Father Loss and More

Fathers can be lost in many ways—- in drastic ways, like death, divorce or abandonment or in as less extreme situations, like unavailability or unpredictability.

 

To a large extent, our identity is defined by our father and we have to  know him in order to know ourselves. In other words, an absent father leaves a gapping hole in our sense of self, inspiring authors to return to the theme of fatherlessness time and again.

Mona Simpson’s novel The Lost Father gyrates around an abandoning Egyptian father for whom the search usurps her entire life.

Said Sayrafiezadeh’s memoir of a political childhood, When Skateboards Will be Free, explores the relationship with his father who (supposedly) disappeared in order to plan an anticipated revolution.

A father who in some ways is unrelated, constitutes a kind of  loss.

For example, Ms. H. suffered the consequences of a distant father who blamed her for all her problems. In essence, her father had provided little guidance, and worse, badgered her constantly for a lack of progress in graduate school Eventually, her father agreed to participate in family therapy. When he was able to own his responsibility for failing to provide adequate emotional support, she was able to move forward and to finish her dissertation. 

A sudden shift in behavior may represent a kind of loss. Ms. N. ‘s father changed from a gentle, affectionate man to an unpredictable presence when he physically struck her without warning for contradicting him. In her psychotherapeutic work, she realized how his erratic behavior had affected her life and relationship choices.

Conclusion: The father plays a major role in who we are and who we become; his absence may occupy the center stage of a person’s life.

Dear Reader, I welcome your comments. jsimon145@gmail.com

Father-Daughter Bonds

As we celebrate Father’s Day this month, I’d like to focus on the father-daughter bond which until relatively recently had been neglected in favor of exploring the father-son relationship.

In fact, the father determines much of his daughter’s future attitudes toward both love and work. Because he walks the narrow line between affection and seduction, the father’s task to parent may be especially difficult and complex.

One to whom we can be eternally grateful is Anne Frank’s father, Otto Frank, who discovered the diary she had written while hiding with her family in an attic in the Netherlands for two years during the Nazi invasion. Anne and her father were very close.  She loved her father dearly and wrote often of their affectionate relationship.

About his daughter, Frank commented,

 “I must say, I was very much surprised by the deep thoughts Anne had. It was quite a different Anne I had known as my daughter...And my conclusion is, since I had been in very good terms with Anne, that most parents don’t know really their children.”

From this reflection, we can garner wisdom. In spite of years of proximity, parents and children share a characteristic of every other interpersonal relationship, the aspect of the unknowable.  Fathers can’t entirely know their daughters, regardless of how responsible, sensitive and attentive they are.

So how should they proceed? The answer is both simple in its dictum and highly intricate in its execution:  to parent with an open and curious mind while homing in on a child’s attributes and avoiding negative criticism.

Conclusion: The parenting role of the father to his daughter may be one of the most difficult and significant of human relationships.

Dear Reader, I look forward to your comments.

jsimon145@gmail.com