The Twelve Obstacles to Fathering, Part 2

Gift of Fatherhood : How Men's Live are Transformed by Their Children
by Aaron Hass, Ph.D.

(Page 2 of 2)

You Feel Financial Pressures

After the arrival of your child, your sense of overwhelming responsibility as a father and as a provider really kicks in. Some men almost feel a sense of panic and want to run away. To make matters worse, perhaps your wife stopped working or drastically cut back her hours. Even though you may want her to be home with your new baby, her lack of financial contribution increases the load you feel. Ironically, just as you should be diverting some of your attention to your newborn, you feel the pressure to work longer hours in order to give your family what you want them to have. Furthermore, as your children get older and reach an age when they may need you the most, you are moving through your thirties and forties, your "professional prime," a time when you feel you must give your career all of your efforts in order to obtain a certain level of status and security.

The more children you have, the more justified you may feel in not devoting more time to them. You feel even more financial pressure. You work even longer hours. You're tired and you say to yourself, "I work hard all week. I've already fulfilled my responsibilities to my family — and then some." And you infer, "I've already demonstrated how much I care about my family."

Oftentimes it is difficult to distinguish your drive to succeed in your career from the realistic financial obligations you must meet. It is more socially acceptable to invoke the latter than former in justifying your absence from family life. It appears less selfish to blame your financial responsibilities than to acknowledge your more narcissistic strivings for success when you work on weekends or arrive home after your child's bedtime.

Your children need you. They need your attention, your encouragement, your wisdom, your physical contact, your affirmation of how important they are to you. They need your love more than they need a CD player or a $100 pair of sneakers. And you need to be with your children so that you can develop a healthier perspective and balance in life.

You Believe Parenting Is Your Wife's Responsibility

You may believe that parenting comes more naturally to your wife than to yourself. She's got the maternal instinct. Mothers raise children. That's what my mother did. Women just know what to do with children, how to be with them, you believe. And so you rationalize your relative lack of involvement with your children by subconsciously saying to yourself, They're better off with her anyway.

Furthermore, many men believe that parenting is mostly the female's responsibility. If you accept this notion, then you may not feel completely comfortable being an actively involved father because you will have entered a feminine domain. Fathering might actually detract from your sense of masculinity. Until you incorporate nurturing and attachment to your children into your male ideal, you will feel that attention to these aspects of life will actually weaken you. Have you noticed that when most men get together in order to bond and affirm their manliness, they speak about four topics — sports, money, work, and sex? Children are what women talk about, you assume. Unfortunately, the quality of your relationship with your child does not garner you the esteem of your peers. Will you be strong enough, secure enough as a man, to fly in the face of convention?

Your Children Prefer to Be with Their Mother

Perhaps you have asked your child, "Would you rather go with mom or dad?" You felt rejected when she said, "I want to go with mom." They prefer to be with their mother, you tell yourself.

It may indeed be the case that your child would rather spend time with your wife than with you. But perhaps that's because your wife is more enthusiastic, more appreciative, or more attentive than you are when interacting with your child. While most daughters (particularly younger ones) might gravitate toward their mother, it is not unusual to find a girl who chooses to be with her father because he is more fun to be with, because he makes her feel so special, or because he indicates by his demeanor that he truly enjoys and looks forward to his time with her.

Your daughter may, in fact, appreciate the differentness of being with a man, her dad. The relationship which each parent has with their child is unique. As a father, your role need not be to imitate your wife's behavior when you are interacting with your daughter. On the contrary, you can provide your daughter with another flavor of positive role model which will help her establish later relationships with a greater variety of people. She will also have two different styles or approaches to life to draw upon when making future decisions.

Children want to be with a parent who clearly demonstrates his/her love, interest, and enthusiasm while being with them. You will feel the satisfaction of being wanted and loved when your children feel that too.

You Avoid Being with Your Child to
Avoid Marital Conflict

Couples often disagree about how to raise their children. You may perceive your wife to be too indulgent, too lax. She may, just as firmly, believe you to be unrealistically demanding or too stem with your son or daughter. You may believe she coddles your children, spoils them. Your wife, because of past feelings of deprivation, may see in you the father who withheld his love from her when she was a child. Old resentments may be displaced onto you if she perceives you to be repeating the same pattern with your children.

So you leave the field to her in order to avoid another argument. And you rationalize your withdrawal from childrearing by saying to yourself that you want to keep a somewhat shaky marriage from becoming even more unsatisfying and, perhaps, ultimately untenable.

If the prospect of marital conflict interferes with your desire to be with your children, you must resolve that conflict, instead of withdrawing from family life. Begin by talking with your wife about the kinds of parenting which each of you received. How did you feel in your relationships with your parents? What were your perceptions of your parents as you were growing up? How did your relationships with your parents affect your subsequent romantic relationships and the kinds of partners you chose? Successfully defusing the tension between you and your wife may require some professional assistance in unraveling old childhood hurts which affect the way each of you now approaches your children and your mate.

Ultimately, of course, the development of better communication skills in your marriage and greater empathy for one another will serve you in good stead in developing a more communicative and empathic relationship with your children.

All husbands and wives who I see in my practice have had both their marriage and their parenting styles affected by the mother and father who reared them. In their own ways, Ben and Barbara reflect many of the issues which I have discussed in this chapter.

Ben, a thirty-eight year old accountant, and Barbara, a thirty-six year old teacher, had been married for seven years before they appeared at my office because of marital difficulties which had been simmering for years. (No one seeks psychotherapy or counseling after experiencing a problem for only a short period of time.) There were the usual complaints. From Ben: Barbara didn't seem to have much time for him anymore. Barbara was overly involved with the children. Barbara had put on weight and didn't care about her appearance. Barbara wasn't interested in sex. From Barbara: Ben was uninvolved in family life. Ben seemed to care more about his work than about her or the children. Ben always excused himself as being too stressed or too tired. Ben wasn't affectionate anymore. Ben didn't seem to care about having an emotionally close relationship anymore.

Both Ben and Barbara grew up in very modest circumstances. Their parents occupied traditional roles. Ben's father worked seven days a week as a tailor in Boston. Barbara's father worked overtime in his steel mill whenever it was available. Ben's mother and Barbara's mother were housewives. Ben's father, an immigrant, was from "the old school." "Be happy for what you have," "Life is tough," "You don't need very much," "Money doesn't grow on trees," were some of the lessons he imparted to Ben. Barbara's father, abandoned by his parents at an early age, was a bitter, cold man. He was uninterested in his children. Barbara remembers her frustration at repeatedly attempting to gain his attention or a word of approval. He virtually ignored Barbara and her brothers.

Ben learned his lessons well. Both as a child and as an adult, Ben has led a life of self-denial. Although his financial circumstances are significantly different from his father's, unfortunately Ben feels as though and acts as though he is living under the same constraints. And he expects the same of his children. "My children always seem to be whining or complaining about this or that. And their mother spoils them rotten. What kind of character will they grow up with? Shouldn't there be limits?" Ben rhetorically asked.

Barbara was more aware of her previous hurt and anger toward her father than Ben was of his feelings of deprivation. She was determined to provide for her children what she never received. She admitted, "It's difficult for me not to give my children what they want. But, unlike Ben, I don't see my children as being so demanding or unreasonable." And Barbara acknowledged that, in many ways, particularly when there is an issue of giving, she sees her father when she observes her husband. Every time Ben says "No" to his children (or to her), Barbara hears that voice from her childhood denying her once again.

In any couple I see in therapy, both parties are absolutely convinced of the correctness of their point of view. Each is dumbfounded that the other doesn't see "the obvious." But the issue, of course, is not who is right or who is acting most appropriately. In Ben and Barbara's case, one of the first steps in their treatment was for them to understand how the parenting which they received has affected their feelings and expectations toward their own children. Only then can they respond most helpfully to the needs of their children, as opposed to acting on the sanctions of their own childhood.

Why You Should Want to Spend More
Time with Your Children

You Will Understand Their Abilities Better

The more time you spend with your children, the more attuned you will be to their emerging abilities. Those fathers who spend little time with their children frequently either underestimate or overestimate the developmental progress of their sons and daughters. If you underestimate your child's competence, you won't provide adequate challenge or stimulation. Your child will be bored. If you overestimate your child's skills, your unrealistic expectations will prove to be a frustrating and unpleasant experience for him and you. In either case, your child will be less motivated to interact with you in the future.

The more time you spend with your children, the more realistically you will be able to assess their capacities and the more aware you will be of their particular talents and sensibilities. You will, therefore, have the optimal opportunity to provide challenging and stimulating interactions. You will discover not only what they enjoy doing, but how they enjoy doing it. (For example, adult rules may be inappropriate when playing a game with a six-year-old. There are probably one hundred different ways you can play a game with a basketball.)

And, don't forget to let your children win, at least some of the time. No one enjoys playing something at which they always lose.

You Will Enhance Your Child's Self-Esteem

Your time is precious to both you and your child. Your willingness to give your time to him sends a message: You are important. A father who gives of himself implicitly communicates his love and respect for his child. And if you, the person your child respects most in the world, believe he is worthy of your undivided attention, your child will bask in the sense of his own importance.

Perhaps I need not mention the obvious: There is nothing more valuable for our psychological well-being than healthy self-esteem. You can help provide that for your child. And when your child grows up, you will relish the pride you feel and savor the knowledge that you had a hand in cultivating the person she has become.

You May Be Able to Forestall Childhood Problems

As parents, we do not have as much control as we would like over our children's lives. We wish our children were more popular. We wish our children were less awkward. It pains us to see them hurt, rejected by their peers. We wish we could protect them from all of that. But we can't.

However, the closer the relationship we have with our children, the greater our opportunity to provide them with self-respect and self-acceptance. Less involved fathers may facilitate the opposite reactions. For example, in a recent article published in American Psychologist, Dr. Louise Silverstein writes: "Research clearly documents the direct correlation between father absence and higher rates of aggressive behavior in sons, sexually precocious behavior in daughters, and more rigid sex stereotypes in children of both sexes."

You Will Have More Influence on Them

Your child is exposed to many influences. And the older he becomes, the more he is likely to adopt his peer group's frame of reference. But the closer the relationship you have with your child, the more likely your child will continue to identify with you. You will, therefore, be in an advantageous position to instill your positive values and increase the likelihood that they will be accepted. The more love and respect (as opposed to fear and anger) your child has for you, the more likely it is that he will incorporate his sense of you in himself. He will act more like you.

It is to be expected that your son will be more likely to identify with and feel closer to you than your daughter may. However, you will still be a terribly important role model for her if she feels a loving connection between the two of you. And she will be more likely to choose a man who will reflect your positive traits for her lifemate later on.

It Will Enhance Your Self-Esteem

The more time you spend with your baby or your five-year-old, the better at fathering you will be. Given the fact that fathering does not come naturally and must, instead, be learned, you will gain a sense of self-satisfaction as you become more accomplished at it.

In the case of your relationship with your children, the old adage, "The more you put into it, the more you'll get out of it," readily applies. For as you sense how increasingly important your child feels you to be, you, in turn, will feel an increasing sense of self-importance.

Because of Your Epitaph

Your children will be gone soon.

As your children reach later and later developmental stages, you will look back with amazement and wistfulness at how quickly it went, how quickly your sons' and daughters' innocence and childlike dependence on you evaporated. "Where was I when they were growing up?" fathers ask themselves. "Why didn't I realize then, how important they were to me?"

Unfortunately, for many men, looking back upon their lives does not produce satisfying reflections. Questions such as, "What did I do with my life? Did I attend to what was really important?" are met with aggrieved answers. When asking, "What did I accomplish?" oftentimes we find our replies to be hollow. When you reach that stage of life when you are prone to evaluate the choices you made, I want your answer to be a much more satisfying one.

You Can Do It Right

If you approach fathering as one more task, one more job, you almost guarantee that it will not be an enjoyable one. If you appreciate the benefits which you and your child can derive from your interactions, you will act with enthusiasm and expectation. Your eagerness will infect your child, and you will both know that the other cares, that the other loves.

The more your children separate from you, the more they will be shaped by their peers and by their own culture. We increasingly fret over their well-being as they slip away from our protective shield. But we can lay a foundation which will enable them to make the right choices. We can insure that they feel loved, so they do not reach out for recognition in destructive ways. And when they are conflicted and cannot make up their mind, we can create a relationship which invites discussion and is open to guidance.

You cannot undo your childhood. You can never receive what you deserved from your own father. But you are in the fortunate position of seeing to it that your child has the parent he is entitled to have. You have been given the chance to do it differently, to do it better, to do it right.

Make a list of what you resolve to do more of with your child. If you need some ideas to get started, return to the list you made at the beginning of this chapter.

Our tendency is to imitate what we have seen in our own fathers and to cast our expectations after those. Don't repeat the mistakes which your father made. Being a better father to your children can help heal the disappointments of your own childhood. As your life becomes more gratifying, as it becomes filled with love, you will find that your longtime, gnawing resentments toward your father will recede. You won't need to be angry any longer because your life will feel fulfilled.

Don't waste time blaming yourself for what you have or have not done with your children to this point. It is understandable that, to the extent you have not built a closer relationship with your child, you will feel more alienated and, perhaps, helpless now. The good news is that it is not too late.

Your responsibility as a parent is to nurture your child, to help him reach his fullest potential. Your child also presents you with an opportunity to grow. Seize that opening.

Copyright © 1994 by Aaron Hass, Ph.D.

About the Author

Aaron Hass, Ph.D., is professor of psychology at California State University, Dominguez Hills, and assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine. Dr. Hass has worked with families in his clinical practice for over twenty years. He lives with his wife and three children in Los Angeles.