generally benefit greatly from contact with parents of both sexes. For example, this type of research suggests that boys raised only by a mother have a more difficult time shifting away from the maternal orbit, whereas girls lacking a father are in greater danger of becoming sexually active at a younger age. UNICEF’s The State of the World’s Children 2001 takes note of recent developments and expresses it in the following way: Studies of fatherhood underscore something that men who actively participate in their children’s lives know viscerally: when men are more than breadwinners or disciplinarians in families, everyone gains. Fathers have always been viewed as power-brokers. But equally important as their economic contributions and authority is their influential role as nurturers and caregivers.
When fathers nurture their children, not only are the children physically healthier, but they’re also more mentally acute and emotionally sound. A study of eight-year-olds in Barbados found that children performed better in school when their fathers were actively involved in their lives whether or not their fathers lived with them. Studies in the United States showed that infants with highly engaged fathers scored higher on pre-school intelligence tests than infants whose fathers were less involved. Increased academic scores are not the only benefits provided by a devoted father. When fathers and children play, sing and laugh together, there is a greater chance for happy, well-adjusted families. (p. 22)

The legacy of the father

According to Robert Sungenis, president of the Virginia-based Catholic Apologetics International, what fathers do does not stop today but perpetuates itself for generations. In other words, if a father acts a certain way, his children will copy him. As adults, they will also tend to reproduce his parenting patterns. Sungenis encourages fathers to become very involved in their children’s lives, studying them much as they study situations at work or in their leisure time. By knowing their children – their strengths, their weaknesses, the risks they are running – fathers are then in a position to influence their children in a positive way and to help them find their own path in life. (Ramon Gonzalez, Men must lead families by example, reprinted in The Catholic Register, Toronto, Canada, June 11, 2001, p. 15) Terrence Real, an American psychotherapist, also believes that a father’s legacy, good or bad, is passed on from one generation to the next. His own personal experience plus twenty years of treating men and their families, has convinced him that depression in men is a silent epidemic and they need to sit up and take notice if they do not wish to pass on this condition to their children. Intimacy issues, workaholism, alcoholism, rage and abusive behaviour are all problems which we associate as being typical of males, but Real argues that these are means of escaping depression and that these escape mechanisms hurt the people men love and perpetuate the problems from one generation to another.
Although Real’s book I don’t to talk about it – overcoming the secret legacy of male depression (Fireside, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1998) covers some extremely difficult content, his message is one of hope and he feels men have much to contribute to society, to marriage and to family life. According to Real, too often young boys are subjected to a damaging socialisation process, being taught to suppress or deny their feelings and they are left injured for life. This damage occurs in different ways: through pressures to conform to images of manliness at school or on the playground, but also through a serious lack of nurturing on the part of one or both parents. In I don’t want to talk about it, Real tells his own story and that of many of the men he has counselled. In his case, his father’s rage at being unable to live up to unrealistic expectations acquired early on in life led him to unleash his emotional and physical fury on his wife and two young sons. As a child, Real did not understand that this rage was not his problem but his father’s problem. He shouldered the blame for what was happening at home, becoming in effect a type of parent for his father, a responsibility no child should have to bear. So where did Real turn to for comfort? To anything which helped him forget his despair and the painful awareness that he was no good; to drugs which would soothe him; to risky behaviour which built up his injured self-esteem.

‘Me’ becomes ‘we’

In the conclusion of his book, Real summarises the dilemma many men face, whether they are overtly or covertly depressed: Why would a depressed man choose the hard work of reassessing the very longings, skills and responsibilities of mature relationship that were actively discouraged throughout his socialisation? One reason may be that... he is being asked to in no uncertain terms. Another reason is that he will feel better for it. When a depressed man steps up to the task of practising full relational responsibility, he not only transforms the dynamics of his disorder, he also shifts to a more mature stage in his own development. I speak to men of this shift in life... as the move into fathering. Fathering, as I speak of it, can, but need not, involve the biological begetting of children. Fathering need not involve children at all. Fathering occurs when the essential question a man lives by changes... the shift from: What will I get? to: What can I offer? Entering into a fathering relationship to a child, a mate, an art, a cause, to the planet entire (sic) means to become a true provider. Recovery demands a move into generativity. (Pages 321 and 322) Fatherhood can be a daunting challenge, but the experience and the results are worth it.