There When He Needs You CHAPTER ONE A Dad Is Not a Male Mother From Half-There Fathers and Peripheral Parents to Good Enough and Better I met Kevin on a cool autumn afternoon. His wife, Larissa, and his fourteen-year-old son, Jason, had arrived in my office at four o''clock. We were meeting to talk about what was going on with Jason. A ninth-grader, he had grown moody, stopped talking to his mom and his dad, and his grades had dropped. Jason looked uncomfortable in my office, trying to sit straight on the squishy black leather couch. Wearing a Borat T-shirt and bowling shoes--he liked the way they looked, he said--he rarely looked up when I talked to him. I made small talk with him about school, friends. Larissa, a prim woman in a pale pink sweater set, often answered for him.
Kevin arrived fifteen minutes late. He charged in, out of breath and still wearing a suit from work. "I''m sorry," he said. "There was a meeting at the office and it ran late and I had to excuse myself to get here and anyway, I''m here. I''m sorry." Larissa and Jason were unfazed by his explanation. A tax attorney at a large firm, Kevin was often late. It wasn''t uncommon for him to miss dinner.
If he did make it home, he was exhausted. Larissa also worked as an attorney but had a flexible schedule. She and Jason spent most family time alone. "We''re used to him not being around," she said. That comment put Kevin on the defensive. He lapsed into an explanation of how hard he worked to make sure his family had a good life--"the nice house, safe neighborhood, megavacations, saving for Jason''s college." He said he knew that Larissa wanted those things as much as he did. He was willing to make the sacrifice.
I suggested that it must be hard for him to relax and spend time with his family. Kevin sighed. "I try to go to as many of his basketball games as I can," he said, "but there''s only so much time in a day." Trying to go to basketball games, Larissa informed me, meant he''d gone to one all season. Of course, Kevin wanted to go and because of that he''d felt like he''d gone to many more. But the truth was he was torn between work and family. I felt similarly when my kids were young. I''d leave for the office in the morning and my son would hang on to my legs.
I''d rush home to read him a bedtime story and sometimes find him already asleep. I''d go to sleep with a knot in my stomach. I felt a tug--as if my love for my son was pitted against the power of my obligations. "Kevin''s a good man," Larissa chimed in. "I try to support him, but he''s not around enough. I wind up doing almost everything for Jason. I cover for his dad in a way, and try to be his mother and his father. And it''s not easy being a--" "--single parent," Kevin said.
His cheeks turned crimson. "That''s what she says sometimes--that she feels like a single parent." Jason tucked his hands under his thighs. He gazed down at his feet and said he was used to hearing his parents bicker over how little time his dad spent with him. I asked him how that makes him feel. "Can I listen to my iPod while you talk about this?" he asked me. His parents shot each other a look. Kevin told his son that he wished he could spend more time with him, that he feels as if he''s always apologizing.
He said he''d be there if he could, and that "I''m doing the best I can." MOVING AWAY FROM OLD STEREOTYPES ABOUT FATHERS Forty to fifty years ago, fathers were silent when it came to family matters. It was a mother''s job to wake the children, dress them for school, pack their lunches, and draw their baths. Mothers stroked their sons'' foreheads when they struck out in Little League, and instructed their boys to be like their fathers. A son''s job was to understand what it meant to be a father by observing his father from afar, by following him around the golf course or watching him flip steaks behind the grill. These "cavemen dads" would come home from work, plop themselves in front of the TV or behind a newspaper, and nurse a scotch or martini. These dads started to become obsolete as more women entered the workforce and as the divorce rate rose, making it necessary for fathers to become more engaged in everyday routines with their children. Cavemen dads generally didn''t learn good parenting skills, because their wives took care of the emotive, expressive, and intuitive aspect of caring for another family member, including their own sons.
Whenever boys had a problem, cavemen dads would tell them to "suck it up," "take it like a man," or "talk to your mom about it." Mothers allowed their boys to cry and express a range of emotions. Cavemen dads grunted or gesticulated their feelings. All in the Family''s Archie Bunker defined this prototype for a generation of men; Married with Children''s Al Bundy defined it for another. These men were generally considered beloved, harmless, and laughable. They worked hard, had their bigoted opinions, but were there for their families in the only way they knew how to be. Their wives and children often made excuses for them. Even today, many grown sons will protect their fathers'' cavemenlike behaviors.
"He was a good man," one forty-five-year-old man said of his dad, after he had spent thirty minutes listing all the ways his father hadn''t been there for him. Being a good man doesn''t mean you''re a good dad, I reminded him. Expectations of fathers have evolved over the last few hundred years. Dads in the 1600s were expected to educate their sons in trades, and emphasize respect and authority. In the next hundred years, fathers shed that persona and became their sons'' best friends and moral guides. In the 1800s, fathers returned to an authoritarian role, but at the turn of the twentieth century, "masculine domesticity" took hold, and--believe it or not--fathers and mothers ran households together. But in the mid-1900s, increasing consumerism led fathers away from the domestic role and returned him to a "provider" role. Even with the rise of the two-income family in recent decades, fathers remain the primary breadwinner.
Women today earn only seventy-five cents for every dollar earned by a man. Fathers who focus on "providing" tend to raise lonely sons. They offer birthday parties and baseball mitts, summer trips and fishing poles, but don''t always give time to their sons. I''m reminded of the father-and-son pair in the classic holiday film, A Christmas Story. Twelve-year-old Ralphie dreams of owning a BB gun. His mother, his teacher, and even Santa Claus, tell Ralphie, "You''ll shoot your eye out." Ralphie''s father surprises him with the gun on Christmas morning, but when Ralphie goes outside to try it out, his father doesn''t follow. He doesn''t give his son a lesson or watch him shoot.
Ralphie gets hurt shooting the gun and his mother comes running out to comfort him. His father''s job is done. Most sons of cavemen dads vowed never to be like their fathers. These boys fantasized about having fathers as sympathetic and responsive as Ward Cleaver, Andy Griffith, or Charles Ingalls. They aspired to be the ideal father: someone who was the man of the house, breadwinner, mentor, father figure, handyman, and role model. Their imaginations were fueled by the 1978 hit film Superman. They may have seen their fathers in Al Bundy but they saw themselves in Clark Kent. He was a role model who transformed their ideas about manhood.
Superman had a successful career as a reporter, a passionate love life. He could save the world--and he could do it all in one day. This generation of men came to a silent consensus: They weren''t going to be great dads. Just as women expected to have it all--career, love life, and family--and be supermoms, these men were going to be superdads--mythical perfect fathers. Alan felt he was losing touch with his twelve-year-old. Every time he got home from work, Alan would find his son in his room, door closed, playing Xbox or surfing the Web, music playing in the background. When he''d knock to say hello, he''d barely get David to say hi, much less turn to look at his father. So last February, Alan told his wife, Mary, that he wanted to take David on a ski trip.
Just the two of them. It would be the perfect bonding experience for father and son. David seemed indifferent when Alan raised the idea to him. Could he bring a friend? David asked. Of course not, Alan responded. The question hurt Alan but he pretended not to care. He told his son that this was their time together. David reluctantly agreed.
In the week leading up to the trip, Alan threw himself into planning and scheduling. He created a spreadsheet listing all the items and gear they had to pack, prepaid for lift tickets online, and surfed the ski resort website to study maps of the slopes. He called the lodge to make dinner reservations, making sure the restaurant served steaks, as he wanted to buy his son a thick juicy one after a long day of skiing. He fantasized about the types of conversations they''d have in the car--deep meaningful conversations about life, the kind Alan never had with his own dad. On the day they were to leave, Alan got home later than he had expected from work and was perturbed they were already off schedule. As he rushed to pack the car, he kept pestering David to get moving faster. After stopping by a gas station for snacks, they were ready to hit the highway by five-thirty with a five-hour drive ahead of them. As soon as they got moving, David turned on the car stereo and tuned out everything else.
Alan tried to start a conversation by talking about which slopes they''d ski--black expert or blue intermediate?--and wher.