Oh, father! Where art thou?
An excerpt from my first book published at The Good Men Project
"The American author and father Paul Theroux once said that the expression “Be a man!” strikes him as insulting and abusive. That it actually means: “Be stupid, be unfeeling, obedient and soldierly, and stop thinking. Manliness…is a hideous and crippling lie [and] is also by its very nature destructive – emotionally damaging and socially harmful.”
I agree with Theroux about this. Men have been given this unmistakable idea, for as long as they have been warriors and breadwinners, and have acted as if their very identity springs from a well of cold-heartedness. Men are clinical, dispassionate and ruthless – this is what you must be to live as a man, we are still being told, though sometimes this is subtly done. If you are not a bloodless kind of man then you are weak – powerless and impotent. You are in fact, not a man.
On top of this, men and women alike are being led to believe that it is in the public domain where the ‘real power’ is – in the battlefield, the office or the stock market. Some men though – particularly those with children – are at last waking up to this historical lie and are now coming to learn that the deepest personal satisfaction comes from close, enduring and loving relationships with our partners and children in the private realm, not with those temporary alliances that too often come and go in workplaces.
For a long time though, it has suited the powerful in society to keep men from becoming fully involved with their children (and also for men to see their ‘womenfolk’ as mere breeders, lesser than them, and not deserving of an equal relationship.)
If a man is brave and unconventional enough to have grown emotionally ‘attached’ to his family in an intimately loving way, he will be reluctant to leave them for lengthy periods of time. This means that he could not be an effective soldier, or in today’s world, a ‘committed’ businessman or worker, because his loyalties and his energies are divided.
A man with a rich vein of feelings for his loved ones is a man who will not ‘put his body on the line’ for his country or his corporation. This kind of man deserts his regiment or abandons his workplace if he suffers a long, drawn-out ache for the familiar, affectionate warmth of those in his home.
So, if historically men have not developed the strongest kind of love, what of the other emotions that also make a man human? Have men, and therefore fathers, truly known fear, joy, anger and sadness?
I’m certain many have done. I’m also equally certain that our society as a whole has not encouraged the male to do this because – with the significant exception of anger – our culture firmly discourages boys and men from openly showing their emotions in public. This restriction has in turn worked directly against the best possible ‘moral’ parenting because it has not allowed children all the benefits of receiving continuous care, concern and (particularly) affection from fathers who are free of social inhibitions.
Most of our fathers have belonged to generations of emotional pygmies. This has meant that boys and young males (especially) do not grow up being able to develop their temperaments without unappealing consequences from their peers and even their parents.
The male’s deepest feelings – their exploration and growth – have largely been a guarded, private affair for the average man, and for this reason they have been marked by confusion. This has created close to half of humanity with emotions that are stunted and hard-boiled. It gives us one of the major reasons why fathers are still losing their children. Even if they are living in the same house they are ‘together’ in a technical sense only.
Firstly, I ask you to think of how each emotion might ‘come out’ or be expressed when done so without reservations, restraint or self-censorship. Secondly, what automatically happens to the body when we experience each emotion? And thirdly, what are the effects that any liberated display of each emotion might have on those around them, including their superiors or ‘rulers,’ in the following situations:
A soldier openly displays his fear before a battle
A farmer (in a pub) openly displays his sadness over the death of a friend
An office-worker openly displays his extreme happiness when resigning from his job
A father openly displays his love of another male
A 20 year-old openly displays his anger towards a man in a nightclub
In the last scenario above, the man venting his anger (most commonly and instinctively done by swearing and hitting) will almost certainly have his actions approved of by other males around him. Some of them will in fact encourage him to attack.
Despite laws against assault, one man ‘taking on’ another in a brawl is generally regarded in mainstream society as acceptable. A significant amount of male violence is fuelled by alcohol, and this is seen as just a standard way of ‘letting off steam’ in many sections of male society. It is given varying degrees of female approval, but is certainly not universally condemned by women.
Male-on-male fighting continues with society’s implicit approval, which means for children that when their fathers are put under pressure they are apt to keep relying on physical aggression to sort-out their disputes – including those with their own flesh and blood. It also suggests that when men parent there is a definite possibility of violence close to the surface.
How often this turns into actual violence will depend on the individual and his response to allowing his anger to be triggered off. Some men will never hit their kids of course, even when strongly provoked. But practically all fathers (and plenty of mothers too) will feel like it at some point – this is certain.
The difference in the resulting action depends on a particular father’s attitude to using force when in conflict with another. Those who have the best chance of resisting the urge to lash out will have a strong ethic against uncontrolled anger.
The simple fact is though, that a large number of men at least unconsciously believe that ‘might is right’ and they will bring this attitude into their fathering. Why wouldn’t they when wider society turns a blind eye to male-against-male violence?
The significance of all this for fathers and their children – as well as for the women involved with them – also becomes apparent when we consider that males in general cannot express other emotions freely in public, at least without deep anxiety over the reactions of others to their open displays of what will probably be thought of as un-masculine behaviour.
Therefore, a display of anger is the only socially ‘safe’ way to release what is actually sadness and/or fear. Unreservedly showing love in public is something only available to the heterosexual male, and even then with obvious limitations. If a man even verbally asserts his non-sexual love for another man in most circles, even when drunk, he faces ridicule at best, and most likely a great deal more than just ridicule.
Additionally, since they cannot fully express happiness, because this can mean tears of joy, sobbing, hugging and other kinds of behaviour that are usually regarded as effeminate, males will tend to resort to playing what we could call “the happy game,” ie., pretending to be happy with something when in fact they are not.
While undoubtedly both genders do take up “the happy game,” I believe it is extremely important for men because it allows us to fool ourselves into accepting almost anything.
It means that a man can be convinced that his divorce is “for the best” or that his kids actually do like his new girlfriend…even if inwardly he strongly senses the opposite. This is male-pattern doublethink. “I am happy! because not appearing to be happy makes me look less of a man.“
Fathers with “the happy game” syndrome are prone to trumpeting about how they are ‘fine’ or ‘comfortable and relaxed’ about their teenager’s overall decision-making. In a parent-teacher discussion for example, they will usually dismiss any concerns expressed about their kids with a wave of the hand and a false smile.
Other men with the syndrome are the ones at parties with that fixed, smug look on their faces. They are often in their twenties and thirties as it can become harder (but still feasible) to sustain the act when we get older.
Some teenage boys though, seem to have an inborn ability to cruise the tranquil streets of “the happy game.” They may or may not have a dad who has largely lost them, but the knee-jerk habit of instinctively falling back on “the happy game” makes it possible for a purely ‘surface’ relationship to exist between father and child because it permits either, or both of them, to pretend that everything is okay between them.
Though it is unspoken, there is a weight of expectation on each and every male to ‘hold up his end of the bargain’ when it comes to performing ‘like a man’ in any situation.
Simply because a penis dangles between his legs, each and every man is expected to enforce this involuntary code of manliness, for himself and other men equally. And this code enters into all areas of his life, due to the fact that public expectations will regularly crossover into the private world.
In the same way we so often bring our work home with us, men bring the patterns of thought and the ‘collective standards’ from our (non-family) social groups back into the home.
Most adult men since the Industrial Revolution about one hundred and fifty years ago have spent the larger proportion of their waking hours at a job that is, in most senses, to be found in a public or semi-public place. They, and their emotions, are ‘on show’ to others, and so their emotional habits are chiefly formed in public. If a male has a degree of responsibility in his position then this is even more so the case.
It stands to reason then that the male psyche is mainly a public one. The thoughts that men judge to be important or unimportant, how they feel, how they let these feelings show, or how they suppress or distort their showing – all this has been in view of their workmates, who have of course mainly been men as well.
For men then, the ‘standard line’ (in both senses of the word ‘standard’) has been to swallow your truest feelings and “keep a stiff upper lip” – a cliché that has passed into common usage because it sums up very well the expectations that society has.
I have intentionally laboured this point about men and their emotions because its significance in child rearing cannot be over-emphasised. I have focused on these ideas because a deeper understanding and acceptance of why so many fathers are the way they are can help us all learn about ourselves as future or current parents, and even about our own fathers.
As poet Robert Bly realized when squarely facing up to his own upbringing:
“For the first time I began to think of my father in a different way. I began to think of him not as someone who had deprived me of love and attention or companionship, but as someone deprived by…his culture.”
I would add “or his father’s father” to this sentence for an explanation of the societal causes of ‘deprivation’ to be closer to complete.
So, men who live in a society where public displays of emotion are scrutinized genuinely live in a kind of prison. Men are confining their internal lives to forever remaining shackled in irons. It is as if fathers and their feelings have been exiled far away from their families. Short of being physically missing, fathers who are emotionally absent are absent in the worst possible way.
We are more than entitled to ask where they have been. "
[An edited excerpt from my first non-fiction book, The Remade Parent, 2013) — now out of print]
Also published online here: https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/man-war-cry-tragedy-grgs/ under the title: ““Be A Man!” The War Cry, The Tragedy.”