"Enjoyed an awesome shirtless Saturday. Worked outdoors all day and felt great. "
How much are you like your father?
One thing I’ve noticed—and not just on this site—is that a lot of men speak of their father as if he was the absolute authority on everything, and frequently preference statements about their own beliefs, attitudes, politics, and values with things like:
My father taught me that…
My dad always said…
My father told me to never….
It was good enough for my daddy, so it’s good enough for me…
Being enough unlike my father to perhaps qualify as a separate species all together, I find this tendency in men to be both intriguing and questionable; intriguing because it implies a closeness and solidarity between father and son that does not exist between my father and me, and questionable because it seems sheepish and naïve.
I suppose I don’t have a problem with it in principle. I am either for or against a man accepting his father’s beliefs, attitudes, politics, and values as much as I am either for or against those same beliefs, attitudes, politics, and values of the father himself.
However, I cannot help but feel that any man who accepts and emulates his father’s values without question or contemplation is closing his mind—and indeed his life—to the possibilities available to him. It seems to me that he is simply being obedient, and not really making his own choices.
If a man is to make his own way in this world, should he not question they ways of his father, or at the very least rebel against them to some extent? Or modify them to account for current mores and circumstances? Examine their validity and usefulness as an adult, instead of just accepting them as he did when he was a child?
If he does not examine the alternatives, how can there be any value in his final choice—which has really been no choice at all? It’s fine if he ultimately does follow in his father’s steps, but shouldn’t he know how he got there, and why he’s chosen those values in the end?
QUESTIONS
If you are like your father:
Have you considered why you are that way?
Have you ever considered alternative views, beliefs, or values?
How well has this served you?
If you are not like your father:
How do you differ?
Are your differences the result of a deliberate choice, or did it seem to come natural based on your own experiences or world view?
How well has this served you?
If you are a father yourself:
How much do you try to expose your own children to views different from your own?
What will you think of your child if he or she chooses values and beliefs different from yours?
Tags: adults, attitudes, beliefs, father, fathers, politics, relationships, son, sons, values
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Pete Noy on -
Definitely different from my father but only because of that fact that he is deaf and I am hearing. He has a very constrained perspective of the world as a result of his background and life experiences. The deaf don't see what they have as a handicap but rather as simply a different lifestyle.
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Permalink Reply by Dallas the Phallus on -
Okay, but that is basically circumstancial, no? But what about the other things? The beliefs, the politics, etc?
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Permalink Reply by Pete Noy on
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While circumstantial, definitely the differences contributed to deep differences between us. While I love and respect the man, his mindset is still somewhat stuck in the 60's and his beliefs of right and wrong are straight-up black and white. For example, he had a friend who many years ago came out. Basically this person ceased to exist to my parents. I, on the other hand, had no issue and continued to talk with this person and include him in any happenings with my family. I've had to basically educate my father as to what I perceived as the reality of the world. This is true in terms of politics, race relations, etc. I don't blame him but know this is a result of how he was raised (basically shipped off to the deaf schools at a young age).
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Permalink Reply by Dallas the Phallus on
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While circumstantial, definitely the differences contributed to deep differences between us.
I guess I can see how that happens. I read Deaf Like Me and a second book by a deaf woman while I was in college, and taking some sign classes. From what I recall, their experiences can be fundamentally different.
...his mindset is still somewhat stuck in the 60's and his beliefs of right and wrong are straight-up black and white.
Yes, that happens quite a bit, actually. But that is, in part, the point of my post, too. Do you by chance know how much your father is like his own father?
I don't blame him but know this is a result of how he was raised (basically shipped off to the deaf schools at a young age).
I think a great many deaf schools are run by Christian groups, or at least were many years ago. So that can definitely affect the education and values they receive.
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Permalink Reply by Pete Noy on
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His father was nothing like him. Basically he lived at school (in fact that is where he met my mom). Only home for a few months out of the year and he was basically a hell raiser (on his own). His dad did not ever learn sign language but I'm guessing that was a product of the times he was living in.
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Permalink Reply by Dallas the Phallus on
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His dad did not ever learn sign language but I'm guessing that was a product of the times he was living in.
Probably so, but that's a real shame. Do you think your grandfather was ashamed of him for being deaf?
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Permalink Reply by Pete Noy on
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Ashamed of his deafness...probably not. Just think it was a different time. He worked as a coal miner in Pennsylvania (eventually died of Black Lung). Worked his butt off and was probably exhausted. I just think he took the path of least resistance.
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Permalink Reply by Jack Neulist on -
This was a great idea for a post. My father and I are, to any uninformed observer, almost complete opposites. We have vastly different interests, slightly different principles, and incredibly disparate world views. Some of the differences are natural, others are a matter of growing up in very different worlds. Yet there's nobody else I'd want next to me in the proverbial foxhole. He is the toughest, most reliable, honest, down to earth, and loyal man I've ever met. I may not agree with everything he says, does, or thinks, but in the end, nobody's opinion matters more to me than his. Even when I completely disagree, I listen to every word he says. He's been around the block and through the neighborhood. To not give him credit for knowing something about the way things work would be absolute idiocy, in my opinion.
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Permalink Reply by Dallas the Phallus on
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...but in the end, nobody's opinion matters more to me than his.
That is so foreign to me. I don't care in the least what my father's opinion of me is.
He's been around the block and through the neighborhood.
Yes, that always carries some weight, doesn't it.
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Permalink Reply by Michael D. Denny on -
I am a bit like my grandfather, but utterly and absolutely nothing like my Father.
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Permalink Reply by LShieldes on
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In many ways my father and I are opposites. He is a staunch conservative, and I am an America destroying progressive. My father is an extreme extrovert, he finds friends wherever he goes, quickly climbs up leadership ladders, etc. I am very introverted, I like to work with those at the top, but way behind the scenes. He is driven to the point of obsessive/compulsive, when he finds a project he takes it to the extreme. I prefer to be more like the renaissance man, I find a project, become competent and become bored.
In many ways we are also very much alike. Both experienced the corps at A&M, with me wearing his boots with pride. Whereas he seeks out friends, we both retain them easy and have no problems with finding new ones automatically gravitating to us. We both are stubborn, abrasive, honest men. We both prefer power over finesse(from skiing to interactions with others), even when it hurts us. We will only take wrongs so far and will use "colorful" language and other means to right them(just learned he told someone to f)(* off in a church meeting, don't worry, they made up and everyone agreed he was in the right, just like me, we don't take the most political avenue to get there)
I wish I had that drive of his, and at some point someone had taught either of us better politics(or better yet, a proper funnel for anger in a system or at someone, grandfather was also notorious for this). But I take massive amounts of inspiration from his drive to ask questions to see the person underneath, even if he doesn't agree. When my brother came out of the closet, my father and mother sought counceling and became heavy in PFLAG, funny thing was that my conservative father was able to become accepting far faster then my liberal mother. When I "came out" as no longer christian, we had a long talk about my beliefs, he wanted to make sure I thought things through, rather then to bash m beliefs. I try to do this, esp as one of the only liberal of my friends(esp that hunts/fish), when people let me, I try to dig in find the roots of their beliefs without becoming personal/attacking
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Permalink Reply by Dallas the Phallus on
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Great response and insight. Thanks, L.
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