June 16, 2006

Fathering that begins with the birth of our children rather than at their conception is a fathering that gets a rather late start. It becomes a reactive kind of fathering rather than a proactive one. We react to the cues we get from our partners (who really no longer act as partners, but as gate-keepers). They "teach" us how to put on diapers, what foods our babies like, how to calm them, how to best hold them, etc. It's a kind of fathering that can never, of its own power, become self-confident. Reactive fathers are complaining about never getting things with their children exactly right, about being criticized by their partners for how they do things. Reactive fathers might believe they have joined a child-care team. But really, what they've joined, is a primary/secondary care-giver relationship in which they become the recipients of orders and to-dos from the primary care-giver.

Many men seem comfortable with this way of handling it. It's a little like the initial resistance of women to becoming drives, voters, providers, etc.: it was just easier the old way. If women do the main job of child-care, men will certainly have to bother less with it (it will be easier for them). There is less responsibility, less chance of failure, and less expenditure of energy. A personal story might exemplify this:

When my oldest son, Noah, was a new-born, my wife and I were visiting her
family's long-time family physician. I was holding Noah and actually had
to change his diaper in the waiting room as their office was not equipped with a
changing table. As I was going about this task an older guy who was
waiting for his appointment approached me and said: " Just pretend you don't
know how to do it. That's how you get them. If they believe you
can't, they will never ask you again and you'll have a lot less to worry
about."

I was so stunned I could hardly say anything to this man. In retrospect I feel sorry for him, because if he did what he advised me to do, he caused himself to miss what I would consider one of the most intimate and direct connections a parent can have with his children.

What are some of the arguments that lead to fathers ending up with the role of the secondary care-giver?

--fathers have to work

they don't have enough time

fathering responsibilities would slow down their career

--fathers lack the instinctual basis to care for their children

they are not nurturing

they cannot read their babies cues

they will endanger their children

--fathers don't nurse

--fathers are not connected to their babies (because they weren't pregnant)

--fathers think of babies as cars, i.e., objects rather than human beings

--fathers compete with the babies for attention from their mother

--fathers are aggressive and likely to willfully hurt their children

--fathers, ultimately, don't want to spend time with their children

--a father's responsibility only really begins when the child begins to separate from his/her mother

My own perception of these preconceived notions of what fathers can and cannot do is that many of them are still latently present in how we approach parenting culturally, developmentally, and biologically. For example, fewer and fewer people are likely to openly assert that fathers don't want to spend time with their children. However, our employment laws still essentially assume that fathers don't want to spend such time with their children and therefore do not make it explicitly possible for men to go on pregnancy leaves, to take sick-days when the children are sick, to allow work at home days in order to be home with the children (say on a school holiday, etc.). Because these structures are often not implemented and, where they are implemented, not explicitly supported by most employers and companies throughout the US, fathers are less likely to take advantage of them.