What if father and mother switch roles?

In “Louder Than Bombs”¹ we meet a family in which the mother is selflessly devoted to her beloved work – she is a photographer shooting in the hot spots of the planet, while the father devotes his life to the family: his wife and two sons, having abandoned his acting career. I do not pretend to guess what the authors wanted to say, here we can only talk about perception. And perception is a subjective matter.

non-female profession

In any culture, it seems to me that it is women who are more receptive to the demands of society and, accordingly, more subject to gender pressure. It is quite possible that Isabelle, the protagonist of the film Louder Than Bombs, chooses her occupation by no means contrary to the prevailing social ideas, but in accordance with them: after all, today Western society is revising habitual attitudes and is actively suggesting that a woman take on more social responsibility, gain new experience, consider yourself as an active and significant person. Isabelle is doing a job that twenty years ago would have been considered purely “male” – she is a war correspondent. How surprising is this for a viewer in Russia? Not particularly. Women in Russia received suffrage in 1917, 3 years earlier than in the USA, and 27 years earlier than in France, for example. We know women directors, pilots and astronauts…

But the difference is that in Russia they are unlikely to make a film about this, and “public opinion” on this matter most often boils down to the question of whether a woman engaged in responsible or dangerous work can also find family happiness. And the point is not what the answer is, but the fact that such a question is not raised regarding men. And it is customary to ask famous women in our country in an interview how they cope with the household. Although such “unequal marriages”, where the mother makes a career, and the father remains in the shadows, there were many before, and today, but this situation is embarrassed. In the 90s, when rapid property stratification began, both women and men came to me for psychological counseling with this problem. Sometimes they blamed each other, sometimes they seemed to ask permission for this “abnormal” life.

Father and sons

Whether parents should sacrifice their personal lives for their children remains an open question. In the film, both parents sacrifice something, the father – a career for the sake of the family, the mother – the family for the sake of a career (you can also call it public service). As a result, everything ends badly, and no one is happy, neither children nor parents. What would change if it were the way we are used to: dad is a hero, mom is a housewife? Children are identified with their parents by gender, for example, a boy is identified with his father: “I will grow up and be a man, like dad, and I will behave like a man, that is, like dad.” In the family that is mentioned in the film, it is difficult for the boy to identify with his father, he rather does not want to become like that. And how – like mom? Such a decision is quite difficult to accept, although he is proud of her. In addition, it requires a thorough analysis, a distinction between the professional model of behavior and the sex-role proper, and then a new synthesis – this is a big internal work for which the teenager is not yet ready. He only vaguely feels that he does not want to be like dad, but he cannot be like mom. And he hangs in timelessness, not understanding who he is and how he should behave.

We are talking about the youngest son, but the eldest has the same problems, although less pronounced: he is a young father, but this role is uncomfortable for him, he tries to delay the return from his parental home to his wife and baby. In the end, his father drives him away – and one can also see a symbol in this: this middle-aged man devoted his whole life to his family. And yet, the best thing in this life, fatherhood, he could not teach his eldest son.

Read more:

• Do women work better than men?
• Men: career or fatherhood?

The price of sacrifice

Children without fathers, according to psychologists, grow up more anxious than those with strict fathers. The explanation is that the child, in addition to affection and forgiveness, needs guidelines and boundaries of what is possible and impossible. Otherwise, he is confused, mistaken, frightened. And single mothers sometimes go too far with guardianship and affection. And the child, instead of gratitude, feels contempt for her. I think that when the father behaves in the same way, the result is the same. Eternal gratitude is difficult to experience, and it too often resembles guilt, and the son or daughter tries to rid himself of this feeling by devaluing the efforts of his parents.

In the film, the father is ready to leave his beloved because the boy is dissatisfied with something. At the same time, he does not even try to figure out what, in fact, is the dissatisfaction, whether the son likes this particular woman, or the fact that the father can, in principle, have some kind of woman other than the mother, or that the father did not tell him about their new relationship, or something else. The father immediately begins to blame himself, declares that he “didn’t manage.” Maybe it’s not really because of the kids. Perhaps he unconsciously blames himself for the death of his wife and punishes himself, forbidding himself to be happy, and perceiving the attempt as a betrayal. But will the son become happier from the father’s readiness for unconditional sacrifice? Unlikely. Rather, he will get one more reason to despise his father: not only does he not occupy a prominent social position, he is not shown on TV and articles are not written about him (as about his mother), but even he himself considers himself and his feelings unimportant and is ready abandon them at any moment.

Silence of relatives

Psychologists so often state that it is important to discuss difficulties in the family that the phrase “Do you want to talk about it?” became a common joke. Still, talking to each other is really important. Note that in the family that we see in the film, there are a lot of closed topics. And this is not only the relationship of the father with a new lover after the death of his wife. Isabelle had a love relationship with a colleague that she hid from her family. The reasons are clear. But her husband does not ask her about anything. Doesn’t feel? Not interested? The question of her occupation was also not discussed. She promises her husband that “this will be the last time,” and then we see her break that promise again and again, and the husband puts up with it, again without question. The father and the eldest son hide from the younger that the mother committed suicide. All attempts by the father to talk to the younger son run into the silence of the latter, while the father watches over his son, and he, although he notices surveillance, does not show signs, instead playing a performance in front of his father. And the image of the mother is surrounded by an impenetrable halo of heroism. No one dares to criticize or complain about her. And, it seems, it was so at the time when she was alive. Luckily, the brothers talk to each other and seem to understand each other. And the article published in the newspaper about Isabelle breaks the silence around her death and, perhaps, will give family members a chance to think about her life, to look at her role and their roles in a new way.

The relationship between specific people (and the relationship of each of them with himself) seems to me more important for life than the performance of any role. In the family that we see in Louder Than Bombs, the difficulties arise not so much because the father and mother seem to have switched roles, but because each of them has not fully figured out himself and does not share with the other what is vital to him, holds in himself grievances and unsatisfied desires.

¹ Louder than bombs, Norway, France, Denmark, 2015. Directed by Joachim Trier, starring Isabelle Huppert and Gabriel Byrne.