June 13, 2006

About Distance between Fathers and Sons

Generally, I believe that fathers stay far too uninvolved during the time of pregnancy. Culturally, we have come to know the reasons for this based in emotional issues, perhaps jealousy, on the part of the father. However, we have paid little attention to the question if these emotional issues might not be the symptom rather than the cause of father distance.

Pregnancy is a heart-wrenching and soul-searching time for a becoming father. While the kind of soul-searching might change from the first experience of a pregnancy to the second and third, it remains a time of many mixed emotions and feelings of ambivalence. I believe that biological and cultural/social factors play together in creating this very potent mix of ambivalence. So far, we have believed that biologically a pregnancy for a man is precisely not an experience. Rather, it is a non-experience. Men don't get pregnant, they are not submitted to the constant roller-coaster of hormonal changes, changes in their body-weight, emotional stability, etc. They just coast, right? This cultural view of biological factors is largely guided by an empirical fault. We tend to believe what we see. We see pregnant women and we see their growing bellies. Founded on what we see, their talking about other changes "makes sense" (i.e., it meets the senses, is congruent with them). Expecting a child, i.e., pregnancy in a man, is invisible, the man looks the same--in some cases he looks way better and more "relaxed" than his partner--ergo, we assume he is unaffected. We ridicule men for talking about symptoms of pregnancy, because what they are talking about is un-seen. It is non-sensical (i.e., doesn't meet the senses).