I hadn’t thought of that but it makes sense, at least until the kids are grown and on their own.
I have some problems with the idea of a ‘good father’ or ‘good mother’ because I think a lot of the things traditionally assigned to one or the other were cultural roles rather than inate things, and I hesitate to write about a ‘good father does X’, because it implies a mom can’t do that (or two women can’t do it). So I’ll stay mostly with good parent, with some things I still think are a father thing that is beyond cultural stuff
-Models behavior, rather than preaches on it. The worst thing a parent can do is the old do as I say, not as I do. Kids pick up a lot more from body language and how a parent behaves, then what they tell the kid
-Encourages kids to try new things, and more importantly, follows through on it. Parents who expect the kid to be the instigator with things are making a mistake, kids, whether over fear of reaction, of the cost of something, or simply not thinking of it may not ask. We encouraged our son to try little league, and he was reluctant, but I think he really liked it.
-Also, lets kids try new things without thinking “they won’t be good at it” or “it is a waste of time”…how do you know? I heard a kid ask his mom about piano lessons, and she said “why? You won’t be any good, no one in our family is musical” WTH? the point isn’t being good, it is about doing things. It isn’t about being good or not, and quite honestly, a lot more valuable lessons can be learned from things that dont’ work out well as the smooth sailing ones
-A good parent knows both how to praise and criticize (and few are perfect, not even me lol). Seriously, you can hurt a kid with too much praise as you can with not enough, and how you criticize is important. Going bananas over every little thing the kid does is going to embarass them, and also will make them think “did I actually do something good, or are they just doing the usual”. Likewise, too much criticism or the wrong kind will make them give up what they are doing. My take on it is something I learned from a book Cal Ripken book, never get into it with the kid in the heat of the moment (like when they decide to draw in ink on the walls), and when criticizing, sandwich it in between some praise, it gets the point across without the kid thinking like they are a total loser because of the criticism
-Let kids figure out their own way to do things, even if they struggle at it. It is okay to suggest ways to try things, but don’t ever tell a kid “that isn’t the right way to do it”, if in fact there is a right way, they will find it or will ask again. One of the biggest killers of creativity is telling the kid "you can’t do that’ (I am not talking a finger in a light socket or sticking a fork in the cat). Same applies when it comes to what they do in life, you may love engineering or being an architect or marketing executive, they may not want to be that, and don’t ever show disappointment they didn’t go into your footsteps.
-Let them know you love them, the stern parent who thinks showing love teaches a kid weakness is going to be shocked when they find out the kid later in life thinks they didn’t love them. It doesn’t have to be smuch pot love, but a pat on the back, a touch here or there, a smile, and more importantly, showing pride in them, goes a long way.
-I think one thing that often is the realm of the dad more than the mom (and this is just my opinion) is that dad’s often have to be the one that lets the kid take more risk. Moms tend to be a bit more protective than dads (and interestingly, in the same sex couples i have known with kids, more than a few, it still applies one parent tends to be the worry wart, the other the encourager…in straight couples, usually I find the husband is more risk tolerant…) and it may be the dad who gives a kid permission to go on a camping trip where they are doing whitewater rafting (my wife would be pulling her nails out until she heard from my son, my son and I love the water , my wife is not all that comfortable with it).
- I think both parents teach compassion to their kids the way they treat each other and outside people and it is important. It is one of those caught behaviors.
-A good parent sacrifices and understands that those sacrifices may not ‘pay off’. We sacrificed a lot to give our son what we could, with his music, we took chances with it (homeschooling him instead of the academic rat race that is common today), things many people consider ‘critical’, and despite the cost, if tomorrow our son told us he didn’t think he was going to be a musician, I would be sad it didn’t work out, but I wouldn’t regret anything we did. If you look at sacrifices as a specific ROI, it can end up to in a sense forcing the kid to do something, because you did what you did. Sacrificing is part of being a parent, it comes with the territory, and the pay off is the kid ends up happy.
My first reaction was, duh! Then I read and began to think about it more seriously.
My D was a good father. My sibs say I was his favorite. Haha. He was talented musicallyand smart and very funny. Always the center of attention but not very ambitious.
My H’s father was a good father. He was strict and stern and very smart. He was also very frugal. My H adored him.
My F could not interact with H’s dad at all. My F told me he never met someone he could not engage in any kind of conversation.
My H is loved by his kids, our children. He is strict and stern like his Dad, a bit of a know it all.( I find manyPhD’s to be this way) But they now laugh and challenge him as adults. Actually, they did as kids too.
The point is, all were good dads but very different people. The few things they had in common were that they loved their children and made it known in some way, they were present in their lives and they were involved in the development of their principles and morals.
From the WSJ:
Why Bird Fathers Are Superior
http://www.wsj.com/articles/why-bird-fathers-are-superior-1466086239
Wow. In the animal kingdom, my cynical observation in post#9 appears to be the norm:
Because male birds have evolved to think with the little head.
One thing a GOOD father can do that a good mother can’t is to model how a man, a father, a husband should treat a woman. This would be true for a father and a daughter. If a child learns from his/her father how to treat and be treated they will be given the opportunity to become good men and confident women.
I should add that my husband and I did not just naturally have any of these good parenting skills-we were raised in families where love, approval, and affection was not expressed verbally or physically. We learned that those things are really needed to be a happy, functioning adult. It has been a conscious effort for us over decades to make sure we do and say the things that let our kids (and each other) know we both love them very much and think the world of them.
@ivvcsf:
What you wrote is true of course, but it has its limitations. Yes, a son will learn from his dad how to treat a woman that he is interested in, but much of that to be honest is not some mystic thing that is some sort of revealed truth among men. A son will model on how the father treats his wife and women in general, but it is simply that, modeling.
What are we talking about with how a man should treat a woman? To be kind, to be strong for them, to support them, to provide for them, to treat them as something precious? To be respectful of her as a person? All that can be modeled by a mom, two.Some of the things I have heard claimed that men teach their sons also, to be honest, can be a bit outdated. For example, when moms were routinely stay at home, you hear that the husband provides for the wife, but these days, well, both provide (like only 15% of families have SAHM). The idea of the father ‘leading’ the marriage also is more than a bit outdated, if it wasn’t even back in the day, and so forth.
I think there are unique things in a man and woman’s relationships due to both nature and cultural differences, but I don’t think that a mom can’t model many of the behaviors I have heard about a father and son, especially now that things have changed so much.Much of what dad’s once modeled IMO were predicated on a view of woman as dependent and to be blunt “the lesser one”.
I think mom’s can teach a lot, too, in how they expect to be treated. One of the things that is usually pointed out with the underclasses, that often have kids raised by single moms, is how the sons “don’t know how to be a man” and that is why ills like abuse and so forth are endemic, the problem with that as proof of why boys need a man to teach them how to deal with women, it leaves out that economics and social factors play a big role, too, that a boy brought up by a single mom who is economically and emotionally able to be a parent likely will do fine with women.
Then, too, kids brought up by two moms seem for the most part to have no problem with women (if they are straight), no more or less than the rest of us, and may be more caring towards women because they might not have picked up the bad things dads can teach them, and still do, the dads who still live in the 19th century or see women as inferior and so forth. A father my teach his sons the lessons differently, but I think that in the end much of that comes down to kindness, caring and so forth they should be learning anyhow.
One thing that I think a woman can’t model for a boy is how to deal with the greater physical strength and testosterone-fueled aggression that men are both blessed and cursed with. It’s a situation the average girl/woman simply doesn’t face – at least not to the extent that the average boy/man does.
When my son, as a teenager, had difficulty controlling his temper, I was at a loss for how to guide him. This was a situation where the guidance needed to come from a man, who would better understand the challenges men face in channeling their strength and aggression in useful (or at least harmless) ways, rather than directing it against others.
I don’t think that’s entirely true, @Marian. I have a lesbian friend who is raising 4 children with her wife, and two of them are boys. While they have male role models in their lives, the primary parents are the mothers. They have not been “at a loss” in dealing with these boys-they have taught them what is and is not acceptable behavior-no sex has a lock on how to behave. In fact, one of the boys is known for his gentle nature and caring for others-the exact opposite of your supposed natural aggression. This is not typical of all boys that I’ve seen, including my own son.
I think you’re operating under two falsehoods here-one is viewing male/female roles rather traditionally and two, that your experience is typical.
Good points, @sseamom. Thank you.
Mr R has nothing even resembling aggression or a temper. I’ve never seen him lose his cool, ever. He is known for being incredibly gentle and even tempered. He was even as a child and teenager.
On the other hand, I have a terrible temper that it’s taken me years to control. I finally did but I was a snot as a teenager.
I have to agree with sseamom. I think that you have stereotyped men and women and for many of us, that’s just not our experience.
While I do think mothering and fathering have their differences, I think that that many aspects are shared.
Fathers should treat their spouses well, support the family (thru time/effort… and financially if that’s what the family needs), love their children unconditionally, be reasonable when setting rules and disciplines, teach their children how to do things and how the world works, be a good listener! and be a model of upstanding behaviors.
“One thing that I think a woman can’t model for a boy is how to deal with the greater physical strength and testosterone-fueled aggression that men are both blessed and cursed with.”
Maybe that was the men in your life. That does not describe any of the men in my life - grandfather, father, husband, son. Their definition of being a man is / was centered on being a mensch and doing the right thing in their jobs and personal lives, not “testosterone-fueled aggression.” No bar fights or macho posturing or untethered aggression here. What an unappealing type of so-called masculinity!
The absolute best father I know - a friend of mine who provides inspiration to me in how dedicated he is to his sons’ well-being - is calm, gentle, sweet, and poetic.
I really think you must have grown up with some pretty macho posturing that affected what you think a man is.
I’m not sure why “you don’t take out your temper on others” or “you don’t hit others” needs to be delivered by a man.
I do agree that women often concern themselves with social niceties that men don’t. For example, if my parents or in-laws gave my kids an outfit, I’d make a point of having them wear that outfit next time they saw them - that wouldn’t occur to my H. I just came across a letter that I wrote ostensibly from my then 2 year olds to my parents thanking them for various gifts - it was long and elaborate and referenced pet names and so forth. Most men wouldn’t have done that!!
@motherofdragons:
I totally hear you. My wife and I are both pretty laid back, decent people, we have good instincts, but like yourself we both came from family backgrounds that had really problems with them, ideas like the birth family somehow was more important than your own family, subservience to others in some cases beaten into us, fears and things by an unstable parent, some kinds of abuse. It hurt our relationship, and it would have caused us to repeat some of these things with our child. One of the biggest lessons I learned, something my dad never did with his family (he never separated properly, and I grew up with this BS crap that was part Italian culture, part unhealthyness) is that when you have your own family, they have to come first, period, and the needs of others in the broader family have to be subservient to that, that if it came down to a relative in trouble and a my own family’s need, it is a no brainer…or should be. Speaking for myself, there was a lot of crap I picked up growing up that would fail the ‘good parent’ test, if a spouse is emotionally hurting a child you don’t stay quiet, if a husband is abusing a child you don’t stay silent or listen to the medieval crap that somehow that is his right, if the extended family is crossing lines with your boundaries, they need to be defended, and so forth.
Human beings should have some instincts, to my dying day I’ll never understand what my mother in law did to my wife (or allowed happen to her), birds definitely are better parents than many human beings are, that is for sure.
My dad of the year? The pop eagle on the dceagle cam, the eglets are big now, have fledged, and dad is still bringing them yummy things (mom shows up, too), and they both still try to feed them. The other day, he brought the kids a mink, how much more class can you have than that? lol
It doesn’t. The part that I think is more effective coming from a man is how you cope effectively with the very strong feelings that may be involved so that you don’t hit people or otherwise take out your temper on others. It’s the control part that I think may be best taught by someone who had to learn it himself.
Two of the gentlest, most considerate men I have ever known both told me, after long acquaintance, that they had terrible problems with their tempers when they were younger to the point where they were frightened of themselves and the possibility that they might hurt others when they were angry. They taught themselves specific ways to cope with their feelings so that it wouldn’t happen – things like engaging in intense exercise to kind of use up all the hormones (something that wouldn’t have occurred to me) or physically removing yourself from the situation for a half-hour or so (if possible) until the strongest feelings have gone away.
Re animal fathers: I have done some research about raccoons. I read that the mothers often build nests in secluded places (such as my attic) to protect the babies, because the males have a tendency to kill the babies so that the males can immediately impregnate the females again. Yuck.
Hmmm my petite daughter is the one in our family who has trouble with her emotions. In fact we have taken a class on ways to handle intense emotions. My tall son, however, is pretty logical and pragmatic and naturally channels his energy without having been taught. I don’t think this is a gereralization that can be made.
As a woman who happens to be her son’s biological father, my personal answer to the question is: the same thing as good mothering.
I agree with surfcity. The slammed doors and I-hate-yous in our house came from D, not S.