Father Figures

The sad fact is that so few men around the world know what the word fatherhood really means. Studies show that as few as one in ten men say they knew their father well. Fathers have been criticised as absent, emotionally distant and have been seen as inadequate role models. With no one to guide them, modern fathers’ report feeling lost, with societies viewing fathers in often-negative ways. So, what has changed? How different is it to be a father today than in the past and what can be done to ensure that dads are more actively involved with their children? Let’s investigate.

Changes in work values, dilution of tradition by globalised culture and the political gains of feminism are challenging the assumptions men have about the roles they have occupied. The once clear-cut definitions of man the father, son, husband and provider have become blurred and, as yet, it is uncertain as to where men now belong in the modern world.

Fatherhood

When British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, proudly showed baby Leo to a waiting world, the message was clear. Here was a family man; a man who could hold down the most difficult job in the country and yet still find time to be a father and a husband. In modern Britain fatherhood, at least in theory, is fashionable. Whether it is David Beckham proudly showing off son Brooklyn or the Gallagher brothers proclaiming how fatherhood has given their lives a new perspective, parenthood is currently the new activity for the men who have achieved everything else.   However, many experts believe that the main reason ‘everyday’ young men are in trouble, the source of so much pain and anger, might be the result of problems associated with fathering.   As psychiatrist Professor Anthony Clare outlines in his book On Men: Masculinity in Crisis, if men have for so long been defined in terms of what they do, rather than what they are, how can they now make the seamless transition from the dominant bread winner to the attentive father?

Absent Fathers

Perhaps re-education is the answer? American poet, Robert Bly, is credited with starting what’s being called The Men’s Movement. He runs conferences for men and is the author of Iron John and The Sibling Society, two books which describe a modern western society where fathers are largely disregarded, no longer revered. He attributes this to a loss of traditional teaching about manhood, and he relates it to ceremonies of initiation used in many cultures. However, such teachings are often lost if a father is absent. Absenteeism can be a major contributory factor to men’s understanding of what a father is and with many parents now living separately it is not something which is likely to go away in a hurry. Traditionally the western father was an aloof, emotionally controlled figure, who, more often than not, held the disciplinarian role in the family. The phrase ‘Wait ‘til your father gets home’ instilled fear into the hearts of many a naughty child, but today how can fathers fulfil that role if they never go home?   Of course men have left their children before, maybe they had gone away to war or to work, but now men go missing for different reasons. Bly explains:‘Fathers were thought to have gone for a good or even a noble reason. The young man was often idealising his father, and mothers would sometimes assist with that. Men thought well of their fathers in general. In our time the man simply disappears. The joke is that the father goes to California, buys himself a Jaguar, gets a 29 year old wife, one his son might have married. This causes a tremendous amount of bitterness in the young man, and it is justified.’

Artificial Insemination  

Being absent throughout childhood is one thing, but not even being at the conception is quite another. What more absent father can there be than one whose name has never been known? And yet new reproductive science is creating thousands of children who have no idea who their genetic father is. Stuart Pearson White is the product of in vitro fertilisation from a sperm donation – in other words, he was conceived in a laboratory in September 1974. His grief comes from never having the chance to know who his real father is:‘If a child has a lost father that they’ve not met, there are still the photographs and the stories from relatives. I have nothing. So this man has always been intangible.’In vitro fertilisation and artificial insemination by anonymous donors also brings into question the future of fatherhood. For the male ego this could be the final straw.

As Professor Clare outlines women’s biological emancipation may have reduced men to a marginal role:‘If conception, pregnancy, delivery and child-rearing can be perfectly well accomplished without the active participation of the male, then why bother with him at all, given the heartache, the trouble, the sheer cussedness of today’s man? Once so proud of his penis (Sigmund Freud, after all, argued that women envied it), contemporary man now finds he is being reduced to the role of support seed carrier, as women occupy centre stage not merely in the creation of new life but in its nurturing.’

Government Support

So how do we put a stop to these feelings of negativity? In Britain, government intervention could provide the way forward. Adrienne Burgess, head of the Home-Office funded scheme called Fathers Direct, explained the attempt to change the culture of British fathers:‘We are setting out to change the whole culture which surrounds fathers, which undervalues the real passion that many have for their children ¼ Fathers Direct tackles the invisibility of all good fathering which goes on.’Similarly in 1999 the Institute for Public Research Policy gathered in the US to discuss the view that fathers are merely seen as financial providers. It resulted in a review of child support. James Levine, an advisor to US Vice-President Al Gore, explained the major challenge facing the US:‘In the US, the big challenge is to get people, not least fathers themselves, to see dads as more than just walking wallets.’Burgess concedes that in order to make any of these programmes a success, the involvement of women is essential. This may well be true, but as Professor Clare points out, how can we truly begin to understand what is needed for men, until we know about men?    He comments:‘Before we can begin to answer what men want, deserve or need, it is necessary to reassess what we know about men. What is it that the Y chromosome, the cause of all the trouble, is up to?    Must the issue between the sexes be for men a case of dominate or be dominated, for women a choice between being resistant or submissive?’   Only when we have re-evaluated what we know about men, can we truly appreciate mans role in society. It is then that we can ask what kind of fathers do we have?   And, perhaps more importantly, what kind of fathers do we need?

A few questions:

•  What changes have you witnessed in your country?
•  Are you assertive or submissive?
•  Were you ever threatened with the phrase, "Wait till your father gets home" ?   How did you feel?
• What role do you consider a man should have in the family?  And a woman's role?
• What was life like say, in your grandfather's day?
• Would you say there are any differences in behaviour between children with working mothers and children whose mothers remain at home?