Fatherhood: The Journey from Man to Dad

By Bruce Linton

New dads are often isolated at a time when being with other fathers would be helpful in understanding how being a parent is changing them. For more than 30 years I have been facilitating “Men’s Group For Fathers of Young Children.” Fatherhood: The Journey from Man to Dad are essays I have written from what we discussed in these groups. At the end of each essay there are questions for self-reflection or to discuss in a group with other dads (or moms too). Rather than give advice on how to be a father, my book gives you the opportunity to begin to see how you are changing as a man when you become a parent. It reflects what feelings and interactions we have with our children, our wives and ourselves as we begin the great adventure of fatherhood. The book is written in a unique conversational style. You interact with me as the author as well as being part of a “dads group” as you read the essays.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Apr 17, 2017
• ISBN: 9781483596716

Book preview

Author

Preface

Thank you for picking up this book. All these essays have appeared in a variety of forms and versions over the last 30 years: online, in magazines and newsletters and in blog posts. Many have been in previous versions of my books: "Finding Time for Fatherhood, men’s concerns as parents and Becoming a Dad, how fatherhood changes men."

These writing reflect my struggles as a young man, in my thirties, trying to understand who I was as a man, a husband, a father. I had the good fortune to found the Fathers’ Forum programs. Through the Fathers’ Forum Men’s Groups for New Dads, I was able to share with a group of young men our challenges and frustrations about being a father and a parent. Becoming a father is a challenge to any man’s psyche and there is a fundamental reorganization that you cannot avoid when you begin this journey. Sharing the journey with other dads makes a world of difference. It is an adventure you best do with other men who are courageous enough to talk about their feelings.

I am most appreciative of the many dads who participated in the Fathers’ Forum groups. If you are one of our alumni reading this book now I am sure you can find some of your contributions here. All of the subjects in these essays were drawn from the themes we discussed in our meetings. I am in debt to the dads of the Father’s Forum who all helped me become a better father and man. I am aware now, being a grandfather, that the new dads who are currently participating in the Fathers’ Forum are teaching me about what it takes to be a helpful grandparent!

Over the years my thinking and writing have been shaped by many explorations. Most important was my meeting with Andrew D. Samuels and his two books The Father: Contemporary Jungian Perspectives and a terrific and profound little book The Plural Psyche: Personality, Morality and the Father. Also Arthur and Libby Coleman’s first version of Earth Father/ Sky Father, The Changing Concept of Fathering , allowed me to understand how parenting is not tied to gender. Over the last 30 years I supported this view and can see how it has taken root, not just in the USA, but throughout the world. Finally, Finding Our Fathers : How a Man’s Life Is Shaped by His Relationship with His Father" by Samuel Osherson helped me articulate the importance of our relationship with own father. Both the men in my groups and the couples I have worked with in my psychotherapy practice have benefited from traveling down this road, although at times a difficult one.

I like to think that maybe in 20 or 30 years when I may no longer be here that my granddaughters, Heidi and Kaitlyn, may get a chance to read this book. If you do you will get a glimpse of me as young man trying to figure out the meaning of life and what an important part being your mother’s and uncle’s father has been to me.

Richmond, California

February 2017

In memory of my father Hyman E. Linton (1910-2001) and mother Minnie Linton (1917-1993)

When you teach your child, you teach your children’s children The Talmud

Thank you to my home team...

Carolyn Sweeney, Phyllis Greene, Natalie York,

Julia Straws and Morgan Linton

We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us. —Joseph Campbell

To all of the dads who have participated in the Fathers’ Forum I will be eternally grateful. It has been my honor to have shared in your lives at such an important time. Much of this book reflects the inspiration I received from our many meetings.

To the many colleagues, friends, and family who have always been interested and supportive of my work with dads...thank you to one and all!

Special appreciation is due to Andrew Samuels, Arthur Coleman and Sam Osherson who have shaped my vision ofwhat is possible for a man and a father.

Thank you Gayle Peterson, Ph.D. for your support of my work and vision.

Julia and Mike, Morgan and Daina....the best kids a dad could have! I am a lucky man.

Finding Time for Fatherhood

The guys who fear becoming fathers don’t understand that fathering is not something perfect men do, but something that perfects the man. The end product of child raising is not the child but the parent. —Frank Pittman

It has been most difficult to find the time to write this essay! When our two children were little, it was obvious why it was impossible to get much private time. Day-to-day tasks were like digging a hole in the sand on the beach: no matter what size the hole, the water would fill it up. The demands of being both physically and emotionally present for infants and young children is pretty much full-time work for both parents.

Now that our children are older (12 and 16), I am surprised that parenting responsibilities are still a major focus of our everyday lives. With each year of fatherhood, I have had to ask myself, What kind of father do my children need now? I have been lucky in that my personal interests and professional career have been interwoven. I have focused on coaching and counseling parents with young children on how to balance parenting with jobs and careers. This is an issue I constantly struggle with myself, and I am not always satisfied with the results.

Time is our most valuable resource as parents, our most precious commodity. Think about it. We work all our lives so we can retire—so we can do what we want with our time—and the way we define or spend our time defines who we are and what we value.

Our society sets values on the way we use time that have always offended me. In the United States, you can receive a tax credit if you work and place your children in childcare. If you stay at home with your children, however, or work part-time, there is no tax credit. What we say in the U.S. is that we value only the time you spend working. It sends a strong message that parenting is not a priority.

We do not need to be locked in a battle between time spent working and time spent parenting. Both work time and family time sustain us in very important ways, and we gain unique satisfactions from both. There are practical matters to consider as well: we need money to live, yet our children are little for such a short time. How will we prioritize our choices?

How we choose to prioritize our time as fathers is very difficult. There is still an unspoken assumption in our society linking our identity as men with our work. Although this is changing, careers still provide men with more esteem, status and financial reward than does the time they spend parenting. Also, it is still accepted that the money a man makes is the way he supports his family.

Most of the expectant and new fathers I work with are terribly conflicted by their desire to spend time with their young children while also having to cope with financial pressures. When both parents work, dads as well as moms want more time with their young children. I think we have a much larger social problem than we are aware of in terms of the emotional cost for both parents and young children when it comes to the use of time in the early years of parenthood.

Being a father is now more central to our identity as men, but this is causing problems and repercussions in the work world. Many employers stigmatize new dads, assuming they are less committed to their work than men who don’t have children. An attitude that men are less capable if they need to take time off for school activities or medical visits can discriminate against the working dad.

What I think is happening is not that men value work less, but that fatherhood is becoming equally important. While work was once the only source of meaning for a man, fatherhood and parenting have become as important to his self-esteem as his work.

This development parallels the progress that women have made during the last 25 years, with an interesting twist. While women have expanded their identity beyond the role of motherhood—exploring the possibilities of new roles in modern society—men are exploring new possibilities and larger roles within the family. They seek the potential to be more emotionally and physically available to their children. As women have moved increasingly into the world of work, men desire to play a bigger role in the world at home.

As dads we need to examine our desires and expectations. If we are socialized to believe self-worth is dominated by our relationship to careers, then we have a conflict when we become fathers and find ourselves wanting to be part of our children’s lives. More and more men are choosing to be more engaged fathers, and making the necessary financial or career sacrifices to be involved in family life. As a society we need to examine the the culture of work. We need to find ways to be nurturing and involved fathers while making important contributions in the workplace too.

From my perspective as a family therapist, it is easy to see that the changes couples and babies go through in the first year of the baby’s life depend on having the necessary time to form the attachments that