I didn't know my dad all that well. He died when I was 11, after a long illness that saw him in hospital for nearly 5 years, and he didn't show much evidence that he liked me much. All we ever shared was a love of science fiction.
I'm a father myself, of two wonderful kids, but I feel deeply the lack of a relationship, as a kid or as an adult, with my father. I have tried to be to my kids the father I wanted, and in so doing, made many mistakes. The lack of role models, of experience of father-ness, left me trying to work it out for myself.
The other night, I saw a documentary on Afghanistan, with a young boy playing soccer in his one pair of shoes, nonchalantly telling the camera that his dad would beat him for so doing when he got home, for he had to study to become literate. It was no problem for him, just a fact of life; and when the interviewer talked to the kid's dad, it was clear that he was a humane, wryly humourous man who dearly loved his son and wanted only the best for him, but who was too poor to pay for another pair of shoes.
Why do we have such a disconnect between fathers and children?
I suspect in part it's because we are in unnatural relationships. For all the hyperbole of "Family Values" groups trying to enforce one or the other contingent historical tradition on us all, families as we have them now are not natural. I am a single father to my son (although the separation was amicable, and we both still parent jointly). In our ancestral environment, this is extremely unlikely.
Fathers were only one, very important, relationship in our ancestral societies, and there would typically be, if modern foraging societies are any guide, many relatives to teach, take care of, and guide children. Not only aunts and uncles, or grandparents, but cousins, siblings at some distance in age, and so on. The term "extended family" doesn't do it justice I think, because in such a society nearly <i>everyone</i> was a close enough relative to look after you. And the neighbours - well either you fought with them, or intermarried to enforce bonds (or both).
The weight of being a parent today is excessive, and for fathers immensely confusing. Perhaps my dad did love me, and perhaps he even liked me - I'll never know. It wasn't expressed under the conventions of the day, but at least he knew what was expected of him. I almost never have. I hope I didn't screw it up too badly (my kids say no, but they aren't yet in a position to know, one way or the other). I don't have the comfort of knowing I followed the conventions, because between his death and now, things have changed dramatically, and the conflicting social rules are incoherent - feminists say one thing, the many religious and psychological "experts" all say something different (to each other), and of course there's the generational differences.
The only family values I think are universal are: love your kids, and try to prepare them for the world you think is coming, protect them from harm, and teach them the rules of the surrounding society, not so they can blindly follow them, but so they know what they are dealing with whether they agree or not.
We only know from the past. The future social roles, if they ever settle down, are inaccessible to us, so of course the past generation is out of touch. So will the present generation be, and their kids too. It's the price of social change, and the reward.
This photo is the moment in my life I cherish the most, captured by my wife. I was about to go on a six week trip to the US for work (my first trip overseas), and the day before we took my daughter to the beach, and it was, in mid winter, calm, warm and the sea was like glass, indistinguishable from the sky at the horizon. Alice was 2, and although we didn't know it, my son was forming in his mum. It was our first complete family outing. This was the day I most felt like a dad.
PETER GABRIEL - "Father, Son", from
Father, son
Locked as one
In this empty room...
Spine against spine
Yours against mine
Till the warmth comes through...
Remember the breakwaters down by the waves?
I first found my courage
Knowing daddy could save
I could hold back the tide
With my dad by my side...
Dogs, plows and bows
We move through each pose
Struggling in our seperate ways
Mantras and hymns
Unfolding limbs
Looking for release through the pain...
And the yogi's eyes are open
Looking up above
He too is dreaming of his daddy's love
With his dad by his side...
Got his dad by his side...
Can you recall
How you took me to school?
We couldn't talk much at all
It's been so many years
And now these tears
Guess I'm still your child
Out on the moors
We take a pause
See how far we have come...
You're moving quite slow
How far can we go?
Father and son
With my dad by my side
With my dad by my side
Got my dad by my side
With me
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Look at it this way - if you are actually thinking about it, you probably haven't done a bad job..
I would expect that in terms of evolution, children would typically be brought up by the mother plus a surrounding family grouping; but having said that, the amount of mortality expected in the stone age would mean that the adults bringing a child up would be far more changable than today; children are quite adaptable as long as there is *someone* to pay attention and teach.
Nice post John. I'm in almost the same state as you -- single dad of two, after an amicable divorce. Very little role model for fatherhood, although my dad is still living. All we can do is play it by ear -- if you pay attention to the kids, they'll tell you when you're messing up.
Cheers!
Trouble is, my kids tell I'm messing up when I'm not, and that I'm doing just fine, when I'm not. Unreliable reporters...
Still, they seem to be getting along despite the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. My ex-Brother-in-Law used to say "Kids are made of rubber till they're three". I suspect they are similarly resilient psychologically until they're about 10. Thereafter, it all gets very... dramatic.
You didn't think I meant them telling you in words did you? It's more how they interact with their peers, and how they face school and other challenges. As far as words are concerned, I'm mean, unfair and generally embarassing!
John,
As a father of three children I share your concerns. Thanks for the thoughtful and engaging sharing.
As a Christian, I take big-picture cues from a biblical worldview. Day-to-day relating and parenting however is messy, varied, personal, difficult, rewarding, challenging, ever changing, and not directly signposted. Nevertheless, the framework of God as perfect heavenly father, and the expression of his love and forgiveness in Jesus, for me provides not only parenting principles, but a reality that both spurs me on to do better, and at the same time, by grace, frees me from the tyranny of never being perfect.
Not that I?m here to preach a sermon. I am interested in the whole phenomenon of ?love?, in this case parental. The instinctive and driven impulse for a parent to care for their offspring seems like a strongly selectable trait, at least for species with long infant dependency and learning periods. Do we leave it at that? Is your heartfelt concern for your own children, and the impact of your parents on you, purely the emergent sensation of genetic survival imperatives?
How can such inexpressible feelings of love be so reduced? Therefore, there must be a God, to give them transcendent meaning. QED.
Is this an emotionally persuasive (for some) but invalid conclusion? In such bare form, I think so. So my point here is not an argument as such, but rather a mulling over the idea that our experience of love (and add to that our powerful and innate sense of justice), are pointers to the possibility of a reality beyond an emergent illusion.
And if not, stop worrying ;-)
Mark
Hi Mark. Nice to hear from you again.
I would draw almost the exact opposite conclusion than you. One reason why we think there is a father god is projection from our biological and social views about fathers, and in particular about nurturing parents.
I think it is sufficient to see the father's love as an outcome of the biological imperatives, modified and regulated by cultural influences, of course. There is no need to be transcendent about it, any more than there is a need to be transcendent about emotion in general. It is all the outcome of biological and cultural factors. I'm afraid I find the theist apologia here unconvincing. I'm pleased for you that you do, of course, but it simply has no force unless you are already a theist.
Thanks for the comment, though.
Thank you, John; that was very touching (as well, as usual, being informative). My father passed away almost four years ago, and I often run across things I would like to tell or show him, because he would be interested or pleased: his grandsons' latest doings, pictures from a trip, my latest DIY project. One of my favorite pictures from the family albums is of him with me as a baby -- the joy and love he had for this little boy lights up his face. But for reasons I'm unsure of we were not close as adults, and I regret that. Now that my own sons are in the process of leaving home, I feel the need to not let that repeat in the next generation.
In other news, Mark Elkington writes:
How can such inexpressible feelings of love be so reduced? Therefore, there must be a God, to give them transcendent meaning. QED.[etc.]
I felt that way for years (decades, even) -- I put it down to having read a lot of C.S.Lewis. It's a very Platonic way of looking at life: everything derives from some Ideal, which is ultimately bound up in God, the "ground of being". Eventually, I came to see that, really, this whole concept of "transcendent meaning", as appealing as it may be, is incoherent -- there's no "there" there. My life and works have exactly as much "meaning" as I give them, or motivate others to grant them. Takes a bit of getting used to, but there it is.