Paul Nathanson on Fatherhood
July 2nd, 2009 by Robert Franklin, Esq.This fine piece is by Paul Nathanson, co-author with Katherine Young of the pioneering works Spreading Misandry and Legalizing Misandry (Ottawa Citizen, 6/23/09). On the occasion of Father's Day, he writes about his own father, the unique role fathers play in children's lives and the barriers western societies have placed between fathers and children.
Nathanson says that in childhood, he preferred his mother who gave him unconditional love, to his father who made demands, and whose love at times seemed contingent on his meeting them. But that very form of paternal love had its effects on Nathanson in later life, as he describes.
But it was Dad who first taught me to be independent -- that is, as I eventually understood, to think for myself but within a larger moral context. He taught me to become more fully human, in other words, not to embrace either conformity or "autonomy" (an overused and misused word these days).
Still later, as a fully mature man, Nathanson experienced a kind of rite of passage that only his father could have provided. It's the type of event that tribal cultures are wise enough to ritualize but that western societies leave to inadvertence.
One day, in the middle of some argument, he suddenly turned to me and said, "Paul, you're a learned man." Okay, I was much too old by then for those words to give me a sense of self-confidence. But we both realized immediately that this was a moment of profound fulfillment; a father had symbolically conferred manhood on his son.
Nathanson contrasts motherhood and fatherhood. In the process, he gives support to the by-now-well-known social science finding that mothers and fathers parent differently and the different styles complement each other in the child's maturation and personality development.
Fathers, unlike mothers, must require their children to earn love -- respect, which is a form of love -- in order to leave home mature enough to give and receive it as adults. And fathers, unlike mothers, cannot measure their effectiveness adequately in terms of immediate emotional gratification.
And,
In short, fathering is inherently more complicated, more ambiguous, and more perilous (though not, of course, more important) than mothering. It requires a massive cultural effort to promote fathering and not merely to bribe or threaten fathers into providing material resources.
Of course, it is that very "massive cultural effort to promote fathering" that so many individuals and organizations are trying so hard to accomplish in the face of much push-back from anti-father forces and a largely indifferent press and political establishment. One result is,
Boys now learn directly or indirectly, that there will be no room for them as men in family life and that they will therefore have no moral stake as men in the future of society. If that isn't an ominous sign, what is?
That's a good question. The separation of children from their fathers is arguably the single worst development in our society over the past 40 years or so. Its dislocations run widely and deeply. They touch every part of society and culture. We know the benefits of father-involvement and the detriments of father absence, and yet we plunge ahead as if we don't or it doesn't matter. We're like sleepwalkers in traffic.
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July 2nd, 2009 at 2:39 pm
I recently saw the movie titled "Taken Away." Although, the biological father is portraid in a good light and saves his daughter from these European kidnappers. You can see who the "male" is delegated to the side line in the daughter's life. How the "mother" is the true owner of the child and the father is easily replaceable by another one, the "step father."
I was vivid how women own the family and the movie kind of shows that... Where the "mother" goes to the kids go and the fathers are just hired help easily replaced or discarded at will..
We truly live in a society where women are above men.
July 2nd, 2009 at 3:22 pm
NE
I saw that movie too, and while I watched it I was very sensitive to what I was seeing as accurate, but the part that made me sick was the attitude of the mother, always looking down at him and the rolling of her eyesr, when the father was only genuinely concerned about his daughters well being, while the mother appeared to be unaware of putting her daughter in a dangerous situation at a too young of age.
July 2nd, 2009 at 3:27 pm
I agree with that too Sad Dad.
In a "general sense" I came away with the feeling that the father was "replaceable" by another one the "step father." So, "fathers" aren't all that important. The REAL family was the mother and HER kids... So, when the mother leaves the kids go with her... The father is just thrown away, un-needed and easily replaceable.
I felt like the mother was the owner... the father was just hired help.
That is the system we live in now... Where the women get the kids and the fathers get the streets...
July 2nd, 2009 at 4:14 pm
My sister and I were talking about this subject just a few nights ago. As we got older, the big comment we or one of our friends would make after we crashed the car or got caught doing something we shouldn't be doing was always "What are you going to tell your Dad?" We were always more scared of our Fathers arriving than the police! I believe growing up without that authority figure 24/7 in your house gives you a sense that you can get away with more. Just look at the rampant crime in most inner cities, and you'll see what I mean.
I have a few friends who came from divorced families, and they never had that "Wait 'til Dad gets home" feeling. One of my buddies actually became the 'Father Figure' in his house, even bailing his sister out of jail - the night before he took the SATs!
I never fully realized how important my Dad's respect was to me until I moved back to the city I grew up in after college. My Dad & I were going to the computer store and I got a flat. I pulled into a service station, and seeing a pizzeria across the street, I offered to buy my Dad lunch while we waited for the tire. After we sat down, out of the blue, he told me he was proud of the man I became. That was a conversation you can only have with 'The Old Man'. I love him and miss him to this day. R.I.P, Dad!
July 2nd, 2009 at 4:26 pm
"Boys now learn directly or indirectly, that there will be no room for them as men in family life and that they will therefore have no moral stake as men in the future of society. If that isn't an ominous sign, what is?"
I have a question -- my primary interest in men's rights is false rape claims so I profess no expertise in this area: when he talks about an "ominous sign," when was it ever different? We formerly had the "tender years doctrine" which was a statutory articulation of the worldview that children of a certain age not only are better off, but they MUST be with the mother. As I understand it, it's the prevalence of divorce that has made it a problem, right? So in terms of allowing fathers to actually BE fathers -- to actually BE full parents after divorce, aren't we bucking a mindset that has been in place since long before the feminist revolution? Shouldn't we be trying to figure a way to minimize divorce, aside from throwing up our hands and saying we have no control over women?
July 2nd, 2009 at 4:37 pm
I read somewhere that "a mother gives a child what it wants, a father gives the child what it needs." In general, both approaches are necessary for proper development of the child.
July 2nd, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Not according to femist out there! To them they don't need or want men, to them they want us all dead!!!
July 2nd, 2009 at 6:50 pm
This is all great.
Meanwhile the 10 dollars I have in my savings account has been levied and I have to pay a 25 dollar levy fee to the bank... AGAIN! I need this bank account so I can cash my checks which are being garnished for child support. But I can't keep getting nickled and dimed by the abusive child support services every 2 months. I live paycheck to paycheck and support my sick mother so 25 bucks is a lot of money to me. My DL license gets suspended frequently whenever I get a job, lose a job or they make a mistake that ends up costing me more in fees and fines. It also makes it harder for me to get my child for visitation and keep a job as well.
We need Glenn Sacks (Bless his soul) to get one of his call and write the media campaigns to focus on calling and writing to our Government. The media does not care because it is controlled by the feminists.
You can start by writing to your States senators. I do it and they don't even bother to get back to me on my issues. I think they delete my emails. They can't delete all of our emails.
Start out right here.
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
July 2nd, 2009 at 7:38 pm
Sad Dad, you are wrong. They don't want us dead. Dead men pay no alimony.
July 3rd, 2009 at 8:29 am
# thePaycheck Says:
July 2nd, 2009 at 7:38 pm
Sad Dad, you are wrong. They don't want us dead. Dead men pay no alimony.
I believe most women know what is going on. Many are not "actively" involved in any of it, but they don't do anything to stop it. I believe many think since women had been oppressed for 2000 years men don't have anything to be complaining about now. Or a "now men know what it is like, mentality." They are always quick to bring up they were not able to vote.
July 3rd, 2009 at 11:32 pm
"Shouldn't we be trying to figure a way to minimize divorce, aside from throwing up our hands and saying we have no control over women?"
Pierce --
Yes.
The issue is, as Welmer has well noted, that it appears that children benefit most from mothering from 1-7, from mothering and fathering from 7-14 and from fathering from 14-21.
Divorce messes this up by removing fathers either in stage 1 (when they are at a parenting disadvantage) or stage 2. Many divorced dads never get to stage 3, other than every other weekend, which is the 21st century's joke definition of fatherhood. The irony of divorce, then, is that it removes fathers before the most meaningful time for fathering happens. All because women want unfettered freedom.