THE CHILD IS FATHER TO THE MAN
TGNCDBB
Special to the Halifax Daily News, June 20, 1998
by Charles W. Moore
Father's Day is customarily a time for sentimental reflection.
Dear old Dad! On this day it would commend us to also reflect
a bit on the dads of the future.
We live in the most male-unfriendly culture that has yet existed,
and the toll it's taking on young males is increasingly evident.
"Four boys are diagnosed as emotionally disturbed to every one
girl," says Dr. Michael Gurian, a psychotherapist and author of
_The Wonder of Boys_ (Tarcher, Putnam, 1996).
"If we go to teen deaths, there are two teen boys dying for
every one girl."
Adolescent boys are four times more likely than girls to commit
suicide.
Barb Wallis-Smith, a teacher-researcher and author of another
book about boys, tries to help mothers and teachers accept and
interpret inherent rowdiness in boys' play instead of trying to
supress it.
"Most classrooms have rules against play that involves guns or
shooting or bad guys," she says. "It's a backlash against the
violence in our culture, but I'm afraid we've made boys
pathological- what we used to see as normal. We're rejecting the
culture of masculinity and trying to redefine it, but we're
throwing out the boy with the bath water."
The problem worsens as more and more boys grow up fatherless.
These boys, especially when they're small, usually get only
fleeting glimpses of what men actually do.
Care-givers and teachers tend to be women. As he grows older,
the fatherless boy-child desperately attempts to tap into the
collective male identity, usually taking his cues from peers
and pop-cultural influences such as TV and movies.
Seventy percent of all institutionalized juvenile offenders
come from fatherless homes, and boys from broken families are
twice as likely to drop out of school, show a pattern of drug
and alcohol abuse, are more sexually promiscuous, less likely
to marry, and make less money than their parents did in
adulthood.
Until about 150 years ago, fathers were unquestioned child-
rearing authorities.
Most men worked at home or close to home, and participated
hands-on in their children's upbringing. Professional
educators of boys were also nearly always male, and the
social environment boys inhabited was predominantly
masculine. They developed into manhood surrounded by
masculine energy.
The Industrial Revolution destroyed normal family dynamics,
removing fathers from the home.
In our increasingly feminized culture, men receive the message
they're not really trusted in parenting, and their role in
family life beyond biological necessity and financial support
is largely disposable.
Mothers are assumed to be the primary parent by educators,
social agencies, the courts, and society at large.
Feminism amplified the problem by declaring war on the
traditional family, proposing the wretched substitute of
state day-care gulags, staffed by childless "professional"
women. An implicit (often explicit) subtext to this model,
is that children must be protected from masculine,
"patriarchal" belief systems.
The old traditionally male values of constancy, gravitas,
restraint, heroism, dignity, and honor are seen as belonging
to a past world," writes British feminist author Fay Weldon.
"Perhaps they do. Perhaps it is no bad thing."
It is a very bad thing. Male morale has been devastated, with
less bonding between fathers and sons in each succeeding
generation.
Carl Jung observed sons develop their image of absent or
emotionally distant fathers through the mother's often
aggrieved eyes, and learn to view their own masculinity
through the jaundiced lens of her hostility.
"We believe badness is in boys," says Wallis-Smith, noting
that when she made T-shirts reading, Boys Are Good, the
student teachers she trains objected.
Robert Bly observes when the young male is only permitted
to view his masculinity from a feminine perspective: "He
may be fascinated with it, but he will be afraid of it.
He may pity it and want to reform it, or he may be
suspicious of it and want to kill it. He may admire it,
but he will never feel at home with it."
The boy learns to feel shame about being male, and and
anger toward his aloof or absent father. This does not
augur well for his own future fatherhood.
Anyone who thinks you can develop fully formed men (and
functional fathers) without exposing them to bona-fide
maleness is deluded.
Boys who grow up in predominantly feminine environments
risk low self-esteem, excessive and unhealthy dependence
on females, and emotional immaturity.
As Bly puts it: "Women can change an embryo into a boy,
but only a man can change the boy into a man."
Only men can offer a sense of soul-union with other men.
Only men can understand and truly emphathize with the
particular fears, anger, sadness, and sometimes despair
that is part of being male.
Massive damage has been done to fatherhood and to maleness
in general by our post-modern social/cultural/economic
notions.
It can't be fixed overnight, but Father's Day seems like a
good place to make a start.
---------------------------------------------------------
Charles W. Moore is a Nova Scotia based freelance writer
and editor.
Bet the VD's would HATE reading this.
--
ValueDad
and editor.
Bet the VD's would HATE reading this.
Yep...and perhaps they will one day, LOL.