http://www.menstuff.org/columns/chethik/04.html recently finished writing a book called Fatherloss, for which I had the opportunity to interview 70 men about how they dealt with the deaths of their fathers. In the course of those interviews, I also had the chance to ask about the fathers' lives. Specifically, as the father of a 7-year-old son myself, I wanted to know: What makes a good dad? How does a father's role change through the life-span? And what, if anything, can a father do to help prepare his son for the father's death?
Here's what I learned:
In childhood, boys need from their fathers something that can broadly be called "affection."
The men I interviewed didn't always use that term. Affection has the connotation of holding, cuddling, hugging, kissing, and other forms of physical contact. And indeed, when that occurred between a father and son, it seemed to have an unusually positive effect on the child.
For many of the sons I spoke with, their fondest memories of childhood were wrestling with their dads, being tossed into the air or carried piggy-back, or some other form of direct physical play.
One son told me: "On Saturday mornings, when my dad had been gone all week, I'd climb into my parents' bed. He had horrible breath in the morning. We played a game where he tried to breathe on me, and I hid." This son actually remembered this game with fondness! It's an indication of how much sons want to be close to their dads.
I wondered why wrestling, bad-breath games and other physical affection so warmly remembered by sons. I eventually came to see it this way: Physical contact between a father and son gives the son a close-up view of the beast he will one day become: a man. The boy experiences, in his body and bones, how a man moves, feels, smells. Just as importantly, when the father's touch is playful and loving, the son learns that men are strong, but that strength can be harnessed, restrained, and used in a safe way.
Of course, some fathers do not easily go to physical affection. Perhaps they were raised without such contact with their own fathers, and find it alien, even unmanly. Fortunately, I discovered in my conversations with sons that affection could be administered in a variety of ways. Ultimately, affection was less about physicality than about loving attention by a father toward his son.
Some fathers show affection by simply talking with, and listening to, their sons. Others showed it by playing chess, checkers, and other games with their sons. Still others played catch, coached little league teams, helped with confirmation or Bar Mitzvah preparations, took their sons to concerts, ball games and the like. The key was to focus attention, especially on activities that the son initiates.
When a son doesn't get affection, in any form, from his father, the resulting wound can be deep and lasting. Second only to the abuser in generating resentment among the sons I interviewed was the faraway father, the distant dad, the patriarch who was unavailable or uninvolved. Whether the father meant it or not, the message to the son was clear: You don’t matter.
One man's comment struck me a little close to home because I love to read. A man I spoke with told me this: "One of the memories I carry from childhood is Dad's bookshelf. My dad read a lot. He would come home from work, sit in his chair, and read for most of the evening. Maybe it was his escape.... Sometimes, I'd go to that wall of books, and try to figure out what was there that was more fascinating than me."
Now, I'm realistic. I don't expect myself, or any other parent, to always be attentive to our children. It's not possible, or even healthy. But it has been good for me to pay attention to how much I pay attention to my son, and to remember how good for him it is to have my active presence in his life.
If "affection" was the key word that arose when sons described what they needed in childhood, another single word captures the essence of what adolescent and young adult sons need from their dads: Blessing.
One man I interviewed, a business executive, said he received a traditional Mexican blessing - a bendicion - from his father when the son left Texas at age nineteen to look for work in California. The blessing, which his father gave to him in Spanish, affirmed that the son was ready for the journey ahead, and called upon God and humankind to look after him. It also softened the son's feelings toward a father who had often been harsh and uncompromising.
