The role of good or bad fatherhood in kids' life

Father figures are expected, from the very start of one’s life, to be wise and powerful. They are expected to solve our problems, to be with us when in need, accompany us to children park, tell us stories, protect us. They are judicious and kind, perhaps a little tough at times but always fair—but most importantly, we expect them to be always, on our side. 

To make fun of someone who has problems with their father, even after acknowledging their discomforting longing, is humiliating and rude. It’s completely alright for someone to desire a fatherly figure in their lives, especially, when in chaos and confusions. It’s utterly hurtful to want someone to protect us and fail at finding anyone at sight.

When does it start?

This notion of desiring a fatherly figure comes from our childhood—when we’re both young and immensely week, and need protection from everything that might hurt us. In our childhood, even a cat of a considerable size can kill us—things were mysterious when we were young, and often were outside of our control. To wish for a father in befalling situations is completely natural. The adult longing for a good father is a consequential emotion from not having a good father in the childhood. It’s a result of abandonment.

According to a study at Erikson University in 2009, a grown man evidently seems extremely impressive to a small child. For a child, a grown man knows everything; the capital of India, how to drive a bicycle, how to fight, how to catch a ball. They can lift you up with their immense power. They go to bed secretly late, and wake up earliest in the morning. They can swim and let you ride their back. Fathers, by their all difference, are beyond astonishing creature.

People with father problems, contrary to its paradox, are almost, always, the ones who didn’t have very good fathers when they were small. Maybe their fathers were incredibly strong, but at the same time cruel or maybe disinterested. Perhaps, they were busy, and weren’t around much or perhaps they left after a disturbing fight. Perhaps, they divorced their wives, or may be they died. This is what, in many surprising ways, incline us to some tricky behaviors. This lead us to develop absurd fantasies, irrelevant to our maturity level and skepticism, around the idea of male protection.

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Consequences

We, even after the years of failing and learning our lessons, all by ourselves—still remain like a young child we once were. In a way, we were not allowed to mature away from our unquenched fantasies of fathers. We still, secretly, desire someone to step in and take the role. We want someone else to make our big decisions, we want them to protect us, and be tough around us. We want them, in a certain mysterious way, to vanish our problems from our life.

No matter how independent and self-sufficient we act, at the end of the day, we want them to sort out our money problems, we expect them to get angry when anyone tries to hurt us, to be proud of us when we achieve something—to love us for who we are, and primarily, accept us. To fulfill this intrinsic desire, we look out for fathers in friendships, at work, and all the places we emotionally visit.

We all must, if our emotions allow, accept that the adulthood fantasy of fathers is not of a good father. As absurd as it may sound, a good father is the one who boldly and honestly accepts that he isn’t that powerful and cannot solve all our problems. They are conscious that they can’t magically save us from the countless dangers of this world, no matter how much they wish to. They are also honest about this, and tell us the truth as soon as we’re strong enough to face it. Out of love, they let us know that there are not perfect fathers and the best they can do is help us grow, in the best way possible.

What do we need?

We markedly don’t need just a father, we need a good father figure. Someone who could help us out of our father issues, someone who encourage us to talk, acknowledges our sufferings and fears, and deeply wants the best for us and isn’t reluctant to say so; but who at the same time, out of love, wants to help us come to terms with a messy and essentially a disappointing world. A man, who out of love, will encourage you to be independent and, specifically, not to fantasize that anyone, however outwardly imposing, can do the impossible for you. And, shamelessly deny that anyone, even for the love and hate, will always be there for you by your side.

Good fathers allow us to accept the truth that there are, in the end, no fathers; just an independent you—who eventually, by failing and learning, becomes someone else’s, good father. 

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How not to care what anyone thinks of you?

Courtesy: AK Mishra Library

One of our most prominent fears which haunt us when we socialize in this world and mingle with others—is that we may in our hearts be not interesting, rather boring. But the good news and fundamental truth too is that no one is ever truly boring. They are only in danger of coming across as such when they either fail to understand their deeper selves or don’t dare or know how to communicate with others.

There is simply no such thing as an inherently boring person or thing—is one of the great lessons of art. Many of the most satisfying artworks don’t feature rare elements, they are evidently about the ordinary, looked from a special perspective, with unusual sincerity and openness to varnished experience.

For example—look at the painting of Whistler’s Mother by James McNeill. It’s a simple depiction of artist’s mother sitting on a wooden chair against a gray wall. Outwardly the scene in the painting is utterly simple and could initially appear to be deeply unpromising material for a painting. Yet, like any great artist, McNeill knew how to interrogate his own perceptions—in a fresh, clear, underivative manner and translated them accurately into his medium—knitting a small masterpiece out of the thread of everyday life. And just as there’s no such thing as a boring everyday life, so too there could be no such thing as an innately boring person.

Humans witnessed in its essence with honesty and without artifice is always interesting.

When we call a person boring—we’re just pointing to someone who doesn’t have the courage for concentration to tell us what it’s like to be them. By contrast, we invariably prove compelling when we succeed in saying how and what we truly desire, envy, regret mourn or dream. In a simpler form if anyone recuperates the real data on what it’s like to exist is guaranteed to have material with which one can captivate others.

An interesting person isn’t always someone with whom obviously and outwardly interesting things have happened: like someone who travelled the world or met importance dignitaries, nor someone who talks about the weighty themes of culture, history or science. On the contrast, an interesting person is someone who can give us faithful accounts, drama, and strangeness of being alive.

Then, what are some of the elements that get in the way of is being as interesting as we in fact are;

Our Loss of Faith

We feel boring and exhibit the same feeling when there is a lack of faith. We often believe that it really could be feelings that would stand the best chance of interesting others. When we tell an anecdote, we majorly concentrate on giving the outward details—like about the weather, people who were involved, what time was it—rather than maintaining courage to report the layer of feelings, beneath the surface—the intricate facts which flashes the moment of guilt, the sudden sexual attraction, the humiliating sulk, that strange euphoria at the middle of the night, every small detail. We should acknowledge that our neglect is not just an oversight, but it could be a deliberate strategy to mold our ideas of dignity and normality. We lack the nerve to look more closely within.

For say, most five-years-old are far less boring than most 45-years old. What’s interesting is that kids don’t necessarily have exciting feelings, far from it, but their sheer frankness and uncensored version of their feelings are what makes their insights interesting.

Our inner-struggle to appear normal

We all feel boring not by our nature—so much as by a fateful will that begins its effect in teenage years to appear normal, even when we’re honest about our feelings. We may still prove boring because we don’t know them as well as we should, so we get stuck at the level of insisting on an emotion rather than explaining it. Any situation is extremely exciting, awful or beautiful, but not to be able to provide those around us with any of the sorts of related details and examples that would help them understand why. We can end up boring not so much because we don’t want to share our lives, as because we don’t yet know them well enough to do so.

Luckily, the gift of being interesting is not an exceptional talent. It requires only direction, honesty and focus. The person we call fascinating is someone alive to what we all deeply want from social intercourses, which is an uncensored glimpse of what the brief waking dream called life feels like.  Through the eyes of another person and reassurance, we are not entirely alone with all that feels most puzzling, strange and strong within us.