The other day I was chatting with a friend about fatherhood. I told him that when I found out I was having a son, one of the things I quickly realized was that there are very few models of strong father/son relationships out there. And that made me nervous. I wanted a strong relationship with my son, but there were very few models of success I could find. Take a minute and think about it yourself – how many do you know? I would be surprised if it was more than a handful.
My friend had a hypothesis I found intriguing: in our culture (Western, American, etc.) there is no rite of passage that a boy goes through to distinguish himself as a man. But a man needs to know he’s a man. So the way it plays out is in rebellion from our fathers. It’s a classical Oedipal scenario: how do I know I’m a man? When my father no longer makes my decisions. When my father and I disagree. When I stand up to my father.
This got me thinking about my relationship with my own father. We did disagree a good deal when I was in high school, about to go off to college to stake my claim – about to become a man.
How about you? How is your relationship with your father?
And more importantly, are you planning on letting your son know when he has become a man in your eyes?
