It is common to think of fathers as a mother's partner, someone necessary for the birth of a baby. Sometimes we also think of a father as someone who works, who seeks to support the family and who also scolds when the mother asks him to.
There are many clichés about what a father is. Just as there is the idea of the father as the one who maintains the home, there is also the cliché "that he left for cigarettes and never came back", or that fathers do not talk much with their children either because they are working all the time or because parenting is only the responsibility of mothers, etc.
Nowadays, many of these clichés are being questioned and many fathers have broken the traditional scheme and are very actively involved in the upbringing and education of their children. However, many of those traditional fatherhoods that are absent in many ways are still present, which is why the role of fatherhood in the formation of a person and their emotional life is sometimes underestimated. There are fathers who “are not there”, how could they be important then if a father does not participate in parenting?
There is a certain consensus that the function that mothers carry out with their children is fundamental. Beyond pregnancy, first care is a requirement for a baby to survive, whether carried out by the biological mother or not, the maternal function is primary, it is a requirement not only for survival but for becoming a person. Through the first pampering and care, the little creature becomes a human being with an internal life, emotional development and capable of establishing contact with others.
So at what point do parents matter?
Parents are one of the primary objects in a baby's internal life. At first they are perceived as someone who exists other than the mother and who sometimes also provides pampering and care, in other cases their existence will make sense later.
In the traditional role, a father will be in charge of guaranteeing a facilitating environment that supports the mother-baby dyad for as long as it requires as the maturation of the newborn progresses, later the father will emerge as an additional to this dyad who also cares about the baby and also provides him with care, additionally he also loves the mother. In short, the father will become a representative of the rest of the world in addition to the mother.
In that sense and after additional time, fathers will become a metaphor and representatives of social laws, someone who encourages a certain separation of children and their mothers in order to create interests and relationships with other human beings. Parents are someone with whom, although they share characteristics, they have not shared a sameness, their bodies have never been fused, so the relationship with them is secondary, but fundamental. They are the representatives of the world beyond the original link.
As such, parents participate in a discourse that pre-exists the baby. In many cases, fathers talk and imagine together with mothers about the future. Whether they guess who he will be most like or the various characteristics they imagine, such discourse shapes an illusion about the soon-to-be-born. This speech may or may not coincide with the baby at the time of birth, which will cause either satisfaction or disappointment, which in the emotional sense will already be experienced by the newborn and will constitute their first adventures on the emotional path.
However, also in a traditional way, parents are often not present in the first moments of a baby's life. Although men in Western culture are currently experiencing important changes in terms of their roles and possibilities, in the past on many occasions today the role of parenting was delegated exclusively to mothers and fathers were limited to support, although it was also common for fathers to simply not be present in their entirety.
Regarding the new possibilities and fruit of the changes in today's society, there are also single mothers not only because the fathers leave, but on many occasions they have children alone because they want to, either by using fertilization techniques or a male donor, which gives rise to new configurations in which a "present" father is dispensed with.
So how does a father become important?
As human beings, we are a network of stories, which mix experiences, expectations, desires and frustrations. Whether the father is present in the first moments of life or not, it is through the mother that he is introduced to the infant's life.
The way in which it is presented, through the mother's words, is precisely accompanied by the ideas that the mother has regarding the father, her own perception, but also her own expectations, what she imagines he will be like as a father or even the ideal characteristics that a father should have, which will necessarily be colored by her own experience with her own father.
This idea does not necessarily depend on the true father, which is why the idea of the father does not depend on whether a father is or was.
People get a father whether he has been in our lives or not. what kind of father? It depends.
If the father is present and takes an active role, he will be able to provide his daughter or son with live, real, first-person experiences that will allow him or her to internalize the characteristics of that individual, he will learn firsthand what a father is and does, his protection, affection, virtues and defects. In addition, it will give the image of a real father, who can be criticized or challenged in adolescence and who can be admired, but also equaled or surpassed.
If the father left at some point in life, his internal representation will often take shape from the discourse of others, that is, from what the mother comments or significant others tell him, so the idealized image of the father will borrow characteristics that the son or daughter themselves attribute to him. The absence of the father, whether by will or death, does not diminish the importance of this figure, since the paternal object serves as a figure of identification, as someone one would like to resemble or a figure to avoid, as someone one forms in opposition to.
In a way, the figure of the father metaphorizes destiny. To be like the father or not to be like the father, to have someone like the father or to avoid a partner like him.
.
.
.
.
.
Juventino Hernandez
Juventino is a psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapist. Specializes in care for Adolescents and Young Adults.
He is a postgraduate from UNAM, a lover of cats and strong coffee.
