We have been having criticisms about the absence of Chinese fathers, and these kinds of articles have been widely circulated in the circle of mothers. Some Public Accounts also quote Li Mengchao's proposition of five functions of a father: provision, protection, discipline, preaching and victory, to explain by extension that if you want to be a father, you'd better fulfil these functions.
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Provisioning function: to be able to earn money to support his wife and children, and to accompany them;
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Protecting function: to be able to protect his wife and children from natural and man-made disasters;
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Discipline function: to be able to set family rules and maintain the family structure;
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Preaching function: to pass on the meaning and value of life to children;
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Victory function: you must be stronger and more powerful than other men, or at least stronger and more powerful than your mother. That is to say, if you are a man, you have to be very manly.
Seeing this, even as a woman, I feel stressed out for dads. These requirements go beyond what is expected of a father, and are more like what is expected of a ‘superman’.
Perhaps this explains why, despite all the criticism and reassurance, dads still can't come back. ‘I know you are busy making money and socialising in the hope that your child will have a better future, but as a result, you don't have time to spend with your child, and the consequences of the child's lack of fatherly love are serious’ “Since you love your child, can't you squeeze a little bit of time from your work to spend with your child”. Being busy at work for the sake of the child --- these seemingly reasonable explanations are not so credible in the eyes of a psychodynamically orientated therapist. We ask why dad can't come back, what's behind it, and we focus more on the subconscious. This is because the greater driving force that determines what we do is subconscious forces, such as inner unspeakable longings and fears.
These superhuman expectations of dad better explain why dad is not home. Because these ‘father functions’ convey the belief that a man should first have a strong social position (make enough money to support a family, be better than other men), and then exert influence in the family (protect, rule, and only lack of emotional function).
---- This expectation reflects Chinese men's desire for their position in society and family and the fear and helplessness of not having a position for so many years! This may be a deeper reason for the leaving home of Chinese fathers.
This position includes economic position and emotional position. For most people, ‘fatherhood’ is first and foremost about being a man who can earn money in order to keep his footing in society and his family, and then he can be the ‘psychological father’. But on the other hand, in many families, the father is not given the appropriate emotional position, as a man with emotional needs, he goes out to find emotional support.
Why is this so? It's clearly not about dad alone. It may be a collusion. I remember something my teacher said when I started studying family therapy as a graduate student ‘Family therapists have to be careful to remain neutral because families are so complex and things are the result of collusion’ --- meaning that both husband and wife have contributed to the formation of a situation, and that family history and cultural currents have had an impact as well.
I. Fathers' Desire and Fear of Economic Status
Our traditional cultural expectation of a man is that he should be able to earn money so that he can be grounded in society and have a family. As early as a father is a boy, he may have seen used to his own grandfathers and fathers who also worked their butts off, as well as the women's complaints and family squabbles when there were shortages in the family. The fear of ‘not being able to earn enough to feed the family’ runs in a man's blood. Sometimes, even if his wife does not put such pressure on him, his fear remains. He is afraid that after he becomes a father, if he can not earn money, or not earn as much as others, he may face the threat of ‘having no place in the family’: his wife may show the killer ‘Mr.Wang of next door’ and ‘Doudou's father in your flat’, and the wife may instil in the children ‘don't be like your father’. This is a humiliation to a man. Sometimes a wife may make a joke and the man will take it to heart. There are also times when a man may feel his wife's unspoken expectations, ‘When I married you, I did not mind your family, but I like your upward-mobility and working hard’, ‘Oops, my colleague bought a limited edition bag’. These are all related to a man's dignity. Not to mention the fact that in many families, such pressure and verbal violence is laid bare on the dad's head. So dads have to make money, even if they can't make money, they have to make an effort to make money --- Look, I'm out there earning money! In short, a hat of incompetence can't be slapped on.
Especially in this day and age, a dad's financial ability is extraordinarily important. Before marriage, if there is not a suite to get the mother-in-law's heart, he may not even have the qualification to be a father. After having a baby, from early education to kindergarten to choose a school all the way to college, to work and even to the son to become a father, it is all about competition of family background. Some depends on the father's money bag, some depends on the father's official position, and some depends on the father's good interpersonal connections. None of these is not from the father's hard work. ‘Competition of family background’ can be said to be the modern society's invisible spell in the man. Thus, they go out to fight not only for the happiness of the child, but also for their own foothold. Becoming a father who can let the children stand decent also meets a man's sense of achievement and dignity.
II. The Absence of Father's Emotional Position in the Family
In counselling we find that fathers who go out to earn money often do not get intimacy in the family, there are problems in the couple's relationship, or the father also does not know how to get a place in the intimate mother-son relationship. Many dads have been raised in the same way, with mom taking care of him in every way, and he has not learnt the experience of interacting with the absence of dad. He also feels that mom is the one responsible for the emotional interaction with the baby. Therefore, sometimes the father also helps, but always in the ‘emotional periphery’. When breastfeeding, the father washes the bottle and the mother carries the baby; when bathing, the father prepares everything and the mother washes the baby. In some cases, the father is also involved, but things are not always done so well, so he was ‘dismissed’ by the mother. If the couple is not close or have a bad relationship, the father may be marginalised when the mother is immersed in the intimate world of the baby and is totally devoted to the baby. This is when the family relationship is out of balance and the parent-child connection outweighs the couple's connection. So dad also starts to go out, going to work for support, or going out to play cards and chess and drink and gossip with his friends.
Even worse is the active mother-child alliance. Mothers have a natural advantage when it comes to aligning themselves with their children on this matter. Early mother-feeding makes it easier for the child to develop an attachment to the mother first, so the mother has more influence over the child. If the mother emotionally dislikes some aspect of the father and forms an alliance with the child, the father will be ‘forced’ to leave. For example, if the mother marries a man she doesn't love, or if in her heart she doesn't like the child's father, ‘coming from the countryside, he can't bring up a child’, ‘his education background is low, he can't bring up a child well’, ‘I don't want my child to look like that man’ and so on. There are even some dads who play well with their children when the moms are not present, but are anyway isolated by the moms for various reasons.
Of course, there may be other personal factors that cause the dad to be ‘out of home’, just as there are cases where the mom is also ‘out of home’. For example, the father's own attachment disorder, immaturity, and patriarchal attitudes. If the dad is emotionally avoidant, he has less need for relationships and may lack emotional care for the family. In addition, if the father is still a ‘baby’ himself, he may not be able to care for an infant. This is an issue that needs to be solved in the growing process of the individual, and it can happen to moms as well.
III. How to Get Dad Back
Getting dads back is not something that can be solved by simple appeals and criticisms. To put it vulgarly, it takes strength from all sides.
At the family level, family therapy recognises that behavioural problems in family members reflect problems in the whole family system and structure. Mothers are also in a position to contribute to this problem. A close couple relationship and the mother's confidence in her own finances is a guarantee that the dad will not go out to earn money.
Many young dads are now stay-at-home dads, and their ideas about family and parenting are not the same as previous generations. I know a couple of friends, both husband and wife are employees of public institutions, in a free love relationship, and they have a very good relationship. Their boy has been brought up by the couple themselves since he was born, except for his grandmother who helped during the day, and the dad does everything except for not being able to breastfeed. They enjoy spending time with their baby. The couples are in middle level income, the wife's salary is even slightly higher than her husband's, but she doesn't need her husband to work harder to earn money, her own income can basically satisfy her desire for life, and the husband is at peace and enjoys life with his wife and son. Of course, this is the ideal situation. Quite a lot of couples' problems come to the fore when it comes to raising children. This may mean better communication in all areas of family division of labour, parenting philosophies, problem solving, etc., so that at least it won't get into a situation where either partner walks out. Sometimes the couple's respective families of origin can also bring up the issue of dads leaving home because of the birth of the baby into the smaller family. And when it comes to parenting, moms are more prepared than dads. As early as when she is pregnant, the mother already feels the presence of a life, and her emotional and physical elements have already started to prepare for taking care of her baby. But a father may not be aware of the existence of the baby with which he is associated until the moment the baby is born, or even the moment the baby begins to have significant emotional contact with him. This also means that dads need time and practice to grow into a real dad.
Socially, dads are also more likely to return to their families if they can let go of their high expectations of a dad. If ‘living off a woman’ was no longer an insult to men; if there was no promotion of being ‘superior to others’; and if dads were equally responsible for ‘intimacy,’ we would probably see more dads present. A few years ago, the emergence of baby daddies and stay-at-home dads was a good thing. Nonetheless, being a stay-at-home dad is not something many men can accept, and it requires a strong enough self-esteem not to be afraid of external judgement. In fact, with the changing times, the division of labour in the family should not be fixed. Each family has its own role, tasks and functions. We should give them all respect.
The importance of the father's presence has long been self-evident, but on the road home, dads don't have an easy time.
