Down With Detachable Dads
By Brendon Smith
How many times have you heard that all our problems are due to solo mums and absent dads?
As Rex McCann said at Focus on Fathering Week, instead of bemoaning the ‘lack of fathering’ problem, we should be celebrating the fact that over the last few decades, many fathers have actually spent more time with their children than any previous generation.
Some fathers, married to working wives, manage to cope with young kids better or can work flexible hours, plus deal with a big share of home chores.
Solo dads, who may have their children almost all of the time, hardly ever ask for help from support services .
Certain fathers live with their families, but are too busy or tired, possibly not aware of the important role they could play.
This is an area where the barriers to improvements are more easily bridged. From before the industrialisation of families, and more recently in local and Maori history, parents and grandparents shared raising the mokopuna, or young children, carrying them on their backs as they carved or sowed their fields together, learning the ropes and probably thriving on touch.
Modern working dads may not appreciate the need for touch with their children in play or just simple hugs, as some are working living in a worlds where it is not the masculine thing to do. Fathers may prefer to engage young children in ways that will test them.
From a young age, having a, finger fight or staring contest may be fun and or climb on dad may be easy to engage the child.
Play wrestling may be a more masculine way to have regular physical contact than hugging or kissing, but children don’t mind, any sort of contact is needed and important to help develop a sense of belonging.
Some dads may not realise that affirmative hugs, just like words, possibly to children who are not theirs, can stay with a child for life, even from an adult who is not their parent.
On the other hand, missing an event such as while not making aa child’s birthday, no matter what the for any excuse, may take a long time for the child to forgive or forget!
Modern dads fathers may also use their work to escape ,or to dodge too much home time, maintaining the provider role, but that’s about all. Many maintain their adult friendships, as they value them, but if the time taken is from quality family time, or if the mates do not have children, absence soon amounts avoidance and missed opportunities.
A few sly dads may try to hide in their sheds or gardens, but most children will search them out or find such places without too much trouble, by around age two!
As Steve Biddulph explains in Manhood, isolation, lack of close long-term relationships and too much competition are the biggest issues for men and fathers.
Men are like tigers bought up in a zoo, he says, unable to run with their instincts or bond, share information or support each other.
Author John Lees, in his book At My Father’s Wedding, outlines four types of defective father. The Man Who Would Be King – possibly works hard but expects to be in charge of almost everything else, including discipline and who controls the TV remote.
The Critical Father – is too quick to point out the negatives, too seldom encouraging or giving his children confidence. The Passive Father accepts anything to keep the peace and ends up contributing nothing, while the Absent Father probably increases the existing alienation between dads himself and his children.
In New Zealand, according to Muriel Newman in 2000, every six weeks, more kiwi children lost a parent than through the whole of WWII. In , plus that in twelve out of thirteen of these cases the child will see less of their father.
Dads may feel pressured out of the parenting role by an over zealous protective mothers, but this is where fathers need to assert themselves. Considering all the documented resilience, happiness and confidence that regular dad time is said to give children, fathers should never, normally be stopped or allowed to abscond from having quality time with their children.
It is important that’s mainstream health providers who don’t forget about providing the fathers with the much needed support they deserve.
If they leave the father thinking, that he is not needed by the children, dads will feel compromised. Fathers should also always be afforded the right to counselling the impression that they’re not needed. Apparently Dads don’t need grief counselling after, for example, the loss of a child due to SIDS, let alone any consultation before, or even after an abortion.
In Wellington recently, a national Post Natal Support Centre has been established to coordinate information and services. Father and Child Trust were pleased to submit our experience, especially in Christchurch, working alongside the existing systems to provide some sort of support for affected dads.
As mentioned in our Dads and Babies seminars, a close father’s hormonal balance changes during a pregnancy like his partner’s, and stays ike this for a short time after birth.
The idea of fathers in birthing suites may have been questioned until recently, but the Australian produced DVD, “Hello Dads” DVD, a great effort, dare I say it, from Australia, insists that fathers should have the first hold.
Men mustn’t give in so easily when it comes to being involved in the care of their young. Take the opportunity to offer the mother some much needed time alone while at the same time, seize the chance to bond and connect with your children.
Grab them by the leg and drag them gently to the bath, go kick a ball, play wrestle with them on a rainy day, it all adds to everybody’s sense of family.
