On Reclaiming Father's Day
This is a problematic holiday. It’s problematic for people who don’t have fathers; it’s problematic for people who don’t get along with their fathers, it’s problematic in that it reinscribes the idea of the nuclear family and negates, say, mine. And when I say “problematic” what I mean is “really fucking depressing,” because if you’re in any of the above categories, the last thing you want is a zillion pictures of square-jawed, wholesome, usually-white guys in polo shirts being hugged by winsome little girls with a caption saying something along the lines of “you were always there for me.”
I don’t think it has to be like that, though. Because the thing is, we don’t all have “a man who sired us, raised us, and is still an important and loving part of our lives.” But what if we adjust the definition of father?
Attachment theory tells us that kids need two things from parents. One thing they need is a safe base; comfort, nurture, support. They need someone to reassure them, to help them feel all right again when they’re hurt, safe again when they’re scared.
But just safety isn’t enough for a kid. The world is enormous and dangerous, and kids won’t do well if they don’t know how to face it. They need their parents to push them out of the nest- to teach them how to face challenges. They need someone to encourage them to try new things, to take risks, to see how strong and accomplished they can be. A “securely attached” kid, according to attachment theory, is one who goes into a new environment curiously and boldly, because they know they can always run back to their safe base when they need to, and that gives them the confidence to explore.
Traditional gender roles say that your female parent takes the first role (except for the part about earning money to support that safe base), and your male parent takes the second one (see above). Some people have that experience, more or less; lots of us don’t. I think that reinscribing the idea that everyone has two (2) parents, one male and one female, each of whom does exactly one of those roles, is dumb.
But I do think there can be value to seeing both those roles as important and valuable. And while I could see the value of coming up with new words to really divorce the concepts from traditional gender roles, I also think that it's worthwhile to hold onto the history and connotations from calling the first one “mothering” and the second “fathering.”
The great advantage of that is that it lets us look at all the important figures in our lives, and see how very many fathers we’ve had. My mom fathered me by demonstrating how to stand up to authority figures, even from a young age. My step-dad fathered me by teaching me to drive a car, to fix a car, to treat cars as things I loved and didn’t fear- showing me his love for them as a source of mastery and tool for exploration, and encouraging that love in me. My grandmother fathered me by teaching me (even if only a little, it wasn’t really my aptitude) how to venture boldly and successfully into realms of fashion and social politics. My grandfather fathered me by encouraging me in swimming and climbing and tennis and all the other ways I could interact with the world around me.
And it goes on. Ann M. Martin, author of The Babysitter’s Club books, fathered me by being the first one to really show me how you run a business and earn a living. I’ve had dozens of supervisors and professors who fathered me by leading the way into my working life, by praising and encouraging my efforts there. My therapist fathered me by asking the questions that made me explore deeply into myself, even when it was scary and painful.
I want to value all those people on Father’s Day. I want to value everyone who showed me how much further I could go, how much stronger I could be, how much more about the world I could experience and explore and change. I want to value and honor everyone who made my world bigger.
And I also want to take the day to think about myself as a father. I do plenty of mothering- creating safe spaces for my clients, reassuring my supervisee, feeding and cleaning up after our cats. I enjoy that, find it worthwhile and important. But I wouldn’t be doing my whole job if that’s all I did. It’s important, also, that I challenge my clients. That I expect more of them than just to need comfort- I expect them to grow, change, do new things. I expect them, maybe in a few months, maybe in a few years, to not need me any more, and to go out on their own. I might teach them some of how to do it, but I certainly expect them to figure out their own way.
I mother people when I’m proud of them just for who they are, asking nothing from them save to be themselves. I father people when I’m proud of them for what they do, especially when they figure out how to do something I don’t know how to do and wouldn’t have thought of.
Both of those are valuable, important roles. Both of them are things that kids need- that we all need. Both of them are things we can all do- maybe some of us with more aptitude for one role than the other, but still. In my view, “fathering” doesn’t need to have anything to do with gender, with blood relation, with property rights. But it is something that we all need, and I’m glad to have a day to value the people- all the different kinds of people- who give it to us.
--R
I don’t think it has to be like that, though. Because the thing is, we don’t all have “a man who sired us, raised us, and is still an important and loving part of our lives.” But what if we adjust the definition of father?
Attachment theory tells us that kids need two things from parents. One thing they need is a safe base; comfort, nurture, support. They need someone to reassure them, to help them feel all right again when they’re hurt, safe again when they’re scared.
But just safety isn’t enough for a kid. The world is enormous and dangerous, and kids won’t do well if they don’t know how to face it. They need their parents to push them out of the nest- to teach them how to face challenges. They need someone to encourage them to try new things, to take risks, to see how strong and accomplished they can be. A “securely attached” kid, according to attachment theory, is one who goes into a new environment curiously and boldly, because they know they can always run back to their safe base when they need to, and that gives them the confidence to explore.
Traditional gender roles say that your female parent takes the first role (except for the part about earning money to support that safe base), and your male parent takes the second one (see above). Some people have that experience, more or less; lots of us don’t. I think that reinscribing the idea that everyone has two (2) parents, one male and one female, each of whom does exactly one of those roles, is dumb.
But I do think there can be value to seeing both those roles as important and valuable. And while I could see the value of coming up with new words to really divorce the concepts from traditional gender roles, I also think that it's worthwhile to hold onto the history and connotations from calling the first one “mothering” and the second “fathering.”
The great advantage of that is that it lets us look at all the important figures in our lives, and see how very many fathers we’ve had. My mom fathered me by demonstrating how to stand up to authority figures, even from a young age. My step-dad fathered me by teaching me to drive a car, to fix a car, to treat cars as things I loved and didn’t fear- showing me his love for them as a source of mastery and tool for exploration, and encouraging that love in me. My grandmother fathered me by teaching me (even if only a little, it wasn’t really my aptitude) how to venture boldly and successfully into realms of fashion and social politics. My grandfather fathered me by encouraging me in swimming and climbing and tennis and all the other ways I could interact with the world around me.
And it goes on. Ann M. Martin, author of The Babysitter’s Club books, fathered me by being the first one to really show me how you run a business and earn a living. I’ve had dozens of supervisors and professors who fathered me by leading the way into my working life, by praising and encouraging my efforts there. My therapist fathered me by asking the questions that made me explore deeply into myself, even when it was scary and painful.
I want to value all those people on Father’s Day. I want to value everyone who showed me how much further I could go, how much stronger I could be, how much more about the world I could experience and explore and change. I want to value and honor everyone who made my world bigger.
And I also want to take the day to think about myself as a father. I do plenty of mothering- creating safe spaces for my clients, reassuring my supervisee, feeding and cleaning up after our cats. I enjoy that, find it worthwhile and important. But I wouldn’t be doing my whole job if that’s all I did. It’s important, also, that I challenge my clients. That I expect more of them than just to need comfort- I expect them to grow, change, do new things. I expect them, maybe in a few months, maybe in a few years, to not need me any more, and to go out on their own. I might teach them some of how to do it, but I certainly expect them to figure out their own way.
I mother people when I’m proud of them just for who they are, asking nothing from them save to be themselves. I father people when I’m proud of them for what they do, especially when they figure out how to do something I don’t know how to do and wouldn’t have thought of.
Both of those are valuable, important roles. Both of them are things that kids need- that we all need. Both of them are things we can all do- maybe some of us with more aptitude for one role than the other, but still. In my view, “fathering” doesn’t need to have anything to do with gender, with blood relation, with property rights. But it is something that we all need, and I’m glad to have a day to value the people- all the different kinds of people- who give it to us.
--R