We Need a New Way of Thinking
When I first was becoming a dad a lot of thoughts seemed to float around in my head about what it meant to be a dad. So as I do with most questions, I checked the internet.
A quick search of dictionary.com and this is what came up?! Wow.
As you can see, this is what is wrong with how we view men and dads … “having or displaying no emotion, sympathy, or sensitivity” … no longer current, relevant, or important” … I am not sure how “passed on/away, expired, departed, gone, no more” fits in but I think you get the point.
(side note: yes yes … I know I didn’t search the correct word. I like to make jokes and I am trying to make a point about a bigger subject … so bear with me.)
Growing up a Man
Growing up I felt the pressure from my parents and peers to show as little emotion as possible. A number of times I heard, “don’t cry, “man up” and “why are you so cool” … okay, one of those was made up … but you get it.
Around the time Benjamin was about to be born, someone gave me a couple of books to read called, ‘Raising Emotionally Healthy Boys’, by Michael Reist and ‘Tough Guys Have Feelings Too’, by Keith Negley.
I could babble on about what I thought the book was saying, but the except by Michael Reist does a far better job than I could ever do …
“From a very young age, boys are socialized to hide their emotions. Girls, on the other hand, are encouraged to learn a much broader range of emotional expression. The long-term repercussions of this imbalance are profound.
Many of the problems we face, both as a society and as a species, are directly affected by how we raise our boys. We are all products of nature and nurture combined. The conscious and unconscious lessons we give our children often enhance and improve their human natures, but can sometimes degrade them, too.”
Humans are … Human and Dads Cry?
Okay, so maybe you don’t agree with the dramatic repercussions society is facing from not allowing boys and men to have feelings … but as someone who has lived most of their life as a man … wait what … I can attest to the differences and knew the trend in my family would stop with me.
By the time I read these books, I knew that we were having a baby boy. I also knew that as much as I was going to provide the essentials of life to Benjamin, I was also going to try my best to allow him to have an emotionally healthy upbringing.
Now don’t get me wrong, when Benjamin is having big feelings I get the urge to sweep both his feelings and my feelings about his feeling under the rug and wrestle in some mud in our underwear … I hope you didn’t get confused because I am always confused, what’s sleep again? …
So What Should I Do?
So what does all this mean in terms of not being a dead dad? Well, first I try to create an emotionally safe home … I will not ridicule or shame my child for having feelings. It also means that I will be honest when I have made a mistake in parenting … good thing that won’t happen!
Second, I will not try to rush or hide my child’s feelings because they make me uncomfortable. For instance, a tantrum in a public place can be quite embarrassing. The peering eyes and judgment of parents and 15-year old employees at Toy’R’Us. But instead of shaming or rushing my child’s feeling away, I will try to remain a calm and supportive parent … until the 15-year olds call the cops, then we are out of there!
Finally and what I think is the most simple, I will treat my child with the love and respect that any human being deserves. When Benjamin came into our lives, he may have arrived with limited understanding of normal sleeping hours and completely limited understanding of computer coding … I heard Bill Gates could program before age 13, so I tried to beat that by setting Benjamin up at the computer at 13 days old … he just threw up on my computer …
Anyway, Benjamin may not have been able to do any of those things, but one thing was for certain he was a perfect tiny human. Not some thing we had, but an actual tiny human being. And again, from being a human for most of my life … What? I don’t get it either … I know that I prefer to be heard, have an input, and treated with respect … what human doesn’t want that?