The concept of the ‘absent father’ or the one that holds ‘anyone can be a father’ is falling into disuse. This is by no means saying we have once and for all stamped out the standards of a structure that remains patriarchal; it’s just the obviousness that the old fiefdom of the big, strong, inscrutable and insensible macho represented by the father of times past is little by little falling apart.
Today, in fact, many girls, boys, teenagers and youths see the father figure as someone they can count on, talk to and even entrust with certain ‘hot’ confessions, something unthinkable a few decades ago.
This has been made possible by a number of noticeable social changes in a system that for years, centuries and millennia assigned people’s sexual roles… and although much remains to be gained, some qualitative progress is on the go.
ASSIGNMENTS
Being a father is, and always has been, a very difficult job, mainly because society fails to prepare males for such a task. As a rule, boys have been trained in such a way that they grow up to become supermen who provide to, protect and sustain their families, whereas they are emotionally out of sync with females when it comes to raising, feeding and looking after their children.
Playing with dolls is accepted as ‘playing to be a mom’, while a macho’s skills as a father-to-be are zeroed in developing a ‘firm hand’.
Consequently, males and females alike see their heads filled very soon in life with well-defined standards which more often than not keep men from enjoying a tender and affectionate intimacy with their offspring.
At the end, we find many fathers around us who are ambivalent: proud of having children but hardly influential on them, if at all; fathers who only come to the surface to give the harshest punishment, or, at the very best, some who live with their children but have no say whatsoever in the matter of raising them for the mother is fully in charge of the task, just because on one hand males want to be accepted as a model dad, and on the other, the existing culture only fosters a peripheral and detached paternity.
SHATTERING A PRECONCEPTION
Various studies on men’s roles reflect the emotional fallout of a ghost-like father, the one no child wishes to have. Sexología y Sociedad, a journal published by CENESEX (National Center for Sexual Education), underscores in its issue No. 4 of 1996 that “a peripheral, distant paternity deprives [men] of a significant share of the joy, pleasure and belonging that being with their children entails.”
Fortunately, we are breaking away from old beliefs. In many children’s painting competitions dedicated to the family, the little ones are no longer delivering the usual pictures portraying an aloof father who’s always reading a newspaper, smoking or watching TV. Now they are being replaced with images of their dads engaged in housework chores such as cleaning, hanging clothes to dry or helping them with their school assignments.
However, the traditional, differentiated sexual archetype typical of a sexist education still prevails in a set of stereotyped role models.
“That is why –the abovementioned source continues– when a father breaks away with the said stereotypes and takes on other activities, people start saying, ‘He’s like a mother to his children’.”
A NEW TYPE OF PARENTS
It is significant that a high number of boys and girls refer to their dads with the affection that springs from a free-flowing communication in no way detrimental to mutual respect. Dr. Manuel Calviño[1] once said that he was a father to his children, not a psychologist, perhaps to point out that his link to them goes beyond a professional influence and reaches a level of familial affection and empathy that overmatches any science and feeds from their day-to-day interaction.
This move toward more adequate ways of coexistence seems to foretell a good ending. Suffice it to hear what this teenager wrote about her father:
[…] My dad is great with my friends. He’s very good and nice to me, and he’s fun and playful too. My girlfriends say they wish they had a father like mine […] Sometimes he gets mad when I do something wrong. He’s unassuming, and furthermore he’s given me part of the education I have. He really cares about how I’m doing at school, and goes to all PTA meetings. His face is beautiful to a wishful eye […] He lets me have formal friends, that is, to have a boyfriend. According to his means, he gives me everything within his reach […] He also tells me that even if I’m underage I have to be protected when I go out. He says I must behave as best I can in other people’s homes; he’s not demanding about my grades, but gives it to me straight that if I want to do a good degree course I’m the one who must be aware of what I need to accomplish. My dad is the best father in the world.
Diasley
No doubt a different kind of father for a different kind of time.
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