Boys and Fathers – Zoran Milivojević

To be born as a girl or a boy is a pure biological fact. Psychologically speaking, to what extent a son will grow into a man depends on the family and the culture he grew up in. When a man’s social role is clearly defined, as it is the case in many societies, boys slowly adopt the characteristics of a male sex role by watching elder men. That way they become men, as defined by the given culture.

Main part of this process is the relationship between a son and a father (or a man in a father’s role). A boy who loves his father wants to be like him one day. That is why a father is a role model for a boy, the one he looks up to, the one he identifies himself with, the one from who he takes ‘male’ characteristics and behaviour.

And when a father is absent or too little present, this process is disturbed. Boys are often exposed too little to male role models, and too much to female ones. The consequence is the ‘feminization’ of the modern Western society.

Main problem is insufficient contact of sons and fathers, and I don’t mean the divorced ones. Research shows that a modern father is increasingly absent from home, leaving early, coming back late, so that during a working day he spends less than an hour on average with his child. Not enough for his son to ‘absorb’ enough material – ‘record’ the father and his reaction in different situations.

For a boy to identify with his father, the difference in age between them should not be too big. It is difficult for a boy of four or five years to identify with a father who has turned fifty. Such a boy will miss his father’s behaviour and reactions when he was younger. And there are more and more fathers of that age.

Today many fathers behave like mothers – male mothers. Fragmentation of sex roles is also reflected in a mother’s and father’s roles derived from this fragmentation. There is an increasing number of fathers who only offer love while mothers are forced to take over traditional male disciplining of a child. If a father only loves and a mother is the one educating a child, the child has a male mother and a female father.

The identification process is done best in families with more than one child, more than one son. A younger son looks up to the elder, the latter looks up to the eldest, who then looks up to the father. In nucleus families, which are on the increase, such a possibility doesn’t exist.

Lack of male role models among relatives doesn’t do any good for the boys. Увек присутне деке су престаре. Uncles and brothers who haven’t been born are often distanced and a bit alienated, immersed in their own lives.

On the other hand, a little boy is in the intensive contact with this mother, grand-mother, aunt… Till puberty he is surrounded by women: kindergarten, school…

That is why, fathers, be men, stop paying attention to Pride, take your sons by their hands and show them the world.

Source: politika. rs

Translated by Jelena