Fathered Five

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When Girl 16 was barely two, we lived in the bottom half of a duplex. The couple living above us had a four-year-old boy, and he and our little girl sometimes played together. One sunny afternoon, I stood at the kitchen window, which was just about at eye level with the backyard where the two of them were playing.

I don’t remember what the boy was doing. Say it was riding a tricycle. My baby asked him if she could ride it and he said, “No! You’re just a girl!” I was instantly furious out of all proportion to the situation. Luckily the anger was short lived, and I didn’t storm out the door and up the stairs to throttle the little chauvinist. For a few seconds, though, I wanted to.

I’ve thought about it often since. What was that primal reaction all about? There was no time for reason until after I felt that rush of protectionism, so it must have had its roots in a more primitive part of my brain. Would I have had a similar reaction if my girl had been my boy? What would it take to generate a similar reaction today, with more experience under my belt?

A guest writer at Freaked Out Fathers has me thinking about this episode again. He describes a similar reaction of his own when he perceived his daughter to be threatened. Head on over and read the whole thing, but I’ll preview his conclusion here (emphasis mine):

To begin with, seeing my daughter’s response to my defending her, I resolved only to be closer and more involved in the lives of my daughters, and my wife. My job is not to control, dominate or direct them, but rather to provide a safe space where they can flourish. And sometimes a little fierceness is in order to protect that place.

Also, I resolved to be more involved in the lives of young men. Boys should grow into manhood full of confidence, dignity and integrity. They should feel at ease with the opposite sex, affording them the respect and deference they deserve.

Finally, I resolve to be more involved in the lives of fathers and husbands. Becoming a true man – strong and gentle, fierce and kind, protective and dangerous, wise and courageous – is a difficult journey, and I still have much territory to traverse. I need the fellowship of other men – older to teach of the path ahead, and younger to pass on what I have learned so far.

Without a doubt, Ken’s reaction was more justified than mine, as was his acting on his rage, even if he went a tad overboard. (On over reacting: I heard an author on the radio the other day talking about school bullying (listen here). She said, “I’ll take the loving parent who overreacts any day over the parent who dismisses [the problem].” I agree. So rage on, Ken, rage on!) I’m less concerned about men like Ken who are groping to find that fine balance between positive action and overreaction, fierceness and kindness, than about those men who simply do not engage. I see that tendency in myself. It’s easier to withdraw, but it’s rarely the right course of action.

There’s a health to rage. It is appropriate in some instances, and probably cliche to say that we as men and fathers need to learn to control it and balance it. What’s more difficult, at least for me, is to fight this tendency toward disengaging. Here’s an extreme example, taken from Meg Meeker’s book, Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters. Dr. Meeker treated a sixteen year old patient for depression, whom she calls “Leah.” Leah didn’t want to come to the office, but her mother made her. Leah wouldn’t talk about it, so her mother took over:

“You see, a couple of months ago Leah went to her friend’s house. He was her best friend…He asked her to help him with a paper he was writing. Dr. Meeker, they studied together all the time….She said that yes, she would help him, and they went to his house after school…Apparently they were sitting on the couch and out of the blue he pushed himself on her.

Leah’s mother stopped for a moment, Leah began sobbing.

Her mother continued. “I don’t know all that happened, you know, sexually. But whatever it was it really upset her.”

Leah cried even harder.

Over the next forty-five minutes, I learned from the tentative sixteen year old girl and her mother that Leah’s trusted friend had suddenly “turned on her” and forced her to participate in many sexual acts.

I said, “Leah, do you realize what this boy did to you was illegal? He should be in jail right now. What did your father do?”

She delivered her father’s response in a monotone voice. “My dad told me, ‘Boys will be boys,’ and then left to go golfing.”

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not as bad as this guy and if it happened to my girl, would have done something to the boy that would have landed me in jail. This absurdly disconnected father is certainly the exception, not the rule. But I’m disengaged in other, less dramatic ways.

My rambling point is this: we seem to be programmed by DNA and biochemistry to be protective and quick to anger. And also to disengage from our families because we can always find ground in which to plant our seed. So don’t stomp the rage down, guys. Learn to control it, sure, but that might be an easier lesson than learning to know when to get up and get in someone’s face on behalf of your loved ones.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, March 6th, 2008 at 6:10 pm and is filed under Daughters. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.