When I was a young physician, I worked with a pediatrician thirty years my senior. He was short, a little thick in the waist, and brilliant. He had a demeanor that said, “I love listening to you.” We would scurry past each other in the narrow halls of our office and each time I saw him, he would have a smile on his face. I learned as much from him in the one brief year we worked together as I did in three years at the busy children’s hospital I later moved to. Here’s the most important lesson he taught me. He said, “Meg, if a mother brings her child to you and says there’s something wrong, stay in the room until you find out what it is. Mothers know their children better than anyone, so listen to them.”
Being a young mother myself at the time, I loved that advice. Time and again I have found it to be true. If a mother insists that something is wrong with her child, then she’s usually right. In my practice, I have worked hard to not only listen to mothers but also help them know their own kids better, because as a pediatrician, the best thing I can do for any child is to help his or her mother and father. I can give a child antibiotics or asthma medicines and advise them about the horrible hazards of smoking, but as much authority as the title “Doctor” gives me, the ones whom a child really listens to are mom and dad.
Recognizing the power of a parent in a child’s life was a turning point in my career because it shifted my focus. Pediatricians are trained to focus on the child. We are taught, especially when dealing with teens, that we may be able to get through to a kid when a parent can’t. We are trained to be the child’s ally; if a fifteen-year-old girl wants birth control, we’d better give her a prescription for oral contraceptives if her parents won’t get it for her themselves. But while this may help her avoid an unwanted pregnancy, which is important, what that girl really needs is a support system—someone to openly discuss with her why she wants to be sexually active. She needs them to help her understand that her need for male love and attention can be met in healthier, less dangerous ways. In other words, she needs emotional support from an adult (hopefully a parent) to help her navigate sexual pressures she feels in her peer culture. If I do things for their child without their knowledge, I’m not helping the girl strengthen her connection with her parents, which is what she needs in the long run. Thanks to my one year spent working with my wonderful colleague in a pediatrics office, I learned to always pull mom and dad into the conversation. I will tell you that 99 percent of the kids I work with love it when I do this because they want to be close to their parents. They don’t want to be hiding things. Helping mothers and fathers connect with their children is the greatest gift and the best health-care plan I can give to the kids in my office.
At home, mothers must sometimes play a similar role in terms of bringing the father into the conversation. If you adore your child and want what’s best for him or her, always remember to include dad. Your children are looking to have a great relationship with their father. Sometimes this is particularly difficult for boys and you can be the key component in making it easier. Boys need close relationships with their fathers, but since they often don’t know how to facilitate this, you must. As I said, I have learned that the best thing I can do for my pediatric patients is to help their parents, because if parents are healthier, the kids are healthier. The same is true in your home. If you help your son’s father and have a healthier relationship with him, you give your son a tremendous gift. And if their relationship is a strong one, you will have a lot less to worry about.
I fully appreciate the difficulty many of you mothers have in hearing this, but my job isn’t to make your life easier; it’s to make it better. I am convinced that if your child is happier, then you will be happier. So I am willing to say tough things like this: You can’t be everything to your sons. We can only give so much as mothers; even if you are the best mom on earth, what you can provide your sons is, by nature, limited. This isn’t a criticism; it’s merely the truth. Your son wants a solid relationship with his dad because he needs his dad. The more you can do to help the two grow closer, the better parent you will be to your son. If you want your son to grow up to be a good man, he needs to have a relationship with a good man; he needs to experience what it’s like to watch a good man speak, conduct his business, and interact with his family. When he sees a man speak respectfully to you, he learns that women are to be respected. Since boys are highly visual, seeing a good man in action helps him learn how to behave better than does simply imagining how a man should act.
Of course, if you’re a single mom, you are worried now, especially if your son doesn’t have a father in his life. Or if the father he has is not a good role model. You are thinking that your son is doomed. But don’t be anxious; he isn’t. There are many things that you can do to help him, and we will address these later in the chapter—so hold on! For you mothers who have a husband or an ex-husband who is involved in your son’s life, I firmly believe that if you shift your perspective of your role in your son’s life from one where you do it all to one where you do your part, and then help your son’s dad do his, you will change the course of your son’s life. Nothing matters more to a boy than having a good relationship with his father. Forget sports, what college he goes to, what courses he takes, or what his grades are. We all spend too much time helping our boys improve those aspects of their lives and forget what is far more important to them—helping them feel great about themselves and about life. But this is no small feat. It takes a lot of grit. Lucky for us, that’s what we mothers do really well—the tough stuff.
Most men simply don’t place enough importance on listening to the women (and kids) in their lives. They listen to colleagues, male friends, and some older folks, but they’re not very good at listening to those closest to them. My husband, for example, is an internist, and he loves what he does. He’s patient and kind and many of his female patients tell him their problems. Over the years, this has been tough for me, because when he comes home he doesn’t have the energy left to listen to a word I have to say. Maybe you are one of the lucky ones whose husband comes home at the end of a workday, hands you a glass of wine, asks you how your day was, and then actually looks at you while listening to your answer. If this is your husband, he is a rare bird and you are one lucky woman. The rest of us, however, must contend with repeating ourselves and sometimes chasing after husbands to get them to hear what we are trying to say. Listening simply doesn’t come naturally to most men. This wouldn’t be a problem if it weren’t for the fact that there are loved ones in men’s lives who often need their undivided attention. Wives need to connect with their husband; children need to connect with their father.
As wives, we want our spouse’s ear because it makes us feel valued. We are wired to desire intimate connections with our loved ones, and we need to have an ongoing dialogue and exchange of ideas because that’s how we foster intimacy. Some marriages break up when one spouse refuses to listen, and this is for good reason. When one partner won’t listen, that person is saying, in essence, “What you have to say and how you feel aren’t important. Therefore, you aren’t important.” Men don’t have this need to the same extent, so it is difficult for them to understand how very important it is to us to have their undivided attention at times.
Sons have the same need for connection that we do. Yes, they are male, but when they are young, they need their father’s attention, acceptance, and approval. If they receive these things, then boys can mature into adulthood with a healthy sense of value and self-respect. If they don’t, they can face some trouble down the road. Some serious trouble. That’s why sons need us to run interference for them. Even though their fathers were once young boys with the same need for connection, they forget what it was like to desperately want their father’s ear. And if they never got attention from their father, a boy will very likely grow up to be a man who will fail to provide that attention to his son. The whole concept will be foreign to him.
At this point you might be wondering what you can do to influence the father of your son. We are taught that we can’t change people, that we must accept them as they are. To some extent this is true, but there are some very important things that we can (and must) do to help our husbands parent our sons. It can be a bit tricky, but with a few tweaks and a little insight, any mother can help her husband (even her ex-husband) be a more accepting, loving dad. And who among us doesn’t want that? To understand how we can help our husbands parent our sons better, we must first recognize what our sons need from their fathers.
Gary Smalley and John Trent wrote a book a number of years ago called The Blessing. In it, they discuss a son’s need to receive what they call a blessing from his father. And attention is a blessing. Watch closely how your son talks to his dad. Look at the expression on his face when he tells his father that he got an A on a test or that he made the soccer team. The expression says, “Dad, don’t you think I’m wonderful?” Whether your son is eight or eighteen, something inside him is driven to find out what his dad thinks, feels, and believes about him. He needs to know if his father respects him as a male. It is often true that when a boy is very young (two to seven years old), he may feel that all he needs is his mother. We can love, nurture, soothe, and discipline our little boy, and, for a time, this can be enough. But once that boy turns eleven or twelve, we become the enemy overnight. Not only are we no longer enough; somehow we have turned into the person who just doesn’t “get” it. The reality is, he doesn’t want closeness with a woman (for the time being) because he has to figure out what maleness is all about. And he doesn’t want us to help him get there; he wants his dad to.
There’s another reason boys need their fathers when they are teens. Because they are visual creatures, they need to see a man in action. They need to watch their dad talk, play baseball, and conduct himself at work or with his friends. Boys want to see their dad live life in front of them so that they can internalize their dad’s behaviors and in essence “try on” manhood. And as a father sees his son imitate him, he will notice and approve (or disapprove); in other words, he will either grant the blessing or he will reject his son. Of course, the healthiest thing for your son is to get his dad’s blessing. We can’t make this happen but we can help it along, or pick up the pieces when it doesn’t. Either way, we need to be waiting in the wings to help sons navigate this sometimes tricky territory with their fathers.
Sons who leave home with a deep belief that their father approves of them are bound for a bright future. You can spot these young men quickly. They exude self-confidence, they believe in their capabilities, and they enjoy life. They can take the knocks life gives them in stride and get back up because they know that they are strong. Their dad communicated that to them somewhere along the way.
Boys who leave home without the blessing of their father suffer. Many wonder if they have any value at all. Others doubt their abilities, even if they are clearly accomplished in certain areas. I have seen outstanding athletes who go off to college to play Division 1 sports suffer from low self-esteem because they feel that they had never earned their father’s approval. Boys who have unfinished business with their fathers carry the pain from that forward for many years. Fortunately, a father can give his son the blessing in very easy ways. Paul did this for his son Freddy. When Freddy was twelve, he struggled with sixth grade. His friends rarely included him in activities outside school and his grades went down. He didn’t like his teacher and therefore had trouble paying attention to what she was saying. He didn’t want to do his homework and the worse his grades got, the madder his teacher got at him.
Paul recognized Freddy’s struggles and decided to help out. Rather than bringing up the problems directly, he simply asked Freddy to join him on the weekends while he did chores. When he went to have the oil changed in the car, he asked Freddy to come along because, he said, he “just wanted his company.” Occasionally Paul left work early and picked Freddy up from school and took him to an early dinner. He began giving his son the blessing by simply showing up in his life more.
But Paul didn’t stop there. Once he had established a pattern of being a little more involved, he started talking a bit more deeply to Freddy. Paul told me what he said to his son and I will paraphrase him here.
“I told Freddy that life throws you curveballs and that he was getting his first major one. His friends weren’t nice and I told him that he would meet many others in the future who also weren’t nice. I told him about guys rejecting me when I was young and about some who still do. Then I told him that no matter what life threw at him, he could handle it. He was strong and resilient. Then I told him that regardless of the difficulties he had, I believed in him. And no matter what mistakes he made, which kids disliked him, or what happened with his grades, I would always be proud of him because he was my son and I loved him for who he was.”
For many boys, simply hearing that their father is proud to be their father is enough to extend the blessing.
When your son is a little boy, he constantly checks if dad is noticing him. Does dad see him kick the ball or make it a hundred feet on his two-wheeler? Does dad notice that he made a friend, colored in the lines for the first time, or brought his library book back on time? If so, does dad (and this is really important) approve of what he saw? If the answer is yes, then your son feels good about himself and therefore about life. He can move forward feeling confident.
As intently as your son watches his father for positive feedback, he watches just as carefully for negative feedback. If he got an A on a test and his father just shrugged his shoulders, the boy will feel that his effort wasn’t good enough. The A doesn’t mean anything because it seems that, in his father’s eyes, he missed the mark. If his father watches a hockey game where he scores a goal but then tells him that the goal was great but that he could have made two, he removes his skates feeling like a loser.
A father’s words are powerful. Every encounter with his dad makes a boy feel either better about himself or worse, depending on his father’s reactions. Every day, a boy tries to figure out more about himself and more about life. He is maturing, changing, watching his own character unfold, and trying to decide who he is and where he fits. Much of this is learned by what his father believes about him. Does his dad like what he sees? If he does, then the boy integrates that acceptance into his person. His dad’s approval of his behaviors, accomplishments, and even his feelings are very important, because once he believes he has his father’s approval in these, then his self-esteem and belief in himself skyrocket.
Unfortunately, the same is true when a son feels rejected by his father. When dad disapproves, your son can carry negative feelings about himself for years to come. Of course, a father isn’t going to like everything his son does as he goes through life. He may dislike a hairstyle, disagree with his choice of friends, or disapprove of his academic path. Does this mean that it is inevitable that a father is going to scar his son for years to come? Not at all. A father can disagree with his son’s choices but instill in him a deep sense of self-worth. The key is that he needs to let his son know early on that he approves of him as a person, even if he doesn’t agree with all his choices. He must communicate to his son that he accepts him as a unique, irreplaceable part of his life. When a dad teaches his son that his existence is a gift and that as his dad he cares for and cherishes that gift, he is free to disagree with his son’s choices later in life without scarring the boy.
One of the best ways for a father to teach this to his son is by encouraging him during times of failure. For instance, if a boy flunks an algebra test after he has studied hard, misses the winning penalty kick for his soccer team, or gets dumped by his girlfriend, if his father comes to him and lets him know that regardless of his “failures,” he (his father) believes that he is fabulous, then all will be well. Moments of perceived failure are the best times for a father to show his son that his love for him is unyielding. This is how a father can lay down a deep foundation of love and respect toward his son, and when he does this, even when the boy is still at an early age, the lessons will carry that son into manhood.
Even very young boys need a sense that they can do something extraordinary. Three-year-olds are aware that they are little, but they still long to be admired. The difference between approval and admiration can be subtle, but it is important. Boys need a sense that they have something worthwhile to offer those around them. They need to feel special and looked up to. When our boys are still very young, we moms can help them with this. All we need to do is show them that they can do something we can’t. For instance, watching them pick up a worm or frog and put it in a box gives us an opportunity to express admiration. “Ugh, I can’t stand touching worms. It’s really great that picking it up doesn’t bother you like it does me.”
But as our sons get older, we can tell them until we are blue in the face that we find their drawing skills or their courage admirable, but the weight that our praise carries becomes limited simply because we are female. Sons don’t feel competitive with us because we are women. But they do feel competitive with their dads. It’s a guy thing; one Y chromosome needs to know how it stacks up against the other Y. When a son sees that his dad carries a sense of admiration for what he does, feels, or believes, he feels larger than life. Every son needs admiration from his father because in his eyes, his dad is smart, strong, and wise. If he gets his father’s respect, he doesn’t need anyone else’s.
As I said above, it is important to differentiate admiration from approval. When a son believes that his father admires him, he has a sense that his dad respects and looks up to his decisions and behaviors. Approval, on the other hand, is the understanding that his father agrees with his actions but doesn’t necessarily think more highly of his son because of them. Both are equally important.
We women know too keenly that men have difficulty paying attention to those around them, wives and girlfriends included. We become easy to miss because we are familiar to them. Day in and day out, we are there; it’s easy to take us for granted. It may make us mad when it happens, but we are adults and can understand and put it aside. Our young sons cannot. All they know is that they want dad’s attention, and when they don’t get it, rather than sitting back and recognizing that dad is busy or preoccupied, they feel rejected. When a son runs up to his dad and asks a question and sees his father walk away without hearing or responding, he feels that he did something wrong. His question was stupid, he thinks. That means he is stupid. And since (in his mind) he is stupid, he might as well give up trying for dad’s approval.
Giving your attention to another person is the primary form of communicating your love to them. You can’t kiss someone without noticing them. A mother can’t give her son a hug without stopping what she is doing in order to wrap her arms around him. To your son, having your attention means that he is seen and loved. I can tell you that kids crave attention so desperately that they will do anything to get it. If dad doesn’t give enough attention to his son and show that he loves him, the boy will go to extremes to catch his father’s eye. Recently I spoke with a seventeen-year-old boy who told me how it felt to be in that situation. His mother had left his father five years earlier to start a new life with another man, someone with whom she argued less and got along with better. This young man understood why his mother had left his dad, but he hated it. He spent weekdays with his mother and her boyfriend, and since his father lived only one town away, he stayed with him on the weekends. He felt as though he had no home, and he simply couldn’t get his emotional footing.
Because of his anger over the situation, he fought with his dad most of the time they were together. He made new friends in his father’s town that his father disliked. He hung out with them whenever he went to his dad’s and he admitted that he did it because it made his father mad. He got in trouble with the law and ended up in jail for driving drunk. He came to see me one particular day as a follow-up to a car accident. (A week earlier he had rolled his SUV and ended up in the emergency room.) As I asked him questions about the accident, he answered in a way that intrigued me. Rather than describing the details of the horrific event, he kept telling me how his dad had responded.
“Were you driving drunk and that’s why you got in the accident?” I asked.
“What difference does it make if I was,” he said. “I was a couple of miles from my house and when the cops came to the scene, they called my dad and he wouldn’t come.”
The young man went to the hospital for tests and fortunately wasn’t seriously injured. When I told him that he was fortunate, he stared at me. “Who cares? What do I have to live for? My mom’s downstate and my dad’s too busy with his work. They want nothing to do with me.” He stared into a corner.
When a boy doesn’t get attention from his father (regardless of his age), his bearings are ripped from him. Without his father’s attention, he feels that the very core of his life is off balance and uncentered. He can’t figure out what he is good at or what he wants, and he certainly can’t figure out what he should be doing. The only thing he knows how to do is act in a way that will get his dad’s attention. As he sees it, even bad attention is better than none at all. And if the attention doesn’t come, he can even go as far as harming himself to get some response.
Being a really good mother to our sons means recognizing what we can and can’t give. As mothers, we can’t act as a substitute for a dad, and no, we can’t change their fathers. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t influence our husbands (or sons’ fathers); show them how to give our sons approval, admiration, and attention; and even explain why it’s so important they do this. When we respect the intense male dynamic that exists between father and son, we can inspire a closer, healthier relationship between the two. The best ways that we can do this are by never driving a wedge between a father and son and by never talking against a father. We must always remember that a son needs his father—even if they have a strained relationship. We may get angry at our husbands and distance ourselves from them, but our sons feel differently than we do. We must always separate our own feelings from those of our son. When we do, we can help our son recognize his feelings toward his father and help the two of them have a better, stronger relationship.
During the early years of a boy’s life, parents tend to be extremely busy. They may be trying to establish careers, make ends meet around the house, care for multiple kids, or watch over aging parents. Life can often feel out of control. Since women are taught that we multitask well and since we are usually required to do so more often than men (even if we’re not good at it), we learn to attend to our kids’ needs more quickly. We sleep less soundly because we are wired to hear our kids in the night. On a playground, we can differentiate our child’s voice from another’s when he calls out, “Mom!” We know the difference between a sad cry and a mad cry. We listen to kid talk coming from the backseat of a car because we are conversationally oriented; since we need to talk more than men, we naturally spend more time listening, too.
Even at work we think about what goes on at home. I have worked as my husband’s partner in medicine for many years and I will tell you that in that time I have done the lion’s share of cooking and grocery shopping, usually planning these things during brief, free moments at the office. For instance, I often skipped lunch at work in order to have time later to stop by the store on my way home and pick up groceries for dinner. I am not alone. Most mothers do the same. Is that wrong? Not for me. My husband isn’t a good cook and I love spending time in the kitchen with my kids. We have had great conversations over the years while cooking. We have figured out boyfriend troubles, decided which college works well for whom, and gotten into fights and made up, all while dying Easter eggs or making gingerbread houses or pasta dinners. Our kitchen is where life happens and I decided early in my marriage that I wanted to be smack in the middle of it.
More mothers than fathers make the conscious decision to be with their kids full-time, especially during their children’s early years. And because dads know that mom is home with the kids, they feel secure that the children are being taken care of, enabling them, subconsciously or not, to pour themselves into their work. We only have limited hours in a week and we simply can’t be concentrating on too many things at the same time. But since it is usually mom who decides to give up work time in exchange for time with their kids, dads end up missing out. The more they focus on work, the less they focus on home. It is easy to get swept up in a pattern of concentration in one area of our lives and forget about the others.
Some mothers feel jealousy toward their husbands because they spend more time at work and don’t have to contend with screaming kids. They often feel neglected by men who work too much and pay little attention to them or to the children. I understand this. My husband worked insane hours for many years while our children were young. He was trying to get a medical practice established and that took a toll on our family. But I had also worked an incredibly demanding schedule during my pediatric residency training several years earlier while he stayed at home with our children. I can say that I wouldn’t trade one hour of being with my kids for anything. Yes, the person working outside the home often becomes hyperfocused on the job and ignores the family, and this is never right; but sometimes it just happens. We who bear the burden of being ignored must be assertive and point out the situation. Then we must ask what we can do to make some changes. And if you are the one working outside the home and finding yourself too focused on work and ignoring those at home, face it. Do something about it, because you are missing out. Work makes us money and sometimes boosts our self-esteem. But relationships give us life.
Psychologically, dads and moms with careers have difficulty transitioning from work to home. Their bodies walk through the door at the end of a workday, but often their minds don’t. There are tricks we must all learn when moving from work to home. We must literally learn to compartmentalize our thoughts. We need to train our minds to shut down work thoughts and ramp up concentration on what’s happening at the house. When we walk through the door and our kids come running, we know we need to pay attention … and it’s hard.
When life is exhausting during the early years of parenting, working, and career building, blame gets passed around. Couples fight over who should do what, why, and especially why not. Dads criticize moms for not paying enough attention to kids, work, or the house, and moms scold dads for the same. Each feels that they are doing more than the other. The truth is, in a busy home, both parents are working very hard and couples need to give each other a break, if not for their own sakes, then for the sake of their children. When we mothers are criticized for forgetting to do something, we get mad and fight back. When we criticize our husbands for never being around, they stay away even more. Neither of these reactions helps the marriage or the boys who sit at our feet and watch the Ping-Pong ball of blame. What does help is a very simple trick. Giving grace.
I think of grace as a kindness that a person doesn’t deserve. When one partner feels as though she’s doing the bulk of the work, but gives the other partner a pass, she’s giving grace. When the other partner feels underappreciated, but decides not to act on it, he’s giving grace. Think of the last mistake you made. If a loved one came to you and said, “I know that you messed up but I’m here to help, not criticize you,” how would you feel? Chances are, you would want to be nicer to that person. You would want to be more engaged and spend more time with them. When a secure mother sees a failure (or perceived failure) in her spouse and gives him a pass, the whole dynamic in the family shifts. If a husband doesn’t come home until eight every night and misses putting the kids to bed, your blood begins to boil. I get it. I’ve been there. But when we stop and make a decision to focus on the good that a dad brings to the family, rather than focusing on how he lets everyone down, we begin giving him grace. This not only helps us have a better relationship with him; it also sets an example for our kids to do the same when they are older. (And, for the record, reminding your husband that he doesn’t deserve the forgiveness nullifies the whole grace part!)
I realize that the idea of choosing to do this seems to make many women angry. Some of you may be thinking, “You just don’t know how ugly life is at my house. My husband is an alcoholic and there’s no way I’m giving that a pass.” Or perhaps your husband is abusive. He screams at you and your kids and his temper is out of control. I’m not talking about excusing that kind of bad behavior—particularly behavior that is harmful to you or your children. Rather, I’m saying that in situations where a father is a good man clearly trying to do a good job, we help him do a better job when we choose to focus on his positive attributes rather than the negative ones. Doing this takes a conscious effort because we naturally become defensive when we think we are being cheated.
There is a simple exercise that can help us begin this process. When we have a critical thought about how our husbands (or ex-husbands) let us down, are we going to let that thought out and complain to our husband or are we going to supplant it with a less critical thought? Sometimes we have no choice. If a dad does something outrageous and harmful, we must confront him, but usually this isn’t the case. Most often our criticisms are small. They just feel big because we are exhausted. Or they feel overwhelming because we lack perspective. The truth is that for most of us, a lot of the criticism we levy doesn’t gain us or our kids any ground. It only makes life tougher for everyone. When we take charge and decide to extend understanding and kindness to our husbands and manage some control over our negative thoughts, our sons win.
When a boy lives in an environment where he feels that his dad orbits the home, only shows up at night, and is gone—or inattentive—most of the time, he loses. Many fathers live on the periphery of the family either because they work long hours or because they don’t know what their role is at home. Some dads might not know how to relate to their kids (maybe their parents never related well to them) or they simply feel uncomfortable in their role as fathers. When men are unsure how to parent, they pull back. I see this all the time with fathers and daughters. When daughters hit their adolescent years, fathers often feel insecure with what to do and what not to do. So rather than try something only to have it turn out to be the wrong thing, they do nothing. They back away. They stop talking to their daughters. They stop hugging them. The daughter, who already feels terribly uncomfortable with herself, feels worse because it seems that dad doesn’t love her anymore. You can see how things become messy very quickly—all because a dad retreats when he really should be moving forward.
The same is true for dads during the early years in their sons’ lives. Many dads simply don’t understand how much they are needed. They feel confused about our roles as mothers, and it isn’t uncommon for them to feel jealous toward us. I have met many fathers who say that they wish they had the closeness with their kids that their wives do. But they can! We need to recognize that often dads aren’t involved not because they don’t want to be, but because they don’t realize how important they are, and because many dads simply don’t know what to do with their kids. And in order to help our husbands relate better to our sons, it is important for us to understand our husbands’ insecurities, hesitations, and even their history. Many fathers want better relationships but are afraid to express warmth and affection to their sons for fear of appearing weak. Others want to talk to their sons but don’t know how. It may be that simple. Still other men may not know how to relate to their sons, because their father never related to them in any meaningful way. So we can help them by giving pointers and encouragement.
In light of what we now know a boy needs from his dad in order to be emotionally whole, you can perhaps begin to see why your husband acts the way he does. If he never had his father’s blessing, he may feel tremendously insecure. If he felt rejection rather than acceptance from his father, how will he act toward his own son? He may criticize others constantly (particularly his son, who reminds him of himself as a boy) or he may work exhaustively trying to prove that he is successful and able. A man who never got enough attention from his father may crave excessive affection, both physically and emotionally, in order to fill the emptiness he feels inside. For many men, pain from their relationships with their fathers comes out sideways. They may not know why they rage, but you might be able to see that it is tied to a deep-seated fear that you, too, will reject him one day. You may notice that whenever he is around older men, he brags about himself, trying to garner praise because he feels he still needs it. Watch your husband closely and you will begin to see the motive behind many of his behaviors, and recognize that some may very well be linked to wounds from his relationship with his father.
This is an important exercise because many times we observe our husbands’ actions from a self-centered point of view; we assume that they behave badly because of something we’ve done. Very often, it has nothing to do with us. The same goes for our sons; when dad acts harshly toward his son, or criticizes him, it may be because that’s how his father treated him, not because of something his son said or did. Remember that men do what they know. As a mother, you are in a perfect position to watch your husband’s behavior toward your son and recognize what is good parenting and what behaviors stem from his childhood. You don’t want to flood him with psychobabble and you most certainly don’t want to be the psychological police of the family. But you can position yourself to help your husband be a better dad if you watch, listen, and try hard to understand his relationship with your son as it relates to his relationship with his own dad. You’ll be amazed at how clearly you will begin to see patterns of his dad’s behavior in his treatment of your son.
One of the best things mothers can do is talk to their husbands about their husbands’ relationships with their own fathers. We must be sensitive and cautious when asking husbands about their fathers, because if they had a bad relationship, they can become defensive and shut down. It helps to ask very simple and nonthreatening questions like “What kinds of things did you do with your dad when you were growing up?” or “Did you and your dad spend much time together when you were a kid?”
As you listen to your husband’s answers you will hear his feelings. He may reflect on their activities with a warm tone or he may disconnect emotionally right away. If his father never paid attention to him, you will see hurt on his face. Watch closely and use his expressions as a guide to whether or not you should keep going. One of the greatest values in having your husband talk about his own father is that it not only lets you have a peek into what he experienced; more important, it allows him to see how his father parented him and it helps him discern exactly how much he is or is not repeating his father’s parenting patterns.
Alyce was an astute mother. She brought Kyle to see me when he was fourteen because she said that she was worried he was depressed. When he began ninth grade, he started a new high school, which was three times the size of his junior high school. When he got there, his grades dropped and he began hanging out with a new set of friends. He got his ankle tattooed against his parents’ express wishes. Even his clothing changed. He went from wearing khakis to oversize jeans that showed most of his buttocks.
“I don’t know what happened to my kid,” she cried. “I feel like he just changed overnight. He doesn’t come home until late at night, he won’t do his homework, and whenever I ask him what’s wrong, he just stares at me like I’m something from a horror movie.”
As Alyce talked, I watched Kyle. He sat stone-faced beside his mother, clearly embarrassed and a bit agitated. When I asked him to tell me what was going on, he wouldn’t answer. For a full forty-five minutes he refused to talk, even though I asked his mother to leave the room so we could speak alone. At the end of the visit, I asked his mother to do some detective work. What was happening at school? Was a girlfriend involved, or had he started taking drugs? Essentially, I advised Alyce to look for clues to explain Kyle’s behavior in the sphere outside the home—I figured the culprit must lie among his friends or at school, perhaps even an incident where he was molested or bullied. I tried to think of everything. Fortunately, she thought more outside the box than I did.
When she returned with Kyle a few weeks later, she told me what she had found. Kyle was a nice kid in class. His teachers didn’t have any complaints other than the fact that he lacked motivation. But they assured her that a lot of boys his age shared that problem. As far as friends went, he only had a few, and some smoked weed and some didn’t. No hard drugs or drinking. No girlfriend, no bullies, and as far as she could tell, he hadn’t been the victim of any type of abuse—recently or in the past.
But she had noticed something else. “Kyle’s dad, Carl, hasn’t been himself lately,” she told me. “His own father died a few months back and he won’t talk about it. He never used to drink but lately he’s been coming home and throwing down a few beers. He doesn’t get drunk or anything, but drinking gives him a meaner edge than he normally has.”
I looked at Kyle as she said this and his eyes welled up. I asked Alyce to explain. “It’s just the three of us at night and sometimes he gets tough on Kyle. Carl tells him that he’ll never amount to anything because he won’t do his homework. When Kyle comes home late, Carl goes into his room and accuses him of doing drugs or sleeping around. I just don’t get it. He never did stuff like that before.”
By this time Kyle had tears streaming down both cheeks. They were falling onto his black baggy pants and he made no effort to wipe them away. Suddenly he looked six, not fourteen.
“Kyle, does your dad yell at you a lot?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he answered. I asked if he wanted his mother to leave the room and he shook his head.
“What did you and your dad use to do for fun?” I asked.
He seemed relieved by the levity of the question. “A lot of stuff. Nothing big, but we’d go to the racetrack on the weekends sometimes. We used to work on an old car we have in the shed. Lots of stuff, I guess.”
I asked what he and his dad did together now and he stared at the wall.
“Nothing. He can’t stand me,” he said curtly.
“Why do you think your dad doesn’t like you anymore?” I asked.
“Why should he?”
“What did you do?” I pressed.
“I don’t know. Doesn’t matter. Nothing I do is right. I mean, I don’t have to do anything anymore for my dad not to like me.” In fact, I found out, Kyle really hadn’t done anything wrong. His problem was that he was the son of his father who was hurting over the death of his own dad. Before her second appointment, Alyce had called her sister-in-law to ask why Carl was taking his father’s death so hard. Alyce learned that when her husband was a child, his father criticized him relentlessly. He was a good kid, her sister-in-law said, but their father never encouraged him. Rather, he picked apart every mistake Carl made and told him that unless he worked harder, he was never going to amount to anything. The relationship was so painful that Carl distanced himself from his father. In fact, until his father died, Carl had rarely spoken to Alyce about the man.
“Could it be possible that Carl’s dumping all of his hurt about his own dad onto Kyle?” Alyce asked me.
“I think so. Do you think you can talk to Carl about this?” I replied.
Alyce went home and talked with Carl. As she later described to me, she carefully asked him how he was taking his dad’s death and she told him that she was willing to talk anytime he wanted. What was particularly beneficial in her approach was that, rather than insisting they speak about how poorly he was treating Kyle, she first acknowledged that her husband was in pain. Then she gently pried and found out that he felt terrible guilt over his father’s death. He couldn’t stand him. He had never told her so, but couldn’t keep it in anymore. When his father died, Carl felt awful that he’d never tried to reconcile with his dad or even bothered to be nice at all. He also hadn’t helped his father financially, and he thought he should have.
Over the next weeks, Alyce listened to Carl, and she also told him that Kyle was hurting, too. He needed his dad now. He didn’t need a better teacher, different friends, or another sport. He needed his dad. Once Carl realized that he had been taking his anger at himself and his father out on Kyle, he told his son that.
You can write the rest of the story. Kyle’s grades improved. His demeanor changed almost overnight and his depression lifted. Sometimes the answers to our son’s problems are staring us in the face, and unless we are savvy enough to keep our eyes open, we’ll miss them. The best part, too, is that many times their problems are much easier to solve than we think. Kyle didn’t need a psychiatrist or a counselor. He simply needed his dad back. And his mom helped him get that.
There are many things that can create distance and discord between our sons and their dads. Often, neither of them recognizes the causes, but as in Alyce’s case, we mothers see things that fathers can’t see. We don’t need to have a Ph.D. in psychology, but we do have to be open-minded. This is the toughest part. Our inclination is to home in on our husband’s faults and start the blame game rather than stand back and figure out what is best for our sons. We want our husbands to change so that our lives will be better, but that isn’t what we should be focusing on, nor is it realistic to think that’s going to happen. When it comes to our sons, we must put their needs first and help make their relationships with their dads stronger. When we make this a priority, life changes for everyone. Here’s where we can start.
From the time our child is an infant, the message that we send, and in turn the role we accept, is that we are the sole source of everything good in that child’s life. But is it really smart to believe that if you don’t, say, breastfeed for at least a year, you aren’t a great mom? We hear from our friends and well-meaning physicians that the best mothers offer their kids the best of everything, always. If he cries as an infant, pick him up, because it is vital to meet all of our child’s emotional needs 24/7. When he is two, rather than saying “no” when he makes unreasonable demands, we must redirect our son’s interests so that he doesn’t hear anything negative from our lips. We are to constantly bolster self-esteem, provide meals that are made from scratch (using organic foods of course), and ensure that our son gets into the accelerated reading group in second grade (and if he can’t, then find him an excellent tutor). We are to work extra jobs to pay for his high-priced shoes and jeans, be the cool mom whose house all the teens want to hang out at, and make sure that our kids connect well with us at all times. We are the happy police and we will do whatever it takes to keep our kids entertained. If they need to spend a year abroad, we pay for it. If they need a nose job, we pay for it. New equipment for a sport he wants to try out just to see if he likes it? No problem.
If all this sounds excessive, that’s because it is. We want so badly for our sons to be happy, we have jumped on the crazy train. I understand, because I jumped on it along with everyone else. But I’m tired, and I’ll bet you are, too. It’s time to recognize that we can’t do it all, we can’t buy it all, and that the only other ingredient in our children’s lives that is as important as we are is their father.
The healthy way to view our son’s needs is to recognize that he is born into a family unit. He belongs not just to us, but to others as well; his father, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, and siblings. He needs them in different ways than he needs us, but those ways are terribly important. When we parent as if those people don’t really matter, we parent exclusively. Subconsciously, we cut our son off from an important source of influence and love. And when we do that, our son loses. But when we shift our perspective and learn to parent inclusively, our son wins. And so do we.
What would it look like to parent inclusively? Let’s consider the first year of your son’s life. You might decide to breastfeed but also to pump or bottle-feed. That way, your husband can help with feedings during the day or night, giving the two of them the opportunity to bond. You might choose to shift your work schedule and your husband’s so that he is home more with your son while you are at work. More dramatically, you might choose to believe that you need time alone and your son needs more time with your husband, and have the two spend a night away or spend a night away yourself. And when it comes to important decisions, don’t discount the input of others just because you feel you know best.
In other words, parenting more inclusively means letting go of some of the control that we long to have over our sons’ lives. It means being willing to not always have our way with his life and trusting others—especially his dad—to do as good a job as we can. Many mothers may say that they want this but their body language communicates something altogether different. I have been guilty of this myself. I would tell my husband that he needed to spend more time with the kids, of course saying it in a way that made him feel like he wasn’t doing his part. Then, when he would take the kids somewhere, I would criticize how they were dressed, what they did, and how he handled the outing. Being a nonconfrontational sort, he would simply throw his hands up and shake his head. What I learned is that while I wanted him more involved, I parented as though I were the only one who knew how to do things right with our kids. So why in the world would he want to cooperate?
It may be a generalization, but I believe women are more prone than men to bossiness and are bigger control freaks. Of course, that stems from wanting everything to be perfect, but we have to learn that our way is not necessarily the best way. Sometimes we hide behind the guise of being the better parent because we feel threatened; we worry that if our son grows closer to his dad, we will lose him. We worry that the two of them will forge a bond that will exclude us. But the only thing that will happen if your son develops a healthier relationship with his dad is that he will have a healthier relationship with you. You don’t have to compete with his father. Your son is bound to you by a love that feels very different to him than his love for his dad. So never feel threatened. When a boy has a solid relationship with his father, he feels better about his life. Since he is happier, he will relate to you better. When his father meets the needs that must be met by him, your son won’t turn to you to try to have those needs met. This frees you up to focus on being simply his mother.
From your son’s earliest days, think about the fact that you and he are bound together in a unit—a community, if you will. His dad is in that unit and your son wants you all to be together. He wants dad inside the community, and regardless of how you feel toward his dad, all of your lives will be richer if you help make that happen.
Sometimes being more inclusive means backing out of the way. Make sure that dad’s opinions count when it comes to parenting and let your son see that you pay attention and respect his dad’s thoughts and feelings.
Many conscientious mothers sabotage their son’s relationship with their dads because they take over. I have found myself interrupting my husband when he is talking to our son about important issues. I would hear the two of them discussing something, disagree with how my husband was handling the conversation, and swoop into the room. I would sidle my way into the conversation and everything about my body language would communicate to my husband, “Move over, I’ve got this. I know how to handle this better than you do.”
Have you ever found yourself interrupting an otherwise good conversation between your husband and son? Or taking control of an important decision such as choosing his school, or giving advice about dating, drinking, or sex? Teaching our sons is wonderful and I’m not saying that we shouldn’t do it. Of course we should, and it’s our job, but many times we usurp our husband’s influence by answering all of our son’s questions and always being the one to attend to his needs. If we want to help our son grow closer to his father, sometimes we need to swallow hard and tell him to seek his dad’s advice. Doing this accomplishes three very important things.
First, it tells your son that his dad is important. He learns that his dad has a lot of good advice to give and that his advice is trustworthy. When he learns this, he looks up to his father and feels better and more secure about his life.
Second, it makes the two of them communicate. Working through a problem and communicating helps them grow closer, and it helps set the precedent for their relationship in the future.
Third, it makes the dad feel needed. When fathers feel needed in their relationships with their kids, they parent better, and become more confident in their parenting. This is especially true if a mother is strong-willed; many fathers feel inadequate and in my experience, when dads feel insecure, and afraid of screwing up or doing the wrong thing, they simply vanish into the background. This timidity can easily be mistaken by your son as a lack of caring or lack of love, which is the last thing you want.
So what do you do if dad is not available? Many mothers simply have no choice but to spearhead the resolution of the son’s problems. When your son starts maturing and wishing for a father who could help him, you can tell him, “I’ll bet you would like to have a dad who could help you. I’m sorry that you don’t.” Again, if there is a way where you can recruit a good adult man to help, do it. Your son will love you for it. If an uncle, grandfather, rabbi, pastor, youth group leader, friend, etc., has good, solid character, ask if he will spend time with your son. This may feel awkward at first, but do it. You might simply ask if your son could tag along to a movie with him. If he has kids, ask if your son could join him on an outing or help around the house sometime. Be creative. Many men feel appreciated when asked to share themselves with younger kids, because knowing that you think they have something important to offer makes them feel valued.
Many mothers aren’t long on applause when it comes to the men in our lives. We are tired; we work extremely hard and get frustrated that we don’t have more help. Single moms feel as though they get beaten up every day. Mothers who work outside the home feel resentful if their husbands don’t work, or work too much, and vice versa. We get mad, sad, and annoyed easily, and all of this is normal. Unfortunately, our loved ones are the ones who pay the price for our grief. We don’t yell at coworkers; we yell at our kids. We don’t criticize a girlfriend of ours for being late, but we bark at our husbands when they make us wait for dinner. Loved ones have to live with our good and bad sides because at home we are our real selves.
Most of us mothers, though, work hard to keep our frustrations away from our kids. Yes, we lose it with them on occasion, but we try not to. Our husbands, however, are another story. They forget to put the toilet seat down. They don’t bathe the kids enough, or ever. They don’t do the classroom-mom thing. They don’t do as much housework as we do, etc., etc. Complaining is as natural as breathing air to exhausted women. In fact, we have made husband-bashing a national pastime. How many Internet jokes do you see regularly about men who are lazy, stupid, or drink too much beer? And try to pick up a decent Father’s Day card. All you will find are two types: ones that are scripted in flowery letters, filled with euphemisms about perfect dads, and ones about dads who hog the remote, never mow the lawn, and watch too many sports on television. Seeing such stereotypes reinforced has an impact on how sons view their fathers and themselves.
Ask yourself how you would feel as a mother if you saw such jokes about yourself. If I saw Mother’s Day cards filled with cartoon characters of women who shop too much, talk on the phone too much, or watch too many TV shows, I’d feel terrible and furious!
Giving praise rather than criticism makes us happier women. Try it. If you speak more positively, you will feel more positive. Changing the way we talk changes the way we feel. Challenge yourself to an experiment for two weeks and see if you don’t feel better. When you are ready to criticize your husband, stop. Instead, say something nice to him. Find something—anything—to compliment him on. If you have a real beef with him, talk to a friend. I can guarantee that over time, complimenting your husband on his parenting will make him a much better father.
Deirdre’s life changed when she tried this approach. Married for fifteen years, with three children and a full-time job as a letter carrier, she hit her early forties feeling miserable about life. She found herself daydreaming about being divorced. Sometimes she imagined herself buying a plane ticket to a sunny California spot and living there all alone. When she had these thoughts, she felt guilty.
We were chatting one day about her depression and I asked about her kids and her marriage. “Everyone’s fine. They all seem to be doing well. The kids’ grades are good. Sports are going well and Matt’s job is fine. But he’s just not really into home life, you know what I mean?”
“Sure,” I told her. “What do you guys do on weekends? Can you spend any time together?”
“I wish!” she groaned. “He’s up at the crack of dawn fishing with his buddies. He’s so selfish, really. I’m left to haul the kids to their soccer games, sleepovers, you name it.” Deirdre sounded exhausted.
“Are you bitter toward Matt?” I queried.
“Bitter? I’m beyond bitter. We’ve argued so many times over fishing that he doesn’t even hear me anymore. Yelling doesn’t work. Threatening to leave doesn’t work. I’ve even tried telling the kids to talk to him and ask if he’ll do something with them on the weekends.”
I sympathized with Deirdre. She was a hardworking woman and a good mom who felt stuck. I also knew Matt and wondered why in the world he was acting so selfishly. Why would a man leave his family every Saturday to fish for the whole day and pay no attention to his kids? Was he simply a jerk?
We finished our coffee and I suggested that she get some help for her depression. She really was spiraling downward and I knew that her life would just get worse if she didn’t take action.
“Here’s the deal,” I said. “You’re depressed. I’ve known you for a long time and you’ve never been this negative about life, your kids, yourself, or Matt. There’s a whole lot that’s good about your life but you can’t see it now. Yes, your husband’s being incredibly selfish but you can’t change that. You’re exhausted and there are a few things that you can do about that. You need some help. Medications are good and there are some really good counselors who can help you pick your way through this. In the meantime, I think it might help for you to begin each day by focusing on a few great things in your life just to help you get through the day. Make a list. Write them down. Like: Your kids are good students. You have a nice home. Your dog likes you.”
Deirdre chuckled but got the point. She left that day and I didn’t see her for a few months. We had one of those relationships that spanned time and distance. We didn’t need to talk every day or even every week. Several months later, we picked up our conversation exactly where we left off.
“Well,” she announced, “I think my depression’s doing a lot better.” We always cut right to the chase, leaving the small talk behind.
“Wonderful,” I said. “How did that happen?”
“I took your advice and went to a counselor. I saw my doctor and we talked about medication. That was all helpful, but the most amazing thing was Matt. I think he saw that I was hurting. I tried that thing about writing down what I’m grateful for, to see if it would work. Then I decided to go one step further. I chose to find something positive about Matt and tell him every day—or maybe it was every other day. Like, I told him that he’s a good listener (when he listens—but I didn’t add that part!) with the kids. I told him that we wished he was with us when we went for ice cream after soccer games on Saturday. You know, I said it like I really meant it—not like I was trying to make him feel guilty. He seemed to respond, so I kept it up for one week, then another and another.”
Deirdre was applauding Matt by giving him verbal praise in spite of her anger and bitterness toward his absence on weekends. I admired her self-discipline.
“That must have been really hard,” I told her. “I mean feeling so upset and down and saying nice things to him when you were mad that he was never home.”
“Yep. It was really hard. But here’s the cool thing. I had nothing to lose. I’d tried fighting and he only fished more. So I decided to think about his wonderful qualities. He is kind. He is patient with the kids and when he’s with them, he’s a really loving dad. So I told him that. The thing was, once I started, I found that it wasn’t that hard and I started to like him more. Can you believe it?”
“Yes, I can.”
“For some reason, we all started to get along a little better. And you won’t believe this. After about six weeks, we all woke up one Saturday morning and Matt was home. He was in the garage working on his car. When one of the kids asked why he wasn’t fishing, I heard him say, ‘Aw, I just didn’t feel like it today.’ To tell you the truth, I felt kind of mad. I had gotten so used to him being gone that I had a hard time adjusting to him being around! At first I thought, ‘What was he doing home on our Saturday?’ ”
When we change the way we talk, we change the way we feel. But there’s more: We also change the ways others behave around us. I’ll bet if we could hear Matt’s side of the story we would find that much of the reason he left on Saturday mornings wasn’t that he was a selfish jerk. He might have felt unwanted. He might have believed that no one needed him at home. I’m not sure. But I do know that Deirdre changed the dynamics of her relationship with her husband and her kids’ relationship with their father by making one simple but very difficult change: She focused on the positives in her life, and made an intentional habit of praising her husband regularly.
Giving our sons’ fathers applause changes them. Men who feel encouraged are far more likely to parent better than men who feel beaten up at every turn by their wives at home. Yes, we are communicators by nature, but tweaking how we communicate can have a strong impact on our loved ones. One of the best gifts we can give our sons is to praise their dads. Happier dads mean happier sons, and that is the ultimate goal of us moms.
However, I know many mothers live with particularly stressful challenges. Many parent their sons alone. Others contend with an ex-husband who won’t support her or their son. Some mothers strongly disagree with the lifestyles their ex-husbands expose their sons to, like too much drinking, or women coming and going from the father’s home. Some contend with fathers who abuse their sons. I have seen mothers desperate to keep their sons from bad or dangerous influences. The following section is for those who have particularly difficult issues.
Many mothers have real problems with the fathers of their sons. Maybe your husband is out of the picture, or maybe he is in the picture but is a bad influence. If that is the case, take heart; you are not alone and there are several things you can do to help your son. Let’s first look at mothers whose sons’ fathers are completely absent. Here are a few tips that may help you.
Don’t go it alone. Chances are good that you’ve been trying to be both Mom and Dad. Stop. You can only be a really good mom, and that’s enough for your son to turn out really well. Many great men were raised by mothers who parented solo. The key is accepting that you can’t do it all, and that no matter how wonderful a mom you are, your son needs healthy interaction with men. His peers don’t count. He needs adult men whom he can observe. Find a grandfather, uncle, coach, pastor, or teacher in his life whom you trust. Make sure that you know the man well before you ask his help because certainly, you don’t want your son to spend time with or learn to look up to a man who will hurt him. Then find ways for your son to be around him. Invite him to dinner. Ask him to take your son camping, or along for some other activity that interests him. After the two are together, talk about that man to your son. Keep an image of him alive in your son’s mind. When difficulties come up, ask your son what he thinks that man would do. What would he say? How would he decide what is best? By doing this you are helping your son create the picture of a man with integrity, courage, kindness, and dedication (and any other attributes that you believe a good man needs) in his mind. As he matures, he can draw on that image to make decisions.
Most single mothers I have met feel guilty because a man is not involved in their son’s life. So do the best you can to help him spend time with a man you respect. If, however, you can’t find a man to help with your son, remember to still acknowledge your son’s need to have a man to look up to. Boys are visual people and they need to create a mental image of a good man to follow. If that image is all he can have, then help him create one. Talk about how he thinks a smart man would make decisions, how a patient man would act, or how a man with great courage would respond under pressure, especially when certain situations arise. For example, if his friends ask him to go to a party where kids are drinking, and he knows he shouldn’t, ask what he thinks a courageous man would say. If his girlfriend breaks up with him, ask how a forgiving man would handle the situation. Once you look for opportunities like these moments for him to create a mental picture of a strong role model, you will find them everywhere.
If you are uncomfortable asking him about how an anonymous but good man would react, then draw on one of his heroes. If he loves reading about a past president or loves a character in a novel, ask him how those men would respond. A word of caution here: Be careful whom you choose because many boys look up to men who aren’t men you want your son to emulate. For instance, many boys revere actors, athletes, or musicians whom you don’t necessarily respect. So avoid allowing your son to use them as examples. If they want to use them (and many will) as men to imitate, continue to talk up men with greater character qualities. You don’t need to constantly criticize their idols; simply bring up different ones whom you want him to admire.
Be careful how you speak about your son’s father, and even men in general. Many women whose husbands or boyfriends have walked out on them carry a lot of hurt and anger toward those men. This is natural. But you must remember that your sons parrot many of your thoughts and beliefs, and if he hears you talking negatively about his father and other men often, he will begin to feel negatively about men as well. More important, he may start to feel negatively about his own manhood, and psychologically that gets very messy. So when you are upset about men, don’t vent in front of your son.
Acknowledge his need for Dad. One of the most painful things we can do to our sons when we parent exclusively is to try to convince them that they need only us. Since in their hearts they can’t help but have a deep longing for a father’s affection, they will ultimately wonder if that means something is wrong with them. Moms are grown-ups, so in our son’s eyes, we are right. When we communicate that our son needs only us and that they will do just fine without a dad, we are in essence telling them that their desire for their dad’s attention and love is silly, and wrong.
Tell your son that you understand his need for his dad. Tell him that you are sorry his dad isn’t available. Talk with him about what it would be like to have his dad around. Don’t be afraid of bringing his deeper needs out into the open, because doing so will help him face them and let him begin to heal. Hiding his feelings and needs is what gets him into trouble, and doing so may set him up for depression later in life. The way to be an extraordinary mom is to help your son understand his needs and then acknowledge them. If they aren’t met, help him grieve, but also do something more: Help him to see that although his dad isn’t around, he does have Uncle Mike, his pastor, his coach, or his grandfather. Tell him that no, they aren’t his dad and they never will be, but they can still be men who will love and care for him.
Pick your battles. Mothers coparenting with fathers who do bad things have a tough road, but there are some things to do that will help smooth it out. One of my close friends coparents with an ex-husband who gambles and frequently has girlfriends spend nights at his home. There is nothing she can do to stop these behaviors and the courts have given her ex-husband partial custody. So she found a different way to work with her ex-husband even though she is very angry with him. She decided to be courteous with him and see if they could negotiate what their son will be exposed to and what he won’t while he is with him. And she respectfully asked him if there were certain things he would like her to do with and for their son while she was with him. Understanding that she wasn’t in charge of what their son did while she was away from him, she acknowledged that she was willing to help her ex-husband feel honored and respected. Then she told him that she would do those things for him if he would do a few things for her while their son was at his home. She asked that his girlfriends not spend nights when their son was at his home. Then she asked that he go to casinos on the nights when their son wasn’t with him.
By telling her ex-husband that she recognized he had wishes for their son that he wanted honored while he was away from him, she then felt heard when she asked the same from him. Negotiating in a respectful way can really help make life easier and less stressful for children caught in the middle. One of the most important rules is to pick the battles you are willing to fight. Try making a list of three (or so) rules—things that are important to you. For instance, you may want your son’s father to avoid drinking, having girlfriends spend the night, overly criticizing your son, or taking him to casinos, as my friend did. You will know which specific rules are important to you. Then ask your ex if you can talk and negotiate some things about your son’s care. Share your list with him and then ask him to tell you the top three things he would like to see you do with your son. Then tell him that you will honor them. Let him know that you are willing to work with him because you respect him as your son’s dad.
Honor your son’s need for his absent dad. A father may be alive but never engaged with a son, or he may be present but never emotionally involved in any way. Either way, a son needs to know that you recognize his need for his father’s involvement since a son is connected to his dad for life. No matter how badly his father has acted, a son lives with an ache for his missing dad. Even if he wants to hate his father, maybe for the way he treated you, he can’t because he needs something from him. He may never get what he needs, but he won’t be able to resolve that in any significant way if all he hears from you is criticism about his dad, or if you fail to acknowledge his feelings because of your own.
Your son knows what bad things your ex did (or does); you don’t have to tell him. What your son may need to do is discuss his own feelings of disappointment. If all you do is talk about your feelings, it puts your son on the defensive and he will stick up for his dad rather than open up about his hurt.
When your ex misbehaves, criticize the behavior, not the man. This is really tough, but train yourself to let your son know that it’s his dad’s behavior that is bad, not the man himself. When negative incidents happen, talk to your son about them. Tell him that his dad’s behavior was completely inappropriate and let your son know that he is in no way responsible for it.
For instance, if a father leaves home and has a series of live-in girlfriends, your son will most likely be upset. And he should. This is the behavior of an adolescent, not a mature, responsible man. This will come up in your conversation with him and I would encourage you to say something like “What your dad chooses to do isn’t healthy. It hurts him, it hurts you, and I don’t agree with it. He’s a good person, but I don’t think what he’s doing is right.” Then leave it at that. If your son senses that his dad disgusts you, he will become defensive and say that his dad is right. So always try to keep your son from being in a position where he needs to defend his father to you.
Helping our sons grow into great men is not a task for wimpy moms. Fortunately for our sons, most of us are anything but wimpy. It takes courage, tenacity, and a bit of chutzpah to raise strong men, but that is part of the joy of being the mother of a son. And one of the most courageous things that we mothers can do for our sons is acknowledge their need for their fathers (or good men) and help them have better relationships with them.