Fatherly feelings: why not everyone has them?

Personal things. Start

Maria: “My dad communicated with us through my grandmother for most of our life. She literally forced him to see us. He was bored. So he said that he loves us at a distance, that he doesn’t need to be closer and that it’s more interesting to communicate with adult children.

He mostly talked about himself. About his mistresses, business, failures … He listened to us insofar as – and impatiently interrupted. I could say: “You, daughter, are a genius, and Vanya (my brother) is a moron.” Then he said exactly the opposite. Charming, brilliant and unpredictable, hysterical, he seemed to show off in front of us.

I remember a friend burst into tears when she found out that my parents divorced. I was 13 then, and they had not lived together for 7 years. I was so surprised by her reaction. And she loved her dad very much, for her a divorce would be a drama. And for me – you think, why do you need this dad at all? Somehow I didn’t recognize him when he came to kindergarten for me.”

Lera: “What my father looks like, I know only from the photo. He left when I was about 5 years old. I understand that people can come and go. But how can you divorce children? No one forbade him, but he did not at all seek to communicate with me. When I was 15, I called him myself. We lived all the time not particularly far from each other. She said she wanted to meet and get to know each other. For me it was important. But he didn’t want to again … It hurt me a lot – and only many years later I realized how much.

Vadim: “My father left my mother when I was born. He just didn’t come to pick us up from the hospital – he disappeared with things. Then he hid from alimony, we did not know about him. Mom worked two jobs at the same time, raised me alone. She didn’t arrange her life – there was no time, and then she didn’t want anything. ”

Instinct or convention?

With maternal instinct, everything is clearer than with paternal. A woman carries a child for 9 months and is physically connected to him. Then she feeds him and, as a rule, takes care of him, that is, in a healthy relationship, her parental feelings are not only due to nature, but also reinforced by daily emotional contact.

But what about the father? Why do not all men show parental feelings and what does it depend on?

Bertrand Russell, author of Marriage and Morals, writes that the father’s attitude towards the child is rather hypothetical and comes from the head – in theory, it is based on his confidence in his wife’s fidelity. However, in real life this is not always the case. We all know many examples when a stepfather could raise adopted children with love and warmth. And the inhabitants of Melanesia do not know the concept of paternity at all, and yet men love children, considering them to be their own.

British anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski wrote about the inhabitants of the Trobriand Islands, who did not know for certain who their biological father was. Moreover, for them this question did not arise in principle. And if the husband, after more than a year’s absence, returned home and found that his wife had given birth, he rejoiced and considered the child his own. Children, according to the islanders, were brought by spirits. And the “blood” relationship of the father with the younger generation was determined by the female line – whoever is the husband of the mother is the father of the child.

Role Templates

Erich Fromm wrote that a father’s love, unlike a mother’s, is not unconditional. That is, the child “deserves” it, and in a man it is gradually formed in the first two years after the appearance of the baby.

In a patriarchal society, a man had to provide for his children and his wife, who was economically (and often physically) dependent on him. The father was the personification of authority and set the rules of conduct. First of all, his parental role included raising his son as an heir – traditions, professions, social roles.

But a lot has changed in the last century. First of all, this concerns the social role of women. Now the mother can work and be financially independent or in equal partnership with a man. Increasingly, children stay with dad when mom is not at home, which changes the quality of contact and makes their relationship closer and more meaningful.

The development of psychiatry and psychology provides new food for thought for those who have a meaningful approach to starting a family and raising children. For example, it has been proven that fathers who were present at the birth and had the opportunity to take the child in his arms in the first minutes of his life subsequently felt a deeper emotional connection with him. And such babies, as psychologists write, growing up, showed a higher level of mental and physical development compared to their peers.

Today, gender patterns are gradually dying out – for example, that a man should be “restrained and stingy with feelings.” Empathy, a manifestation of paternal tenderness and love for a child, are increasingly perceived by us as something correct and natural. More and more dads do not perform a “swearing and punishing” function, but give the child love, combining both the traditional conditional paternal feeling and unconditional maternal acceptance.

Maturity

As experts note and everyday experience confirms, fatherhood at an older age is generally much more emotionally filled. A person has “worked up”, gained life experience and is ready to share – himself, his resources. Fatherhood for him, as a rule, is a value. “Early” dads are not always ready to give their time and attention to children, sometimes they are not able to enjoy fiddling with them.

However, psychological immaturity is not always associated with age. Some paternal feelings never wake up. And then no matter how much a man tries to create a family, he will never become a father for his children, running away from responsibility or not wanting to spend his resources on someone other than himself.

Mothers transfer all their love to their sons and protect them, putting on their shoulders the entire burden of household and other worries. This is how selfish and immature men grow up, for whom it is quite natural to divorce not only their wife, but also their child.

The role of the father

“In modern psychology, especially in dynamic directions, the figure of the father is given great importance and its role in the development of the psyche of a child and an adult is being studied,” explains clinical psychologist Lidia Fedorova. – There are several aspects of studying the role of the father: in society and culture, in real family relationships, marital and parent-child relationships, as well as the symbolic role of this figure in the mental development of the child. And this third aspect determines a lot.

The father is the one who breaks the symbiotic bond between mother and child, thereby helping the son or daughter discover the world around them and begin to interact with it, build new relationships, learn language and be cognitively active. This is a figure that helps to understand the hierarchy of relationships and forms internal ideas about the law and boundaries.

The father will help the boy in male identification, and for the girl he will become a guide to her femininity. A child is the fruit of the desire and love of a man and a woman, as well as the personal history of these two people. The images of mom and dad live in each of us and influence our entire personality and future relationships.

Personal things. Ending

Maria: “This is the end of the story. The father has grown old, has gone through heavy operation. And suddenly my dad appeared. He realized that now he was weak, disabled. That he needs support, and loneliness is scary. We became close sharply on the same day when my grandmother died – then something in his head shifted. I ran with him everywhere – through morgues, cemeteries, not even for him, but for my grandmother – she loved us very much, and we loved her. And, probably, then they got to know each other more than in their entire lives.

Lera: “My father died almost 20 years ago. He had a different family. For his younger children, he is a completely different person. And in me, unfortunately, the pain, anger and resentment towards him still live. And, most importantly, I will never have the opportunity to talk to him, ask the question – why … “

Vadim: “When I grew up, I found it on Odnoklassniki. Wrote. He was delighted and, without asking about my life, he began to complain about his own, and then asked me for money.

Everyone chooses for himself

Of course, if a man did not have an example of a good, caring dad before his eyes, it is more difficult for him to become one “automatically”. But this does not mean that, growing up, he cannot form his own idea of ​​uXNUMXbuXNUMXbwhat he wants to be for his children.

Today, many sons of bad fathers consciously become caring dads, even if they do not live with the mother of their children. They are probably an example of the fact that fatherly feelings can be the result of a personal choice of an adult, his responsible approach to life and a sincere desire for happiness – for himself and for the one who, thanks to him, was born and will someday utter the word with love ” dad”.