Ever feel like the Cavalry? Or; "The Road" as fatherhood metaphor.

[lumberjack_jeff]

*ring*
Hello?
"Hi. This is your ex-wife."
"Hi, umm... You got the child support check, didn't you?"
"Yes. That's not the problem. Junior is skipping school, failing 9th grade, doing drugs and getting in fights. I can't deal with it, he's coming to live with you."

I recently read (and later watched) The Road. I found it reminiscent of the society I see. Dads are useful in case of emergency, valued for our ability "to deal with it". The line spoken by the protagonist; "All I know is the child is my warrant and if he is not the word of God, then God never spoke." really stuck with me.

This child is my responsibility. Period. Especially now that the shit has hit the fan. Everything else is secondary.

My youngest child has a disability. The skills that mom brought to being primary stay-at-home parent to his two older neurotypical brothers weren't portable so I left the workforce to be the stay at home parent. At school, I noticed something odd. My son spends much of his time in the general ed classroom, and some in a special education learning center. When I volunteer in his general ed classroom, all of the other volunteers are moms. When I volunteered in his special ed classroom, most of the other volunteers are dads.

Does anyone else perceive a similar reality? If so, is it a dad thing? Do we feel that we're only needed in a crisis situation, or is it something else? Is there an externally-imposed social expectation that when the wheels fall off, it's up to him "to be a man" and fix it?

[Broken_Hero]

1. In my experience

with my marriage, and son, there are certain things that I deal with that my wife doesn't fully understand. For example, my son is in elementary school, and my wife found a little love letter that he wrote to a girl in his class. My wife was upset/worried that son was too young to be interested in girls, and I told her that at the same age, I was interested in girls as well, and that it was normal(per my experience). My wife didn't want to talk to him about the love letter, and to be honest it seemed she was somewhat ashamed that son had those feelings at his age(8), and for fwiw the love letter was roughly:

"I like you, can we hold hands?"

On the other hand, there are things that she deals with that I "feel" she has a better grasp on. I see the relationship in terms of raising son as a three way street, my wife, myself teaching son in our own way(consistent though), and us learning from him.

[lumberjack_jeff]

2. I think when parenting works best, it works as a team

The partners know and trust the other parents strengths and weaknesses. It took until the third child for us to figure out what those were, and throw out some of the cultural expectations.

But in my experience, when things appear to be going along smoothly dads tend to have very little role. It is when the wheels truly have fallen off that we're called in to intervene as active parents. If dad was competent enough to trust at that point, why could he not have been involved all along? Perhaps the situation might not have been so catastrophic.

There are exceptions to every rule. A good family friend is mom to an adult son with a fairly significant developmental disability. She has confessed to me that she now wishes that she had encouraged* more active parenting by her husband, because the son is now entirely dependent on her. (Watching this dynamic while the child was growing up, "allowed" would have been a better verb).

It's a good sign that your wife obtained your perspective on the love note prior to wading into a dynamic she didn't fully understand.

[Broken_Hero]

3. Your second paragraph

reminds me of how I view my father during my upbringing. My mother was there to do a majority of the punishment, harping on me to do homework, etc. It was very seldom that my father was ever called upon to deal with me, the times that he did talk to me:

1. Discussing sexuality

2. Discussing/learning about firearms

3. Fighting/how to defend myself physically. I had a bit of a bullying issue when I was in junior high, and my dad taught/told me how to deal with the bully.

4. Stealing, I got caught shoplifting when I was in my pre-teens

That's about it...I know I'm older and I may have forgotten a time or two when he issued me a learning moment, but my mother dealt with a majority of it. I don't have any bones to pick with not having my father involved with my upbringing life 24/7, as a teenager I didn't want any involvement with the parental units at all, and my relationship currently is very good with both of my parents.

An odd thing though, my father hardly ever talked to me like a man, or even seriously about anything concerning himself when I was growing up...it wasn't until I was 20(and got into a fight with him) that he opened up a lot. I swear, after our fight, I learned more about my fathers life in the following few weeks than I did the previous 20yrs.