Men raising kids

I'm on welfare right now, and so I have to spend a lot of time waiting for services and doing paperwork, etc etc.....

Yesterday I observed a family of about 10 people. They were muslim because the women's heads were covered. The men wearing business casual type clothes. I could not understand what language they spoke. For some reason I thought it might have been Kurdish....anyway.....there was a young girl there about my son's age (4). She kept going to her papa and hanging off his arm, wanting his attention. He was busy talking to the man next to him. His brother maybe? Anyway, he didn't look at her, or even embrace her. He didn't shoo her away either, but I couldn't help but wonder why he didn't respond. At all....she seemed like a normal healthy well adjusted child, but the only people who interacted with her were her mother, grandmother, and siblings. He fathers were separate.

Anyway it got me thinking about how men parent around the world. Why do men cower away from being more involved with their kids? I wonder if men were socialized to take care of children like girls would they be better parents? Do men WANT to do more? Or could they care less about childrearing? Is it ingrained genetically, or taught socially that they do not play an important role, when research CLEARLY shows that fathers are vital to the raising of healthy children? Do men need to be taught HOW to be fathers or do they just not care as much as women?

I know that's a lot of questions....just wondering what the men thing about this.

Another example: my ex-husband had our son at his house and he was acting up. So he called ME to come get him, saying he was on the verge of "doing something"........knowing immediately what he meant I rushed over there in panic....then when we talked about it later he says, "When he's acting like that, better his mother come deal with him" (meaning me).....as if he's not capable or responsible for figuring out what to do to take care of his own son. It ruined my plans for the afternoon and put a strain on the rest of my weekend....

Anyway, I'm just wondering if that's the kind of attitude men naturally have. I don't really know what "healthy" looks like (sad, I know..) Hope this can be a good discussion about the attitudes of men towards raising their children.

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Permalink Reply by Obfuskation on April 11, 2014 at 2:26pm

Why do men cower away from being more involved with their kids? I wonder if men were socialized to take care of children like girls would they be better parents?

I would call these gross over-generalizations. While there no doubt are men who are distant in their relationships with their children, there are also women who share that dynamic.

I personally don't know any men who don't take an active role in raising and nurturing their children, and know a few who are far more involved than the mothers. I haven't looked at hard statistics, but I'd wager that with the deterioration of the traditional family structure, and the increase of dual income households and homes with working mothers and stay-at-home fathers, that the distant or irresponsible father is more of the exception than the rule. I'd also wager that the stats are probably fairly similar for both sexes.

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Permalink Reply by Obfuskation on April 11, 2014 at 3:02pm

For what it's worth, I grew up in a household where both parents worked, but my mother was the nurturer, and my father was the aloof disciplinarian. However, it's not something I see with regards to friends and other parts of the family. The general attitude among my friends is that my mom was great, and my dad was a complete dick.

I think every type (however you want to group humanity) follows a bell curve. Most people fall somewhere in the middle in what I'd term a positive-if-flawed category. To one side would be the "stars", and to the other side the "scumbags". It sounds like we had the misfortune of finding ourselves with fathers from the back side of the bell curve.

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Permalink Reply by Obfuskation on April 11, 2014 at 3:29pm

I think you'd have to apply specific criteria against a specific method of parenting. I'm guessing it would involve a lot of trade offs depending upon what criteria are valued more. For example, a parent who is more focused on teaching his/her child the skill sets that they will need to thrive in a climate/culture that is highly competative would be less concerned with physical comforts or a general "happiness". I suppose it would be especially true if violence was part of the climate/culture.

I think there are a lot of moving parts to the analysis, not just between cultures, but with the subcultures within greater cultures, and with both paternal and maternal roles.

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Permalink Reply by Obfuskation on April 11, 2014 at 3:59pm

It's an interesting topic. If I get some time this weekend, I'll see if I can dig up statistics regarding parental involvement, and paternal vs. maternal parenting methods.

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Permalink Reply by Tim on April 11, 2014 at 6:31pm

My ex and I got divorced when our three boys were 4,5, and 8. I had to fight to get 50% custody. There was a strong bias that men didn't want to and couldn't be a good parent. After few years my ex moved 800 miles away. I've raised the kids on my own for about the last 15 years. I learned a lot about how to be a parent/dad 'on-the-job'. For about the first 10 years, I didn't have my own life. My time was spent 100% taking care of the kids. I always tried to do what was best for them. And along the way I tried to teach them to be thoughtful, courteous, honest, and of course skeptical. They are all through college now and there is only one left at home. I can start to breath again.

I think that a lot of men avoid child rearing for the same reason that a lot of girls avoid learning math and science. They think that it's going to be difficult so they don't even try.

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Permalink Reply by Jesse Selasi on April 11, 2014 at 7:14pm

Its interesting but I believe your observation and your interpretation might be a little exaggerated. You cannot discount the role men play although its more obvious that women do take a lot of interest in raising their child, my experience in Ghana although I am not a father is that the roles are unconsciously allocated to both parents. women tend to take of every other thing whiles mostly the disciplinary aspect is left to the father. Fathers are seen to be the one that shape the moral character of the children.

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Permalink Reply by Pope Beanie on April 11, 2014 at 8:14pm

By nature, I'm automatically skeptical of what people consider is "normal", but you might be interested in a fairly recent study (several pages).

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Permalink Reply by Andy Hoke on April 11, 2014 at 11:30pm

"Do men need to be taught HOW to be fathers or do they just not care as much as women?"

Wow.

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Permalink Reply by Philip Jarrett on April 12, 2014 at 1:15am

I bring a different perspective to the table on this topic. I believe the Feminist opinion...which is pretty much across the board as far as I can see...that men are the "designated problem." I have five children who were stolen from me by my ex-wife with the full cooperation of Child Protective Services. I think that what has happened over the last fifty years is a growing problem within social services in which women have been elevated to a status of always the victim, never the perpetrator and men have become always the perpetrator and never the victim.

We have men portrayed on TV and in movies in a manner that does not reflect the reality of the situation. I remember reading one Feminist who said plainly: "I had to quit counseling the men in an abusive situation because the more I knew these men as real people the less I was able to feel the anger of the woman."

In other words, she choose to blank out the men in the situation because if she continued to try and help the 'whole family' including the men the less anger she could feel toward the man.

I see this as a problem with Feminism, not as a problem with men specific and certainly not as a problem of the family as a whole.

Men are simply discriminated against by the social welfare system and the psychological profession.

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Permalink Reply by _Robert_ on April 12, 2014 at 7:42am

My experience was more like Belle's. It seems to me that few men took an active participation in parenting other than some ass kicking. That was the 60's and 70's. That generation of mostly war vets seemed to work hard, party harder (minus the wife and kids) and die young. I recall having to ask my mother to see if I could even address my father and she would often say "not now".

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Permalink Reply by Unseen on April 12, 2014 at 10:36pm

I read somewhere that men are more successful single parents than women. Partly because they are less likely to be poor, but perhaps more importantly because men are less likely to fall into the guilt trap that has many single mothers wanting be friends with their kids rather than parents. Men apparently tend to be more able to demand and enforce discipline in many situations.