Dads Under Construction Read online

  Living and working on the farm meant that what you planted, you then harvested and, for the most part, consumed. The family worked together in the fields and saw the fruits of their labours. At that time, few in my father’s community actually worked away from the farm. However, with the Depression, it was necessary for my father to seek employment elsewhere. He worked for the railway as a telegrapher, coming home on the weekends. This added income helped to support his family.

  My father met my mother at one of the stations where he was working. They eventually married and moved into the city. They had three children: my two sisters and me.

  City life was quite different for my father. He had to adapt quickly. He brought with him the value of hard work and, like his family of origin, he chose to move only once with our family. When I was a small boy we moved down the street. My father actually turned down promotions with the railway so that he could remain local, commuting back and forth to his place of employment so that his family did not have to move.

  I remember many events that we engaged in as a family. Yearly, we would go to the beach. On a number of occasions, we took family vacations travelling across Canada. When my younger sister or I worked in other parts of the country, my parents would often come to visit. My father in particular made a point of trying to understand situations that my sister and I were experiencing and living in, and helped us out in any way he could.

  With the opportunities available to my sister and I, and increased leisure activity in general in society, we have experienced more flexibility and distractions to do other things than my father did. However, my father felt it important to keep his roots and remain constant. As he entered retirement, he and my mother moved into a condominium unit. It was built on the same spot where they had lived in an apartment years before when they were first married. It was as if he had come full circle.

  It was in that condo that my father died, among his family.

  A rich value that my father taught me was the importance of putting family first; of remaining family-centred. Yes, it was necessary for him to sacrifice. However, this was not a struggle for him. He identified himself as a father first and accepted whatever came with that. It was all part of the package, and those responsibilities were to be followed through on.

  Doing things as a family means that a father needs to be flexible and adapt to the different demands and challenges that he faces. A father is always under construction. He is aware of how the children are growing into different life stages and of his need to lead or participate in different activities or events to enhance this growth. Security and stability, and their father being there, is important for children as they grow.

  Today’s family is continually dealing with a noisy background and is constantly affected by social change. Our family systems are more fluid than ever before. We have more of a variety of things we can do than what was experienced by my father’s generation. However, one value remains, and that is the importance of family and its need to come first.

  BURIED IN MY HEART

  I had finished a presentation on fathering at a parenting conference for public health nurses and their colleagues several years ago. After answering a number of questions I excused myself, as I had to leave the conference early to catch my flight home.

  As I walked toward the main entrance, I heard someone call out my name. I turned around and saw a friend that I had known in my university days standing there. She was now a public health nurse and had been attending the conference. We hugged each other and spoke briefly about what each of us was doing. Unfortunately, I was in a hurry and the conversation was rushed. As we spoke about what we had been doing over the years and our family situations, it felt like old times for me. I still felt a great deal of fondness for her.

  As I was about to say goodbye, she suddenly inquired about my father and how he was doing. She had become quite attached to him during those few years that we were together in university. As her father had died when she was quite young, she had readily engaged with my father. She found him an easy-going, laid-back individual and related to him easily. My father had accepted her as family and enjoyed talking to her. I told her sadly that he had died only several months prior, at the age of eighty-nine. She took the news hard and chokingly expressed her sympathy. For a few seconds there was silence between us. Then she asked where my father was buried, which I told her. She said that she would be travelling through that area in the next several months and would like to visit the gravesite.

  We looked at each other without saying a word. Again we hugged, then parted in silence. There was so much left to be said, and yet, what more could we say to each other? As I walked toward the exit, I realized that I had not told her the truth about where my father was buried. My father wasn’t buried in that cemetery; my father is buried in my heart.

  As we grow through the teen years, it is important for us to identify with a person, or persons. We take aspects of their characteristics or personalities into ourselves and imitate them to some degree. However, this identification doesn’t just begin at adolescence; it intensifies during that time, but it is an ongoing process throughout life.

  It starts between the baby and the parents. The baby begins to identify with and take aspects of each parent into his or her personality. By taking in aspects of another person, we carry a part of them inside us. This is a normal developmental process in life that guides us along the pathway of interactions with others. These identifications influence the decisions we make, the way we are, and how able we are to empathize with others. Through the years, we internalize numerous aspects of many different people from many different walks of life, including and beyond our families. Some individuals obviously have a greater impact on us than others, especially those closer to us.

  Part of being an involved, responsible father is being able to share and lend part of yourself to others, most importantly to your children. A child takes a part of you inside of him or her as they develop and establish their own sense of identity, their own selfhood. However, you need to be there to be taken in, to be internalized. The types of behaviour you exhibit and the way you interact with your child all leave an imprint upon them.

  As a son, I identified with my father. I watched his behaviour — the ways he interacted with others and with me, as well as his ability to empathize, to listen to others, and to feel with them. I also observed his interactions with my mother and sisters, as well as other females that he met in his life. It was through these observations that I learned how to treat women with respect. My father became a part of me through this identification process. Whether he handled situations maturely or immaturely, all left an imprint on my psyche.

  Now, how I interact with my wife, how I father my children, and how I involve myself with others around me has been greatly influenced by how he fathered me. Perhaps the most magical moments are the times when I feel as if I am my father in my interactions with my children.

  BECOMING DAD

  They appeared so helpless lying there. Each one was tiny, crying, purplish in colour, arms and legs flailing about. Until this moment every one of their needs had been met on demand and each was in a safe and secure environment. Now everything was so different. Bright lights, noise, temperature change, and even air! Both of my daughters’ births — six years apart from each other — were nothing less than miraculous, and watching each of them being born left me on an adrenaline high. I felt excited and proud, and I could not help but wonder if their features would be like mine. I also felt a tremendous responsibility — they each needed me now and forever. This was my first true Dad moment.

  Each of my daughters was placed gently in their mother’s arms, swaddled in delivery blankets with little pink caps on their heads. I first touched the backs of their hands and then their faces. It had been a long nine months for all of us. Throughout the first trimester of both pregnancies, my wife was very ill and unable to go to work. Her diet seemed to be made up primarily of Popsicles a
nd fluids. In the second trimester, as I attended ultrasound visits and prenatal check-ups, I was able to see the shadow of what appeared to be my daughter “in there.” The ultrasound image almost seemed alien. All of these events and more brought me closer to the pregnancy picture and contributed each time to my sense of becoming a father. By the third trimester the nursery had been set up, and my wife needed me to assist her more often with sometimes very routine tasks. During this time in the first pregnancy, I attended prenatal classes and quickly realized the importance of listening to other men’s stories as they became fathers. When I heard them speak, I no longer felt that I was alone.

  Soon the moment approached that we had all been looking forward to, and in that moment I was suddenly Dad.

  Throughout the nine months leading up to the birth, and especially as anticipation sets in during the final trimester, the soon-to-be father is almost overwhelmed by the variety of feelings he experiences. There is so much going on, and attention to the mother’s health is primary. This range of feelings includes concern, anxiety, ambivalence, confusion, excitement, relief, and joy. All of these feelings are natural and normal, and are part of the developmental process that leads toward the transition into parenthood.

  The most dramatic Dad moment occurs at that point of birth, when you see your baby for the very first time. You become engrossed with him or her. You suddenly realize, for a very brief moment, that your total focus is on your baby. You feel as if you have neglected your partner, the person whose well-being you had been very concerned about for the past several hours. Do not be alarmed. What is happening to you is that there are suddenly two people in your life that you have responsibility toward. Baby and mother. You are now a family; there is now another person in your life who needs you and who is very much a part of you. You are a father who will be needed throughout all of your child’s life. This relationship is for life.

  FATHER TO BE

  While attending prenatal classes with my wife prior to the birth of our first daughter, I realized how little I knew about my upcoming role of father. As I started these classes, I felt that the content was focused more on moms. We men were there to learn how to be supportive of them. The nurse/instructor told me in the class that I was a coach. I took that to mean that I could pretty well leave everything up to my wife. She would interpret to me what I needed to do or to understand. I subscribed to the idea that parenting is mothering and that I was to follow my wife’s lead, whether it was through this prenatal time, birthing, or after the birth. She would tell me how to be a parent.

  So for the first several classes, I did what I was told. I helped my wife practice her breathing techniques and relaxation exercises. However, things would quickly change for me as the classes progressed. In the fifth class, we were informed that in the following week’s class we would be going to the local hospital. We would tour the birthing and mother–baby units. A father who was sitting at the back of the class — a rather large, quiet man — asked if there would be any blood in the delivery room while we were on the tour. The class chuckled. The instructor assured him that there would be no blood. However, you could see that her reassurance did not fully convince him.

  Shortly thereafter, we took a break. The mothers gathered together at the front of the classroom and spoke about how they were feeling, expressing anxiety regarding the births. The fathers went out into the hallway and scattered around the pop machine. While we talked, someone would occasionally kick the side of the machine, as if kicking the tire of a car. I spoke to the father who had expressed concern about blood in the delivery room and, ever the therapist, asked him what was really bothering him. He informed me that even though he faints at the sight of blood, passing out was not what he was concerned about. He was worried that he would miss the birth of his child. This comment immediately tempered the humour we had felt when he had expressed his concern. His statement pointed out to me that expectant fathers have their own feelings and anxieties, and that such concerns are just as much a part of the prenatal and birthing equation as those of mothers. However, it is easy to overlook this, and in this class, our concerns were not addressed.

  From this class experience I developed a program called “Dad Classes.” Each class series centres on issues and concerns that an expectant father (or new father) has in his relationship with his partner, with his baby, and with himself. The series has been very successful during the past ten years and over a thousand fathers have attended and completed the classes. In the last week of each series, the moms are invited to attend. On several occasions babies who have been born during the class series have also been present. A nurse from the hospital’s mother–baby unit also attends this week. Work is done with the mothers and fathers, both separately and together as couples.

  The Dad Class series examines how a man builds an involved fathering model for himself. He is encouraged to discover his own style in relating to his baby, including the picking up and holding of the baby. This style is different than the mother’s way. No Mr. Mom or babysitter images exist in these classes.

  The important prenatal period can be likened to a journey in a canoe across a lake. The couple, mother and father, climb in together and begin paddling. They share a goal, which is to reach a specific landing spot. While paddling across the lake, the mother goes through different trimester periods. As the journey progresses, and both mother and father develop and change, the canoe loses equilibrium. It becomes necessary for the couple to stop paddling and to examine their positions in the canoe. The transition to parenthood has begun for them. They may need to stop the canoe completely, safely shift their positions, or do something altogether different.

  By comparison, in the prenatal period during the first trimester, the father is drawn slowly further into the situation by being aware of how the mother is feeling. By the second trimester, as she begins to show, the father, who may have attended prenatal visits and ultrasounds, is now able to see “in there.” Many fathers find the ultrasound experience exciting, as they can actually see their babies. In the third trimester, a mother relies more on the father to be there to help her out with specific tasks or chores. The mother is finding it increasingly difficult to get herself comfortable and to be able to do certain things. She needs to feel the security that comes with her partner being close by. This third trimester, a time of anticipation, brings the father into the final pre-birth process.

  Throughout this prenatal period, or the journey in the canoe so to speak, the father has a wonderful opportunity to engage in the transition to parenthood and to prepare both himself and his partner for the changes that are about to take place in their lives. They are able to work together in securing the appropriate landing spot for the canoe. However, only a father who is there and who is involved is able to achieve this.

  Fathers have their own styles, their own ways of involving themselves with their babies. A father who actively participates in the prenatal and birthing process has the opportunity to develop this style. His participation helps to facilitate his feelings of confidence and self-worth. It makes him feel more competent as he makes the transition from manhood into fatherhood.

  There are many ways that an expectant father is able to achieve these feelings. For example, he can attend prenatal checkups, ultrasound visits, breast feeding classes, prenatal classes, and Dad Classes. There are more opportunities now for a man to be involved in the prenatal period, both by himself and with his partner, than ever before.

  As the canoe reaches the landing point on the other side of the lake and the journey draws to a conclusion, a new journey begins. That journey is parenthood.

  The more a man involves himself with the journey into fatherhood, the more he feels able to involve himself as a father.

  MY FATHER, MY DAUGHTERS, AND ME

  Shortly after my father’s death, I found a box of photographs that were tucked away in the back of his closet. As I went through them, I found one picture of my father holding me in his arms whe
n I was approximately five months of age. It was an old black and white photograph that appeared to have been taken outside of the family home on a winter’s day. My father was wearing his suit and holding me in a rigid manner, tilting and posing me toward my mother, who held the camera. It appeared as if he had just returned from work and would need to go back shortly. I looked as if I had just been pulled off the breast and was in a drowsy state, with my eyes half open and my mouth searching for something to suck on. I was quite bundled up. My father did not appear to be comfortable holding me, and it was as if I had been propped up in his arms for this picture.

  When my older daughter was five months of age, my father volunteered to feed her the usual bottle of soy milk. After she was finished the bottle, my father carefully laid her over his shoulder and walked gingerly about the room. Instead of patting Ailène on the back to induce a burp, he felt it best that she was not to move at all. This reflected his uncertainty in holding her. My father was concerned that if he was to move her, she might throw up, so he especially did not want to pat her back.

  However, his nightmare came true. My daughter, with great gusto, threw up the entire contents of the bottle all over my father’s back, the living room couch, and the floor. My father was stunned. This messy situation was only compounding his discomfort in holding Ailène.

  However, this experience did not deter him from helping out with feeding my second daughter, Alexandra. He had gained confidence in holding babies by then, and was very dutiful in burping her from time to time as she fed. He was very proud of the fact that she did not throw up after the feeding. She went to sleep in his arms quite contentedly.