or a friend. If you are both stuck, talk it over with other parents. My kids know that if they hassle me, I am more likely to give an unfavourable decision, so they have become more careful! But if I genuinely don’t know what to do or say, I reply, ‘Well, I’m not happy about it, but I’ll sleep on it and we’ll talk some more tomorrow.’ As long as you always follow up, this response works well. Family life is a work in progress. You only get in trouble if you ‘have to be right’ and you ‘have to show them who’s boss’. If you are human, it goes much better.
Finding the balance is hard
It’s okay to be unpopular with your kids once or twice a day! If you have lots of good time together and a long history of care and involvement to draw on, then you have goodwill saved up, like money in the bank. Sometimes dads are around so little, they want it all to be smooth sailing when they are there. But kids need to know when they do something wrong. It can be hard to find that middle point between hard and soft. Maybe it’s about being clear, and not about using power or force at all.
I have a friend, Paul, who is very close to his kids – I admire and envy how natural a father he is. But he too gets it wrong sometimes. Paul told me once how he ‘lost it’ with his twelve-year-old son after a nightmare day at work. He exploded over some small thing and sent the boy off to his bedroom, yelling at him as he went. The son deserved hardly any of this, the yelling was louder than was necessary, the boy was wincing in fear – it was a disaster.
Paul stood for minutes, ashamed and red-faced at what he had done. He realised it had to be fixed. He went and sat on the boy’s bed. He apologised. The boy said nothing, just lay face down on the bed. But ten minutes later, the father was in the bathroom. The boy walked past him on the way to brush his teeth and get ready for bed. As he passed, he uttered some words that touched his father’s heart in a most unforgettable way: ‘Why is it so hard to hate you?’
Dads do matter
Even today, after a whole revolution in fathers’ roles, people still ask: do dads matter? Can’t mothers do it all?
The research supporting the importance of dads is overwhelmingly clear. Boys with absent fathers, or with problem fathers, are statistically more likely to be violent, get hurt, get into trouble, do poorly in school, and be members of teenage gangs in adolescence. They are less likely to progress to university or have a good career. They marry less successfully, and are less effective fathers themselves. A good mum can make up for not having a father around, but it’s really, really hard work.
Fatherless daughters are more likely to have low self-esteem, to have sex before they really want to, to get pregnant young, be assaulted or abused, and not continue their schooling. Families without men are usually poorer, and children of these families are likely to move downwards on the socio-economic ladder. Is that enough to convince you?
Fathering is the best thing you are ever likely to do – for your own satisfaction and joy, and for its effect on the future of other human beings. And it’s good fun.
DADS AND DAUGHTERS
It’s not the topic of this book, but in case this is the only parenting book you ever read, here is something about girls. Mothers are the security blanket for daughters, their major support system, but dads are the self-esteem department. This is because for most girls, the opposite sex is important, and you are their practice person for the opposite sex.
For this reason, you sometimes have five times the power your spouse has to either bless or wound your daughter. Think of it like a sword: you can either cut, or place it gently on her shoulder and say, ‘Arise, Princess’!
So don’t ever, whatever you do, criticise her looks, her weight, or any aspect of her appearance. Not ever. You can debate what clothes she might wear if they are too revealing, but even here get her mother’s help.
What you can do is spend time with her at sports, activities, even just driving her places, and above all, talk and be interested. Go to a movie with her, stop for a coffee and a chat when you shop together. A dad who is close to his daughter is so good for her, because he becomes the yardstick by which she measures boys. It’s as if she knows she is interesting, intelligent and worthwhile. Boys have to measure up to this – which eliminates 80 percent of them right off! This has to be a good investment!
IN A NUTSHELL
Make the time to be a dad. In society today, men are often little more than walking wallets. You have to fight to be a real father to your kids.
Be active with your children – talk, play, make things, go on trips together. Take every chance you can to interact.
Sometimes A(Attention) Deficit Disorder is actually D(Dad) Deficit Disorder.
Share the discipline with your partner. Often your son will respond more readily to you – not from fear, but from respect and wanting to please you. Don’t hit or frighten boys – it just makes them mean to others.
A boy will copy you. He will copy your way of acting towards his mother. He will take on your attitudes (whether you are a racist, a perpetual victim, an optimist or a person who cares about justice, and so on). And he will only be able to show his emotions if you can show yours.
Most boys love rough-and-tumble games. Use these for enjoyment and also to teach him self-control, by stopping and setting some rules whenever the game gets too rough.
Teach your son to respect women – and to respect himself.
This chapter was co-written with Shaaron Biddulph.
Remember that first, quiet moment, when your new baby boy was lying in your arms and you got your first real chance to look at him – gazing at his little face and body?
For mothers, it sometimes takes a while to realise that you really have a son, a boy. Most women say they feel more confident with a baby girl. They feel they would intuitively know what her needs will be. But a boy! At the birth of a son, some women will exclaim in horror, ‘I don’t know what to do with a boy!’ However well prepared we are rationally, the emotional response is often still, ‘Wow! This is unknown territory!’
The mother’s background
Right from the start, a woman’s own ‘male history’ has an effect on her mothering. We needlessly, unconsciously set huge store on what sex a baby is. Many people can’t even really relate to a baby until they ask what kind it is. This shouldn’t matter, but it does.
Every time a mother looks at her baby boy, hears him crying for her or changes his nappy, she is aware that he’s male. So, whatever maleness has meant to her will now come into the foreground.
A woman remembers her dad and how he treated her. She has the experience of brothers, cousins and the boys she knew at school. And then all the men she has known – lovers, teachers, bosses, doctors, ministers, co-workers and friends. All these are woven into her ‘male history’, colouring her attitude to this unsuspecting little baby boy!
Her ideas on ‘what men