Real Boys

by William Pollack

  “What would your dad say when he came in to see you?” I asked.

  “He wouldn’t say anything,” Jerome offered. “Without saying a word, he’d just slide up beside me on the bed and begin to gently rub my back. It was a firm, soothing sense like he knew I was hurting. Neither one of us had to say much . . . I’m not sure we could have, really. But I knew my dad was there for me, that he cared. But Dad is dead now—he died of cancer when I was fifteen. When I think of him, though, I always remember those back rubs. He didn’t have to say ‘I love you.’ . . . Somehow I just always knew it.”

  I was touched by Jerome’s story and told him I could understand why the back rubs were so memorable for him. He then began to tell me about his experiences as a soldier during the Vietnam War. Jerome was in the thick of the fighting, and the patrols would go out on overnight missions, digging foxholes, and lying in them two or three soldiers at a time, waiting to ambush the enemy. The waiting time was excruciating, the tension unbearable, and the men had to stay relatively silent so as not to attract enemy fire. Since Jerome and his buddies couldn’t talk—all they could do to support each other and relieve the pain was to give one another back rubs. This imbued Jerome with a sense of fraternal love and safety he hadn’t felt for years. Today, when his own boys have had a hard day, or gotten into an adolescent tiff about power and control, he’ll often wait until evening, knock softly on their door and ask if they’d like him to rub their backs. He says, “They’ve never said, ‘No.’ ”

  TAG-TEAM PARENTING: THE FATHER’S ROLE

  IN SUPPORTING THE MOTHER

  Fathers also strengthen their relationships with their sons indirectly by supporting the children’s relationships with their mothers. Indeed an important component of effective fathering is the ability to weave comfortably in and out of his son’s relationship with the mother. It is that important skill of knowing whether—if, for example, an argument is about to break out—one should quietly intercede, helping both mother and son, or whether one should give them space to work things out without their feeling crowded; it is also about recognizing the need—when father and son have just about had it with each other—to bow out gracefully and give mom a turn at finding a resolution (something a colleague once called “tag team” parenting after those wrestling matches which co-parenting a boy may often bring to mind).

  Mothers and fathers need to leave their gender-based fortresses and develop mutually acceptable arrangements to parent their sons. It’s just as essential that fathers spend some of their time supporting their wives and children by being physically and emotionally present as it is that their wives facilitate their husbands’ learning how to take care of a newborn and how to parent a young child. Men need to accept that wives can mentor them in nurturing skills. At the same time, wives need to recognize that male ways of parenting can be a valuable complement to mothering.

  As discussed in the the last chapter, mothers and women perform a central role in very young and teenage boys’ adaptation to masculinity. But one of the most essential ingredients in mother-son bonding is the father’s capacity to know when and how to intervene in his boy’s relationship with the mother. Ideally, a father’s involvement in rearing his adolescent son need not include imploring his son to “stand on his own two feet,” spurring him on to become an independent boy-man. Instead fathers need to strike a balance between supporting the boy’s growing sense of independence, his sense of the “I,” as well as the boy’s continuing need for connection with both parents—the “we” aspect that is also a natural and important part of his maturing masculine self. While the boy should be encouraged to explore the bounds of autonomy, he must also be made to feel welcome to return to dad as well as to mom for love, support, and affection—to maintain his relational ties.

  BARRIERS TO FATHERHOOD

  Beginning in early youth when the premature push away from mother creates both a crisis and an opportunity for father and son, many well-meaning dads—even though they’re eager to get involved in their young sons’ lives—discover they are ill equipped to supply the male mentoring that then becomes critical. The difficulty fathers have in embracing their young sons stems from a variety of factors, some internal (such as how confident a father feels about his abilities as a dad) and some external (such as how well mom deals with dad’s attempts at fatherhood). Some of these factors are easy to overcome, some less easy.

  WHEN DAD’S DAD WAS ABSENT—“FATHER HUNGER”

  First, many fathers find it difficult to become closely involved in parenting their sons because during their own upbringing they themselves lacked a father who sought this kind of closeness. “It’s a hard thing being a dad,” Steven, one of the fathers in my study, told me, “because so often our own fathers weren’t there in the way we wanted them to be, and there are so few role models.”

  Reporting on male sexuality, the sociological researcher Shere Hite found in her sample of more than seven thousand men that almost none of them could claim they were close to their fathers. Likewise, Jack Stern-back, a Massachusetts psychologist, recently found in an informal survey of seventy-one clients that almost one quarter had physically absent fathers, another 40 percent had fathers who were psychologically or emotionally absent, and 15 percent had fathers they found frightening or dangerous. Such statistics are even more staggering when we look at the African American population. Between 1970 and 1994 the percentage of black children living in single-parent families nearly doubled; and by 1994, 60 percent of black children lived in one-parent homes.

  Growing up without a father or with an ineffectual father inevitably leaves its mark. In recently conducted research, the majority of the men I studied consistently expressed that they wished “to be a better father” than their own fathers had been.

  What we may be hearing from fathers is an unrequited yearning that generations of men have experienced—what psychiatrist Jim Herzog has dubbed “father hunger.” But when men say that they wish to be better fathers to their own sons than their fathers had been to them, I believe they are not uttering mere rhetoric or trying to vicariously satisfy their own childhood hunger, but in fact expressing a genuine wish, a wish that is carried out, at times, against difficult odds.

  Father absence has been correctly linked to a host of ills for boys: diminished self-esteem, depression, delinquency, violence, crime, gang membership, academic failure, and difficulties with emotional commitments. But what this absence also does is provide boys with a warped model of parenting—one that teaches them that it’s acceptable not to have a father who “stays in the picture.” Boys who are raised with this model, not surprisingly, may find it difficult, when they become fathers, to feel confident about being a parent.

  For such men—for men whose fathers were not there for them—it’s important to take a few steps. First, these dads should spend time with other dads. This can happen informally by doing things with friends or with other families in the neighborhood or by joining a fathers’ group at a local school, church, synagogue, or social center. Just as many women go to discussion groups for support on work, parenting, and other issues, many fathers—especially new fathers or fathers whose own dads were either absent or “not there” for them—benefit enormously from sharing stories, ideas, and concerns with other fathers. In addition, dads should try their best to take cues from their wives. By observing how mom handles various situations with a boy and “translating” her approach into his own “dad version,” a father can often find the confidence and know-how necessary to deal with situations when it’s his turn to take the lead with his son. Not only does watching and modeling himself after mom’s approach help make dad feel less anxious, it also provides her with a healthy dose of his loving affirmation and brings mom and dad closer in the process.

  WHAT TO DO ABOUT THE GATEKEEPING MOTHER

  Yet as close as mother and father may become through mutual parenting, sometimes they can fall into patterns that draw them apart, and actually make it tougher
to feel good about themselves as parents. Some fathers may find it hard to stay closely involved in nurturing their sons if their wives engage in unconscious “gatekeeping.” As we discussed in the last chapter, gatekeeping is what happens when mothers, despite their very best intentions, unwittingly maintain so close a bond with their sons that there is simply little room left for the father to play a meaningful role—the emotional “gate” has been kept closed. It usually manifests itself in subtle ways, such as when the mother hands the baby to the father at an inopportune moment and says, “Oh, dear, don’t hold him like that,” or “That isn’t the way to rock him.” Often the father, who is already feeling inadequate, unconsciously colludes by hastily giving his son back to his wife and backing off. The father’s imagined or expected deficiencies lead him to feel shame and thus to shy away from subsequent connecting with his son. With men and women increasingly sharing one another’s traditional turf and often sharing financial responsibilities, it is understandable that some women may feel inclined, often unconsciously, to maintain some control over the historically female-managed realms of household and day-to-day parenting. This may entail significant strain and sacrifice, particularly for career-oriented women who are already juggling the burdens of work and home. But it can also have the completely unintended and unfortunate effect of making fathers—especially those whose own fathers had not been terribly nurturing—feel afraid, incompetent, or unwelcome.

  The principal way around this mother-father dynamic is threefold. First, it’s important for moms to try to separate those tasks that dads actually do need some coaching on from those that they know how to handle just fine. For instance, if a baby is being fed formula rather than being breast-fed, a father may need to be instructed before he mixes the formula for the first time. But if the father has already learned this task and does it well, he probably does not need to be instructed again the next time he offers to feed the baby. The second helpful step is for moms and dads to share everything they know or are learning about these various tasks. If the doors of communication are wide open and the “teaching” happens in a mutual, positive, consistent way, both father and mother can learn new approaches without feeling as though the other is being patronizing or overcritical. Thus instead of saying, “Honey, you’re going to kill him if you burp him that way,” the more competent parent might say in a more relaxed way, “Hey, honey, look at the neat way I figured out to burp him—it’s really easy and seems to work just great.” Finally, I think it’s a good idea for each parent to give the other private time with the child so that each can feel more confident about his or her parenting styles and abilities. Thus, when it’s time to feed the baby or to comfort him when he cries, sometimes it’s best if just one parent takes charge and is allowed to handle the task alone without the presence of the other. When a dad is given this kind of one-on-one “learn by doing it yourself time, the problem of gate-keeping often evaporates as both father and mother come to fully trust themselves and each other.

  ANOTHER BARRIER TO FULL FATHERHOOD:

  FLEEING INTO NEST-FEATHERING

  Just as some mothers engage in unintentional gatekeeping, many fathers engage in a parallel unconscious process—occurring around the time of the birth of the newborn and continuing into the child’s early years—that I refer to as “nest-feathering.” My research shows that new fathers often feel that the best way to be a parent is to be a competent “breadwinner”—to “feather the nest,” to work assiduously to earn greater income or career status, to create a comfortable home for his wife and son.

  But there can be a negative side to this approach. As one executive told me: “I think I actually run away to work sometimes. I know how to run a team and make a business plan, but diaper a baby or talk to my son about his feelings? His mother’s so good at it, I feel like an oaf.”

  While this kind of nest-feathering may in fact be a natural instinct on the part of fathers, it seems to run directly against what most mothers wish would happen—and certainly against what a boy would want. Mothers report that what upsets them most during this period of a boy’s early childhood is that fathers are emotionally absent. And, in my interviews with fathers, most of them lament the fact that they don’t get enough time to relate closely to their sons. It seems that many husbands sacrifice for their wives and their wives sacrifice for them in ways that do not reflect their true yearnings, in ways that seem terribly out of sync.

  The predicament of nest-feathering can be solved through two avenues. First, it’s important for father and mother to talk openly and regularly about their disappointments in each other. It’s too late when mother complains about dad’s emotional absence while in the car on the way to dropping off the boy for his freshman year of college. If mom and dad check in with each other on a consistent basis about how their co-parenting is going, speak honestly about how they should divide and share the responsibilities of parenthood and about how well (or poorly) things are working out, it’s far more difficult for father to engage exclusively in “nest-feathering,” since any resentments he may feel about how hard he may be working—or any resentment she may feel about his absence—will likely be brought to the fore. Second, it’s critical that both mother and father talk together to clarify their values about how hard they each want to work, what their career goals are, what their financial objectives may be, how important it is to each of them to spend quality time with their children, and so on. Many times it turns out that both parents, for instance, would happily forego the addition to the house or the new car if it meant they would each have more time to spend as a family. But if these value-clarifying discussions are not taking place, each parent may make separate, often self-defeating decisions, rather than coming to a new understanding based on their shared goals and aspirations. Dad may continue to work around the clock to pay for that new addition to the house. Mom may continue to watch the front door each night, wishing dad would come home earlier and just be with the family (rather than worry about making the extra money). Simply by talking openly about what really matters to them and coming up with approaches that fulfill what both of them want, mother and father can avoid the tragedy that can come from nest-feathering.

  THE MYTH OF THE MACHO FATHER

  In addition to succumbing to nest-feathering, some fathers resist getting closely involved in nurturing their sons because of the myths about boys that we’ve already discussed. Many fathers fear that if they don’t follow the old Boy Code by acting “tough” around their sons—and by pushing their boys as early as possible to act strong and independent—their sons will become outcast sissies rather than “real boys” destined for success in the mainstream. Closely tied to this fear are fathers’ own experiences of being a boy, a son. Research clearly shows that many men feel a “wound” when it comes to the memories of the fathering they received. These can be painful memories, and most men find that before they can work at becoming a “new kind of father” they first need to address these memories head-on.

  While some of this emotional work might be best done with the help of a qualified therapist or in the context of a father support group, fathers can often overcome the straitjacket of gender simply by consciously deciding to rebel against it. Consider, for example, the following story of Bill Sandburg, who, by looking honestly at his own internal “demons” and thinking creatively about how to conquer them, helped both his son and himself to escape society’s rigid ideas about boys and masculinity and, in the process, become closer as father and son.

  Bill had grown up in a family with an alcoholic father. When his father drank, he usually became quiet and reclusive, wanting little to do with Bill. On a couple of occasions—rarely, as far as Bill can remember—his dad actually lashed out at him, mostly just by yelling loudly and uncontrollably, apparently once or twice taking a swing at him with a canoe paddle. In discussions with me as a friend, Bill shared how he still harbors a distinct memory of when, as a sixteen-year-old, he asked his parents whether he might b
e able to take a pottery course at the local community center, rather than playing soccer, as he usually did each fall. His father, perhaps worried about how other people might respond, not only forbade Bill from taking the course, but one evening, after drinking, bombarded Bill with questions about why he was interested in pottery and whether Bill thought he might be homosexual. Bill defended himself by trying to ignore his father’s myth-based (and partially alcohol-induced) questions and by forgetting about pottery and sticking to soccer.

  But now as the proud father of fourteen-year-old Alex, Bill confessed how hard he was finding it to deal with his son’s newfound interest in painting and sculpting. Bill admitted that the memory he had about his father kept resurfacing and that he was now becoming worried, ironically, that perhaps Alex was headed for many shame-filled years as a possibly less than fully masculine adolescent. Bill also admitted that he felt bitterly envious of Alex, since his son seemed so happy and carefree doing just the kind of hands-on creative work that had once been forbidden to Bill. Because of his anger, Bill had been trying, painful though it was, to keep his distance from his son:

  “As much as I really want to be close to Alex, right now I just feel this incredible wall between us. I know he should be allowed to do whatever he wants, but I just want to scream at him whenever he brings home one of his sculptures or paintings. It seems like things are so easy for him and sometimes I hear my father’s words in my head and think—maybe if I don’t do something, Alex is going to turn out to be effeminate. I feel like such a hypocrite. I know I should love my son for whoever he is.”