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Best Things Fathers Do

Ideas and Advice from Real World Dads

by Will Glennon (more about this book and author)

Chapter 3: Focus on the Big Issues
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For quite some time now, any serious discussion of gender has been studiously avoided simply because it feels like a minefield that elicits heated emotional responses rather than curious and probing exploration. Yes, we have had the surface-skating, back-patting, let’s-laugh-at-ourselves self-help books like Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, but when the president of Harvard University can be fired just for asking the question whether gender may have something to do with the huge academic-achievement gap between women and men in science and math, you know that any real exploration of the issue is fraught with danger. Unfortunately, the greater danger now is not talking about the issue.

 

Talk about a new model of masculinity

It is no secret that the last fifty years have witnessed a veritable revolution in how we see and what we expect from men and
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women. Until now, most of that change has been initiated by, and largely about, women. Someday, we will look back on this time as an astonishingly rapid refashioning of the definition of what a woman is. And while it is certainly not a completed process, compared to the confusion surrounding male identity, it paints a strikingly clear picture.

The same cannot be said of what it means to be a man, which is very much something that has yet to emerge. We can provide for and protect our children, and support them in their efforts to grow happy and healthy; we encourage them to follow their dreams, hone their emotional intelligence, and live connected to their hearts. But, at the same time, we need to give them at least some idea of what it means to be a man.

It’s a mark of how blinded we are as a culture that one of the core questions with which our children have to struggle is not even an acceptable topic of conversation. What is clear is that our definition of a good man is in a tumultuous and confusing transition. The old models, from knights in shining armor to John Wayne, still hold some attraction, but are clearly one-dimensional and inadequate. The new models that appear out of the “Sensitive New Age Guy” sitcom portrayal of fumbling manhood offer half-baked alternatives riddled with their own inadequacies.

As fathers, we are smack in the middle of this extraordinary transformation, even if we are not always sure exactly where it is heading. So our first obligation is to be as clear as we can with our children about the changing nature of masculinity itself, and that includes the humility to admit we don’t know all the answers. Ultimately, a new definition of manhood will emerge from the minds and hearts of our children and grandchildren
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as they grow and develop. The largest responsibility for the creation of a new definition of manhood is theirs to discover, to experience, to experiment with, and to refine. What we can do is provide them with the context to understand this awkward time and open the discussion. We can support them in their efforts, and create a strong support system around them that reinforces the benefits of emotional expression and deep interpersonal connection.

So how do we help our children make sense of this? How can they possibly know what direction they need to go? By talking about it. By shining the bright light of reason, or at least the warm light of compassion, on this murky and frightening issue. We may not have the answers yet; we may not be able to articulate exactly how a man should be strong without being violent or angry, sensitive and compassionate without losing self-focus and determination, generous without giving himself away. We may not have a clear picture of how we want the pieces to fit together, but if there is a better topic of ongoing conversation, I can’t think of it.

Let your children know that they are an important part of an extraordinary process of redefining what it is to be a man and regularly invite their active participation in exploring what that definition should be.

 

Get them comfortable with change

Edmund Burke gave us a great quote that you have undoubtedly heard many times: “Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.” Perhaps we need to add that, to live consciously in
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this rapidly changing world, it is also true that those who do not understand where they are in the context of change have little chance of responding appropriately.

We all know that things seem to be changing a lot faster than ever before, but we need to face a deeper truth that our children’s lives will, to some degree, be measured by how well they can adapt to change. While this may seem obvious, it is worth taking time to focus on, because, in fact, this is a radical departure from the way humans have lived since they emerged from the African savannah. We used to learn all the information and skills we needed at our parents’ knees and then pass it along to our children. This cycle has been going on for generations. Things just did not change all that much from one generation to the next.

In today’s world, however, everything is changing—technology, climate, work and living environments, and, much more significantly, social relationships, including gender roles. By focusing on helping our children understand the changes that are taking place in our gender roles, we can perhaps also give them the observational and intellectual tools to understand more clearly their place within the other changes taking place all around them.

We are, after all, a product of our history, and that is truer in how we perceive our roles as men and women than we may care to admit. Gender roles have been handed down from generation to generation. Often, these roles were rooted in very practical and useful historical divisions of labor and only became constricting later, when the circumstances that gave rise to them changed, but the role separations continued.

One of the most enjoyable ways to explore this history and unravel what made sense then that no longer makes sense now
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is to go back in time with your children and explore the world of gender roles. Expose them to stories of other cultures in which things were divided up differently. Give your children the gift of perspective and the challenge of imagination. Use history to open their minds to what the present is and what the future should be. Through history books, historical fiction, historical movies, and active imagination, try to capture with your sons what life must have been like in prehistoric times, when people lived in small tribes, at the dawn of agriculture, during the rise of the first great civilizations on Earth. Talk about life expectancies, the dangers and challenges of each period, and wonder with your children about why men and women assumed different roles at different times. Have your children imagine what they would have felt like living at different times, what they would have dreamed of doing. Then bring them closer and closer to our time and examine how the roles have changed; imagine what the future may hold and what changes they think should happen.

Be explicit about social expectations

If we are going to help our children create their own future, we first have to help them identify the culturally embedded expectations that litter the landscape of a growing child’s life. The best way to deal with things that hide in the shadows is to drag them out into the light and pick them apart until we understand the how and why of their existence. Be strong, get good grades, go to a good university, graduate in the top of your class, get a good job, get married, have kids. How often is this mantra, or a
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variation on it, repeated in a child’s life, and yet how often do we stop to ask why? When we fail to address this crucial question, we leave our advice out there as an end in itself, as if it itself were the path to salvation.

Remember how much we used to hate it when someone answered our question “Why?” with the words “because I said so!”

And what about the implicit expectations children pick up watching television and from their peers? Girls are supposed to be skinny, cute, and not terribly aggressive; boys are supposed to be—what? OK, maybe we really don’t know what boys are supposed to be, but you know there will be pressures out there to which your children are responding.

Expectations, whether socially induced or our own personal expectations (as in “When you grow up, you can be a lawyer like your dad”), certainly allow for possible paths, but they can weigh very heavily on a child’s shoulders. How many people do you know who did what was expected of them and are now stuck in miserable situations? If we are to prepare our children to follow their own unique paths, we first need to dismantle all the blocks that have caused them to believe that they should live by what others expect of them.

Ask your children what they think is expected of them in life. Then articulate your own expectations, but make sure to give them reasons, not just a laundry list. That way, you give them the tools they need to find their own paths and not just your idea of what that path should be.
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Help them find their passion

Our job in life is to find the thing about which we are passionate and bring it into the center of our lives. That is difficult enough under the best of circumstances, but can be near impossible when the very resources we need to discover—and tap—our passions are systematically denied to us. As parents, we all want our children to lead happy, fulfilling lives. Yes, we want them to be successful and comfortable, but not at the expense of their happiness. Yet that goal can never be reached unless and until they discover the deepest parts of themselves, where their passion and purpose reside. As parents, we can help, both by encouraging and supporting them in their exploration of their emotional and spiritual selves, and by paying close attention to the things that excite them.

Children often move through phases of interest, trying out one thing or another and then suddenly losing interest. Don’t let this pattern lull you into complacency. Get engaged in each and every interest they develop. Help them explore it, support their interest, encourage their experimentation, kindle their enthusiasm. But be careful not to appropriate it yourself or assume that a child who loves photography today is going to be a photographer. That kind of pressure can cause kids to withdraw altogether. Ask your children today what most excites them, and engage in a conversation about it.

Study after study has found that the single most important characteristic of people who feel happy and fulfilled in their lives is that they are engaged in doing something about which they are passionate. Conversely, one of the hallmarks of seriously depressed people is a lack of strong interest in anything. Ironically, the incredible technological changes of the past fifty years may
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well be making it more difficult for children to experience that kind of deep engagement. Not only has the variety of “things” we can do expanded astronomically, tempting us to dabble in everything and never become really absorbed in one thing, but the culture itself has veered radically toward prepackaged entertainment; growing up is becoming more and more a spectator sport.

Help your child discover what captures their interest: a new hobby, pursuing a special interest, starting a collection, practicing to become the softball queen. What the hobby or collection is isn’t that important; it’s the thrill of diving into something new that is all theirs. They can revel in the delight of learning all about it, practicing it, and mastering it—crucial steps that everyone needs to learn in order to succeed in life. In collecting coins, earrings, bugs, dolls, anything really, a child gets a lot of gratification hunting for things, sorting and studying, storing, and owning them. They have the satisfaction of realizing they have an interest that is all their own, not one that they have to share with anybody. They learn important lessons of autonomy and self-determination, proving that they are developing uniquely.

And don’t get disappointed when the stamp collection goes in the closet never to come out again. It’s common for children to have major mood swings, change their minds frequently, have revolving interests, and new friends. That is just part of tasting life and trying out different ideas, attitudes, and roles. The frenetic energy that many children have in preadolescence and the teen years is all a very healthy part of finding their place in the world and forging an identity, even if it can drive adults to utter frustration. Just remember, we’re the ones having trouble dealing with all this quick-change artistry. For them, it’s a
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fun and exciting time (with a lot of angst thrown in to boot). So try to relax, open yourself to and involve yourself in your child’s whirlwind of a world, and you’ll both be better off.

Help them sort through their ideas and experiences by actively listening and by remaining scrupulously nonjudgmental. Support their enthusiasm for new interests; engage them in lively conversations that help them think through their ideas.

 

Build rituals of connection

In “the old days,” family, clan, tribal, or village rituals were a central part of growing up. Indeed, it was through these traditions that children became meaningfully rooted as a part of the group and learned their place within it. They were a way to teach the importance of continuity and connection, to initiate children into the deeper fabric of life, and to provide a strong experience of identity. In modern culture, the world of ritual has been stripped down to a handful of national or religious holidays whose meaning has all too often been diluted by commercialization. And now, with the intrusion of technology into our fast-paced world, even getting together regularly for dinner is challenging.

Frequently, parents of young children are in the most hectic phase of their own lives. Preoccupied with nurturing their marriage, keeping in touch with friends, taking care of all the material issues of house and home and family, and investing time building a career identity, it’s easy to let the kids head off on their own, and even to be relieved when they do.

One way to counteract this is to reestablish the good old-fashioned tradition of eating together. It’s amazing how many of
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us have almost completely given up on family dinners. Despite the obstacles (differing schedules and taste buds), it is, however, still well worth the effort, even if you have to compromise on the number of family dinner nights per week. Remember, you don’t want this to be punishment; it should be a collective opportunity to reconnect in a judgment-free environment.

If you don’t already, plan for at least one family meal a week, attendance mandatory. Expand the opportunity for connection by rotating cooking and cooking-assistant positions throughout the family. Then, when you sit down, focus on the positive; don’t use this precious time to complain, criticize, or hand out advice.

We also need to create as many regular opportunities to get away from the normal flow of day-to-day life and move instead into sacred time together, time where the purpose is to honor and celebrate the deeper connection between us. Create your own traditions, and don’t let anything get in their way.

Make the traditions you observe meaningful by seeing holidays as more than excuses to buy presents or go to the amusement park. Reinject them with the meaning they are supposed to carry. Invent new traditions, and not always traditions that include everyone. Make them special traditions between you and one of your children, be it a regular breakfast, a monthly walk in the woods, semiannual wilderness camping trips, an evening out together each month—whatever feels right for you and your child. Stick with the tradition and imbue it with that special quality of time set apart.
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Articulate your values

If we want our children to live lives full of purpose and meaning, the very best thing we can do is to live our own lives as an example. In our fast-paced, harried world, the temptation is always there to cut corners, to get to the point, to get to the result, to cross things off our lists as quickly as possible and move on to the next task. In the process, we become sleepwalkers, moving through our lives without life moving through us.

What is our purpose? What values guide us through the course of our own lives? The more we examine these things for ourselves, and the more we discuss them with our children, the more we offer them a worthwhile model for living. If we want more for our children than a life on the corporate treadmill, we need to articulate and demonstrate how to navigate using our own personal values.

The truth is, at some level, we are all living our values; we just haven’t examined them. But our choices reveal what’s important to us: earning a six-figure salary; having a beautiful home; making a difference; creating a close family. We each have some core value.

We spend incredible amounts of time and energy preparing our children to be successful and accomplished. We send them to the best schools, help them with their homework, worry with them over emotional issues. But far too often, we neglect the very foundation of their lives—their spiritual selves. Life is so much more than successfully handling the material and emotional issues that arise. Life has meaning and purpose; each of us exists uniquely within the greater web of life to find and walk our own path in connection with and support of the greater whole.
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To prepare our children for this role, we need to share with them our own deepest feelings and beliefs. We need to open the doors to this extraordinary world of depth and beauty so that they can begin to get their bearings, to see their part in the grand design, and to take comfort in the connection to something so much greater than their individual lives.

Take some time to think about your values and talk about them with your family.

 

Teach independence and respect

Independence is traditionally a big issue for boys (Be your own man; don’t be tied to any apron strings; keep your own counsel; and don’t let anyone in too close or you may lose your independence). This is increasingly true for girls as well. The theme has deep roots in this country, and it has tragic consequences. For the kind of “independence” into which boys are usually pushed is not independence at all, but isolation and disconnection. Ultimately, it leads to a life that is nothing but a shallow illusion.

Although this model is celebrated in a constant stream of the “strong-silent-type” heroes of movies and stories, it is in fact the most pathetic place any human being could ever find himself—cut off from any real meaning, disconnected from any real feeling, apart from any true community. These people can become so independent that, for all practical purposes, they don’t exist in the stream of life other than as self-focused actors.

Real independence means having the strength, understanding, and wisdom to live your life deeply, fully, and with integrity, regardless of what others think. It means having the courage to
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expose yourself to risk, to navigate the deep waters of life that can only be experienced in connection to others. It means to live continually and fearlessly from your heart, from where you can experience the incredible richness of life. It means recognizing, celebrating, and holding on to your uniqueness, while at the same time sharing it as completely and constantly as possible with others.

Celebrate Independence Day by reminding your children that real independence is not about isolation and control. It is about living life with as much honesty, integrity, and depth as you possibly can.

When we think of respect, we usually associate it with people of great accomplishment, but that is not respect. We may admire what they have accomplished and believe that they handle themselves well, but real respect goes much deeper and should be dispensed universally. Life is infinitely complex, and every one of us has had to walk our own path. At any point in that journey, we may falter, we may make mistakes large and small, we may seem unkind or unappreciative, but how and why we have reached that point is our own problem. We each pay the price for our own mistakes.

Real respect encompasses the deep compassion we should hold for every person, regardless of their circumstances. It is an important lesson to pass on to our children, because, in the competitive world, it is far too easy to fall into angry, judgmental behavior and to treat other people disrespectfully. Help your children understand that those who may “disrespect” them are worthy of their compassion too, for they are so insecure that they can’t do anything else.
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Talk about sex

We all know we’re supposed to talk about sex with our children. But just in case you need it, there is another important reason to talk to your children about sex that is not usually discussed: it helps them understand that strong feelings are not supposed to be hidden in a closet somewhere.

Sex is powerful and, of course, that is one of the reasons we feel so awkward talking about it. But get over it. When children go through puberty, sexual desire, particularly in our highly sexualized culture, can rise to surging peaks that feel, at times, almost overwhelming. The important word here is “feel.” It is a distinctly physical sensation, but it is so much more. When, as parents, we tiptoe around the subject of sex, pretending it doesn’t exist, we not only fail our children in their need to understand this powerful gift, we reinforce the age-old message that anything associated with “feeling” is not to be discussed!

And we are delivering this message at a time when our children most need our help. The results are often a general emotional shutdown. How many parents have you heard complaining that their sweet darling child went through puberty and turned into a silent sullen creature? One of the long-term dangers of abandoning our children to a silent sexual emergence is that sex and emotions can get tied up together in a confused, distorted, and shame-filled package that can result in sex being the only avenue to the emotions at all.

Yes, this is difficult territory, but crucially important. We need to raise our children to feel comfortable talking about sex in an emotionally shame-free environment if we want them to grow up to be able to access and manage and rely on their own emotional maturity. Start talking about sex long before
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it becomes necessary; it makes it easier both for you and for them. Sometimes, adolescents talk more easily about sex with knowledgeable adults who are not their parents. If you can’t play this role, find someone who can.

 

Help them deal with fear

Fear is a powerful and, unless faced head on, a very debilitating emotion. Yet the message our children continue to get is badly distorted by old gender stereotypes. Our boys grow up convinced that they are supposed to be fearless. In the language of small boys, to be fearless is to be a man, and that is a burden they should never have to carry. And our daughters often still get the message that they should be fearful of entirely too many things.

Think about how boys are always challenging each other, daring each other to do stupid or even dangerous things—rock fights, jumping off buildings, climbing tall trees, drag racing. Likewise girls are all too often taught to squeal at the sight of frogs and lizards. A good part of the culture of boys is centered around determining who is tough and who is chicken, and the message is bluntly simple: if you are afraid, you aren’t one of us. The peer pressure among girls is often the exact opposite.

But fear is a very useful survival mechanism, and we need to help our children learn that it is a normal, even appropriate, emotion that can literally save their lives. We also need to teach them how to identify the real source of their fear when it arises and how to decide upon the proper response. This isn’t easy territory, because sometimes the proper response is to get yourself out of the situation as fast as possible, and sometimes it is finding a way to control your fear in order to do the right thing.
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But unless we address the issue in a very supportive and open manner, we will leave them to the not-so-tender instruction of their peers.

Let your children know that we are all afraid at times, and often for very good reasons. But more important, help them learn how to understand and properly respond to their fears, and never shame them for being afraid.

 

Explore your own assumptions

Living at a time of great transformation is exciting, especially when the changes taking place are long overdue and coming at a dizzying pace. But it is also extremely challenging, because, as pioneers of change, we are constantly entering new territory in which we have only a general idea of what direction to take. It takes enormous energy and focus to sort out the paths and figure out what we need to do to make this journey easier for our children. Most of us are more than willing to commit this energy and time, because we want to provide our children with full and rich lives that will serve as a solid foundation for their growth and development into the extraordinary men and women we know they can be.

By far the most difficult part of our task is discovering and dismantling the places where our own training hinders our role as pioneers. Someone must go first, and it is both a great honor and a solemn responsibility. But we need to remember that our own training and our own complex array of assumptions were forged in different times, under different circumstances. Many are no longer appropriate for or supportive of our immediate task. Simply replaying past expectations, assumptions,
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and traditions will not change the landscape one iota. We, as a society, are in very challenging times that demand our most rigorous attention. At the same time, there is much value in the traditions of our past, and it would be foolish to jettison the whole without first thinking and feeling deeply about the ways we need to modify our own assumptions.

How many times, when talking to your children, have you heard words coming out of your mouth and been struck by the thought that these are not really your words at all, but a replay of words you heard from your parents, words they probably heard from their parents, and so on down the generations?

Gender roles are the most obvious place to start. The past forty years have seen a tremendous shift in how we view gender roles, thanks largely to the millions of women who have demanded fuller and more equal participation in life. But don’t fool yourself into thinking we have turned the corner. Cultural patterns of thousands of years aren’t changed in a few decades; we are in the position of the battleship just turned at the helm but that will take another twenty miles before actually making the adjustment in course.

In addition, the advances made by women have not been matched by men. Where women’s lives have blossomed with opportunities, men are, for the most part, still stuck in the old ways.

 

Real men know how to be fathers

Encouraging boys to remain connected to their emotions and showing our daughters that men can have intelligent conversations about their feelings require the full and active engagement of their fathers. Yet too many fathers let this, one of the
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most valuable contributions they can make to their children’s development, slip away. Sometimes, the hesitation arises out of awkwardness and inexperience. We weren’t raised to be nurturing parents, we weren’t given even the basic information about caring for infants and toddlers, so the easy way is simply to back away and leave it to their mom.

Sometimes, the hesitation comes from outside pressure, social expectations, and, particularly, pressure from the workplace that gives the message: “If you want to get ahead, you must put your job ahead of your children.” But what father would actually endorse that message? Being a father today requires a very different kind of courage—the kind that anchors us to our deeper priorities, gives us the strength and commitment to pioneer for our children a new and more fully integrated way of living. It means being mindful of the pressures that pull us away from our children. It means stepping firmly into the whirlwind of emotions that define growing up. It means adding your voice to the rising swell of women’s voices demanding flexible work hours and corporate support rather than resistance to employees with families.

Fathers need to demonstrate through their words and actions that their children’s emotional needs are just as high a priority as providing food and shelter. Reassess your work schedule and make sure it allows you to be with your children when they need you. Reassess the level and quality of your involvement at home and make sure that you are doing your share.

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