CHAPTER 1

The Crisis in Fathering

My father was a very serious man. I used to make up all kinds of explanations,excuses really, for why he was the way he was. The truth is I don't care aboutthe reasons anymore. He died without ever telling me he loved me, without everhugging me, without ever saying he was proud of me. I still don't understand it.It's like there is this giant hole inside of me that can never be filled.

Fathering. It's not a word we're comfortable with. It feels awkward and soundsfunny. It isn't even in most dictionaries. While the concept exists as a logicalcounterpoint to mothering, we as a society seem at a loss for any sense of whatit really represents. That fact is at the heart of a profoundly devastatingwound for many men: We have lost our fathers, and far too many of us who arefathers are in serious danger of losing our children.

To cite just one of myriad statistics indicating the problem, a recent studyfound that only 20 percent of the fathers surveyed felt that they had a closeemotional relationship with either their fathers or their sons. That is aremarkable piece of information. In this statistically saturated world, it iseasy to let the flood of numbers simply roll on. But we as men, as fathers, mustforce ourselves to stop for a moment and look beyond the numbers to see the veryreal human suffering—ours and that of those we love—that this particularstatistic suggests: The vast majority of men in this country are emotionallydistant, disconnected from their closest male relatives.

In general, men tend to be very good at controlling their feelings. We areparticularly good at "getting on with things" in the face of hardship, danger,pain, and turmoil. It is our training, our history, and even our mythology,weaned as we were on larger-than-life heroes stoically pushing forward toovercome enormous difficulties and crippling losses.

This skill, this ability to function effectively in the face of emotionalpressure, has served us well, but it has also exacted a very dear price. It hasallowed us to create and accomplish out in the world with single-minded focus;but, largely unnoticed, it has also forced many of us to lose track of what ismost important and precious, the reasons why we work so hard and what we areworking for—our loved ones. In homes all across the country, men are "gettingon" with the business of living. But, as the statistics painfully demonstrate,in four out of five of those homes, they are doing it without the reassuringlydeep comfort of a close emotional relationship with either their father or theirchildren.

My Dad worked himself to death. He dropped out of school when he was fourteen toget a job to put food on his mother's table, and he just never stopped. It waslike he was afraid that if he ever slowed down, everything would fall apart. Hehad never known how to be a kid and he sure didn't know how to be with a kid; itwas like living with an alien. I didn't know him well but I loved him. It stillmakes me sad to think about him. Sometimes I would catch him looking at me or mybrother with this incredibly sad look on his face, like he knew something wasmissing, but it was beyond his ability to deal with it.

This book is about something that is difficult to describe—the close andpowerful emotional connection that flows like a current of electricity between afather and his children. It is a most powerful thing and a most fragile one. Itcan be lost or interrupted abruptly, or it can persist over vast distances andtime. It can make the difference between a life that is rich and full and onethat is empty and meaningless. It is one of our deepest desires as men yet, forso many of us, it has proven to be painfully elusive.

For too long we have been silent about our love for our children, about thehappiness and sorrow that being a father brings. Fathering: StrengtheningConnection with Your Children No Matter Where You Are seeks to break the silenceby weaving together men's stories about the joy and pain of being a father.These stories, told by fathers whose collective wisdom and experience isrepresented on these pages, appear as italicized sections. They are anonymousbecause the cloak of anonymity gave men the freedom to fully explore thesedeeply emotional issues. These stories—heart-wrenching, impassioned, and honest—representthe collective voice of today's father. The narrative that flows fromtheir stories is my attempt to record what I have learned from these men, fromtheir efforts and their anguish.

I don't remember very much about my childhood—there are so many reasons toforget. My father was never home. Sometimes when I was already in bed andsupposed to be asleep, I'd stay awake just to hear his voice when he came in.Even on weekends, I hardly ever saw him, except for when we would all dress upand go to church on Sunday. My parents broke up when I was twelve, and he justsort of faded away. My mother still tells me he is a good man, but how would Iknow?

The emotional distance that has increasingly come to characterize men's liveshas begun to reverberate out into the world. A second set of statistics tellsus that nearly 49.8 percent of our children live outside traditional two-parenthomes; that fathers in the United States spend less time with their childrenthan in any other country; and that among those fathers who do live with theirchildren, the average amount of time spent with them is twelve minutes per day.

These are frightening signposts proclaiming a crisis of monumental proportions.We have allowed ourselves and our children to drift, like untethered astronauts,farther and farther away from the heartbeat of our humanity. We have sentencedour children to the bewildering experience of growing up with a desperate needto feel loved by a father who all too often is simply not there, eitherphysically or emotionally.

There are even more statistics—ones that reveal the devastating ripple effectson society of absent fathers who fail to forge strong emotional ties to theirchildren. These statistics are the most frightening of all, because they are, bydefinition, so impersonal and, tragically, so irrevocable: Nearly 80 percent ofthose who end up in our juvenile justice system lived in homes without a father;the overwhelming majority of our adult prison population grew up withoutfathers; the single strongest predictor of violent juvenile crime, specificallyrobbery and murder, is that the child grew up without a close relationship tohis father.

The statistics don't lie....