It is not customary for us that fathers behave towards their sons tenderly and affectionately. It is believed that the manifestation of paternal feelings will prevent the boy from becoming a real man. Today, however, psychologists talk about the importance of bodily contact. We found out from psychotherapist Albina Loktionova why dads should hug their sons as often as possible.
Psychologies: In the minds of many people, the proper upbringing of a son is detached, reserved, devoid of physical contact. You claim that this is wrong. Why?
Albina Loktionova: How can a child feel that his dad loves him if he is reserved and distant? Children perceive what “lies on the surface”, therefore, even if you feel great tenderness for your baby, but do not show it at all (or show little), your behavior will be read by them as indifference.
In practice, we are constantly faced with the fact that men, with rare exceptions, poorly distinguish touches of care and tenderness from intimately colored ones. Precisely because in childhood they did not have the opportunity to make this differentiation. From life experience, they know only touches that have a sexual intent, and therefore they unconsciously avoid bodily contact with their sons. Many men are afraid that this may open the way for the child to do something wrong. Although in fact, tenderness, protection and care from the father are the prevention of any psychological abnormalities.
Why is it not enough for a child to have a tender relationship with his mother?
A.L.: Father’s touch differs from mother’s (where the central feeling is coziness and comfort) in that it gives the child a feeling of absolute security. Without an experience in which the father restrains and regulates his strength, it is difficult for a boy to learn to control his own masculinity, it is impossible to experience it as an unconditionally positive and very attractive quality.
If in childhood, being helpless and defenseless, the son sees manifestations of tenderness, care and protection from the father, then, growing up, he will become a person capable of being strong and feeling at the same time. Otherwise, there are two ways of development: «an insensitive strong man» or «a timid sissy.»
Is it only a father who is able to give his son the opportunity to see the difference between parental affection and erotic touch?
A.L.: Certainly yes. Imagine that a boy experienced an intimacy deficit in his relationship with his own father as a child. This leads to longing, a hidden desire to experience it in adulthood. The smaller the child, the more information he perceives through the body.
And it is extremely important that a sense of parental care, expressed in tenderness, protection, satisfaction of children’s needs, be rooted in his bodily self. This gives the boy a completely different experience of male touch — paternal and friendly, which he can use later in his life, in communication with friends and even his own children.
I have seen adolescents hopelessly entangled in their own desires, reacting with arousal where there is even the slightest sign of human intimacy. Today we know for sure: if a little boy receives a sufficient number of unambiguous touches from his father, then he is filled with confidence in himself as a man. And then, growing up, he well differentiates a friendly touch from the same touch with sexual intent, because paternal love is “written” in his body.