Maria Byrne
“Everyone is familiar with the importance of the maternal bond… where does that leave the fathers?” asks Maria Byrne
One of my earliest memories of my father is of his strong arms supporting me as I held his hands for balance, throwing my head back and using his legs as an anchor to launch into a back tumble.
There was never any fear in my mind that he would let me fall. He was too big and strong to make a mistake or to fail to protect his brood.
My mother might have been the one who seemed to be the key player: she was at the centre of everything and was intimately involved in every aspect of me and my siblings’ lives. However, my father was the rock, the calming influence and the peacemaker.
My mother was a loving, passionate strong woman, traits she passed on to her four daughters. I think I’m quite like her in many ways, not so much in others, but one love we did share was a passion for a good debate.
Anyone who tried to intervene when another heated conversation was in full swing would be told, in not so many words, to mind their own business.
My father, who was never one for dramatic exchanges, was always on hand advising me to take a step back, take a deep breath, say a little prayer and just chill.
As a hormonal teenager, I didn’t really take my father’s advice on board. I don’t know if I even had the ability to absorb the value of his wise words. As is often the case, it’s sometimes years later that we start to realise that our parents did indeed know a thing or two.
Elements of truth
I love the artist and poet, Raymond Duncan’s quote: “The best substitute for experience is being 16.” While it’s a bit of a generalisation, parents of 16-year-olds might recognise the element of truth in it. Strangely enough, with my youthful years behind me, I’m at last trying to adopt some of the communication techniques that my father tried to teach me when I was a stroppy teenager.
A father’s influence lasts a lifetime and the words that might seem to fall on deaf ears will have an effect, even if it’s long after they were first uttered.
It’s sometimes asked – “Do fathers really matter anyway?” When we hear conversations about parenting and childcare and work/life balance, mothers are at the forefront.
If there’s a child-related conference, the vast majority of those who attend will be women; when children are being discussed in the media, women will definitely outnumber men on the panels. Everyone is familiar with the importance of the maternal bond and several studies show that there are actual physical affects in the brain connected to maternal bonding.
Where does that leave the poor fathers? I’d say very few have heard about the research that demonstrated that parenting can change a father’s brain too.
It’s a different process to mothers, but is directly related to the time a father spends caring for and interacting with his children.
It’s sometimes presumed that the key role model for a boy will be his father and that daughters are more influenced by their mothers.
Whatever the ongoing discussions about changing gender roles, it’s still more common for men to be seeing coaching a boys’ football team, supporting a son’s interest in sport and engaging in a more physical form of interaction.
I don’t know how many women end up arm-wrestling when they meet up with relations or friends, but it’s a requirement every time my husband and two eldest sons are at a family gathering.
However, fathers are just as important in their daughters’ development, and not just when they’re children, but right into adulthood. Emerging research shows that in areas as varied as a grown-up daughter’s mental health and ability to cope with stress, her romantic relationships and career choices, the depth of her relationship with her father is a significant factor.
Looking at my own extended family, my father’s influence is apparent in the number of family members who have followed in his footsteps into a career in teaching or a related area.
In more challenging parenting situations where men aren’t living with their children, it can be a struggle to maintain and nourish their relationship. Many desperate fathers have spent years fighting through the courts just for the chance to spend more time with their children. Lone fathers can view attitudes towards them as negative and exclusionary.
Desolation
A Telegraph article about single dads describes the deep pain and desolation many experience. Author Louis de Berniéres writes about being separated from his children – “the agonising memories” and “the lonely weekends in the parks alone with other single dads”. One heart-breaking image is his account of his seven-year-old daughter, Ruby, running after his car screaming for him to come back.
In the 2006 film, Flicka, actress Alison Lohman, playing young Katie McLoughlin, says of her dad: “There will always be a few people who have the courage to love what is untamed inside us. One of those men is my father.”
Pope Francis said that “Father is a universal word, known to all. It indicates a fundamental relationship that is real and ancient as the history of mankind”.
It would be sad for society if a day comes when the vital contribution of my father and every good father is no longer recognised and cherished.
