2.3 is especially interesting to me. Raised by my mother with no contact from my father certainly seems to have had an impact on my ability to interact with others. Males in particular. Joining the Army, I was frankly shocked. I was not sheltered as a kid but I was an introvert with a few friends kept at a certain distance. No really close bonds.

Thanks for posting. It's funny actually, I was thinking of looking up a few articles about that very subject the other night. I was regaling my wife with stories of my uncomfortable youth. She was raised in a very close "traditional" family.

I should add that my Mom did a great job raising me and I am forever grateful of everything she did. I am a better man today because she and I developed a very good relationship early. A level of trust & understanding helped me a lot. I can talk to her about everything. No shame or embarrassment.

Last edited Wed Jan 8, 2014, 01:59 PM - Edit history (2)

Section 2.3 is also of particular interest to me. You see, there's a guy I know whose dad did not know how to be a good father because his mother had been divorced four or five times. For the sake of establishing the cultural background of his early formative years, I should point out that this guy I know was born in 1950. Since his dad did not know how to be a good father, he sought the advice of an "expert" in the form of a book on raising children. This book claimed that very young boys who were cuddled by their fathers would become "sissies." This guy has a sister who is seven years older than he is. She has a good memory. According to her, both of their parents followed this advice and did not hug their son (her brother) during the first four years of his life. At the age of four, he still had not begun to talk. Finally, his mother decided that she had had enough of this advice and picked him up and hugged him. Decades later his sister would tell me that he started talking almost uncontrollably when he was hugged for the first time in his life.

The father was in the home, but there was no bonding between him and his son. The boy grew up with depression, not even knowing what it was. He respected his father as the head of the family and as one of the dispensers of discipline, which took the form of spanking and was justified on the few occasions when it was administered. His father was extremely successful in his chosen field, but his son never admired him or wanted to be like him. Indeed, throughout his adolescence there was not a single man in his life whom he admired.

He had only a few friends in school and soon learned to fear bullies, but he never told his father because he believed nothing could be done about it. He also believed in the "boys' code" of suffering in silence. He was a loner. He felt extremely insecure around many boys at a time, especially when sports might be involved. P.E. was shocking to him. He even felt uneasy in Cub Scouts, as if he could always count on being rejected by other boys.

Although his IQ was higher than average, his academic performance was only slightly above average. He was capable of considerably greater academic achievement, but his parents put no pressure on him or taught him the joys of accumulating knowledge. They never objected to mediocre grades, and would only object to a U in "Conduct" in elementary school. So, when he was in high school, he was nothing more than a ghost. He was not a nerd because he did not excel in math and/or one of the "hard" sciences, as he could have done with greater effort on his part. Instead of accomplishing anything, he just drifted through life, waiting for high school to come to an end. No self-confidence. Suffering from low body self-image. Not understanding himself. Throughout the four years of his high-school experience, he never ate in the school cafeteria because he knew that's where all the bullies were. So, he always brought a sack lunch to school every day and ate at one of the wooden park benches outside the cafeteria.

He never told his father what was happening in his life. Instead of talking to his father, he was sent by his parents to a clinical psychologist, who turned out to be abysmally incompetent. By the time he was a senior, the state of his mental health had become considerably worse.

I don't mean to put his dad down. His father was a good man. He taught moral principles not by lecturing, but by his very example -- such as not tolerating racist expressions and attitudes at a time when Jim Crow was the law in much of the country. Despite the fact that he was an extremely successful CEO, he always respected those who made a living in humble vocations. Even though he had become rich, he told his son and his daughter not to trust rich people.

He just didn't know how to be a good father, and he also suffered from the alienation between him and his son. Years later they were beginning to get close when the father passed away. This guy I'm telling you about has not been successful in terms of having a career; but at least he has the consolation of having been a good father to his children, both of whom are stronger human beings than he was at their ages.

Some Hollywood actress has a child out of wedlock and says her child does not need a father. She is very, very wrong!

Today this guy I've been telling you about is a member of a particular church. One Sunday morning they had a guest preacher who was a young father. He had a muscular build and was sitting on one of the front pews as he held his toddler son in his arms. The father was a rugged man, but he held his son in his arms in a way that actually appeared to be feminine. You know how little children frequently fidget in places of worship? Well, I was told that this little boy wasn't fidgety at all. He was completely relaxed in his father's arms. In fact, the expression on his face was one of bliss, as if he were thinking "I know my father loves me! He really does!" The guy I've been telling you about later said he almost broke down in tears when he saw the bond that existed between that young boy and his father.

The idea of a traditional family is not so traditional anymore, but still there are particular things that both a mother and father have to offer even though many of those things will intersect. When I first became a father I wanted to know everything I could to be the best one I could, but really the information needed wasn't all that easy to come by. Quite a few manage to mess it up, sometimes due to their own fault and sometimes just because they lacked the knowledge and skills. Kids don't come with an operator's manual. In this day and age the information is out there. Sometimes a lot of it is bad, but there's a lot of good stuff out there as well.