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Larry Pesavento is a member of the TMC Advisory Council, a therapist, an author and the Founder of CHRISTOS - A Center for Men located in Cincinnati, Ohio.
"In 1993 Larry Pesavento started CHRISTOS men's center to help initiate a dialogue about how a man in this confusing, elderless world can find a sense of identity, place and pride. He had been counseling men for close to 25 years and learned from their struggles as well as his own. He then decided to write a book about the internal journey that a man must take in order to find a sense of peace and generativity. He felt called to write this book to share what he had learned as part of his own journey and struggle with manhood.
For more info about Larry Pesavento, visit his web-site, http://www
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MENSIGHT will publish a chapter each month and we would like for you to submit suggestions and discuss your opinions on our Men's Issues Forum.
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Chapter 6 - The Age of the Father (Part 1)
A boy is hardwired to become a man. He is hardwired to be initiated. Yet his hardwiring is dependent on the actions of other men. His hardwiring is dependent on a network of older men. If a boy is kept from men who will guide him to manhood, his destiny is blocked. Other men must consciously turn on the hardware.
It is a misunderstanding that most men languish in the world of the mother because of the need for comfort. This is not the real story. Most men are stuck in the world of the mother because other men have not taken them away. The most important happening for the young boy in his quest for manhood is the emergence of one man, a good father. This man then becomes a bridge to other men who hold a key to his destiny. The father brings the energy of separation, the mirror of masculinity, and the motivation to search for the life mission. The father starts a man on his road to manhood.
The connection to a mother object means overstaying in the world of the feminine. A man who stays too long sees the world through the eyes of a woman. He often finds himself living out the dreams and wishes of a woman. Sometimes he stays with a woman whose dreams he despises. In either case, he finds himself spending most of his energy obsessed with keeping her happy. He lives the dark side of the saying, "If mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy." He assumes that if he pleases a mother object, he will somehow be happy too.
Indigenous people instinctively knew this feminine obsession to be wrong for the boy and destructive to the community. Both men and women did not let it continue. Mothers, poignantly but purposefully, handed their boys over to fathers and elders. They knew it was time. Fathers, then elders, knew their role and willingly took over responsibility for the boy's growth.
Modern men do not benefit from this wisdom. Most modern men are stuck in the world of the feminine. In modern times the mother has been blamed for this overstaying situation. Men, even today, are thought to be victims of devouring, controlling mothers, helpless to get away. Early psychology blamed everything from masturbation, to addictions, to homosexuality on the smothering mother. Blaming women has historically been the civilized way for men to succumb to the mother complex, while trying to save face. It is easy to blame the woman, not the complex.
The fact is that modern young men are stuck in the world of the feminine because older men leave them there. The dark mother merely colludes in the process. The dark mother merely seduces an already lost boy.
Separation and initiation always involves an older man. An indigenous boy never left the village by himself. He didn't know where to go or what to do. He was stuck until an older man came and took him away. In modern times young men still need older to show them the way. The father is the first older man the boy connects with. His presence and wisdom is crucial to a boy's growth.
Assistant Mothers
In the recent past fathers were, at most, considered assistant mothers. Margaret Mead, a noted anthropologist, once quipped that fathers were a "biological necessity but a social accident". Since Victorian times and the advent of the Industrial Revolution, in the early 1800's, fathers were felt to be doing their parental duty if they provided a financial base for the family and stepped in when discipline was too much for the mother. Otherwise parenting was left to the mother, including the teaching of morality and social graces.
Modern American fathers were taught that they were not needed in childrearing. Anthony Rotundo, in his fascinating book called American Manhood, writes, "In the new society that developed early in the nineteenth century, fathers declined in their importance to sons, and their place was taken by mothers." So fathers unknowingly deserted their sons, stranding them in the mother's world with no way out.
Much of the literature of the contemporary men's movement centers around the lack of good fathering in the lives of their sons. Robert Bly was the first to point out the woundedness that many men feel from lack of fathering. He talks of the changing role of fathers since the Industrial Revolution when fathers no longer worked side by side with their sons. With the coming of technology and the moving of the workplace to the factory, the father became an absent member of the family. Factories replaced fields. Sons saw their father off early in the morning, greeting an exhausted man late in the evening. A son knew little of what his father did all day, where previously, in agricultural societies, fathers taught their sons what they did. Fathers were no longer in the loop of initiating their sons. As Rotundo says, "mothers were now expected to mold the characters of their sons, a task that in previous generations had always belonged to fathers." Sons were abandoned to be initiated by their mothers.
Today, the lack of a healthy father presence has become the most significant cause of a boy's loss of masculine direction. We are all products of stunted or skewed initiations because our fathers didn't know better. We are all often at a loss about how to father our own sons. We are all terribly at risk for seduction by the dark mother. We are all at a loss for what it means to be a man from the inside out. This is what Bly talks about when he emphasizes every manÕs father wound.
Masculine Energy
But what is the role of the father in a boy's initiation? How have we been wounded by his absence? Where does he lead us? Where is he today?
The father for indigenous people is the son's first significant experience with masculine energy. When the father is present with positive masculine energy he starts the process of separating the boy from mother passivity and moving the boy toward an active state of motivation for his search for masculinity. By doing this he performs a mini-initiation for the boy, awakening a hunger for emotional risk and exploratory pain.
As we shall see masculine energy is the energy of separation, which inevitably involves pain. Masculine energy involves facing the pain of separation from the tragic world of addiction and regressive relationships. The father is the first, necessary bearer of this separating energy, while giving the boy a vision of wholeness beyond the pain. He gives meaning to boundary setting and is a model of a mature, boundaried man.
In indigenous tribes the father took over the guidance and discipline of the child after a point, usually 7 or 8, and started to introduce him to the man's world. He gave him the message that now he would have to experience pain and discomfort on his way to getting his needs and the tribe's needs met. This pain was not seen as the enemy, as in the mother's world, but as a necessary part of manhood.
The initial pain was separation from the mother and the world of immediate and easy gratification. The father started to teach delayed gratification for a purpose more important than comfort. The father taught the boy how to face the world outside the hut. He introduced the boy to his world, the world of the marketplace, the world of the hunt, and the world of the survival of the tribe. The survival skills the father would teach, as well as the modeling of manhood, would be necessary for the boy to survive his coming initiatory ordeal. The father would guide the boy in starting to see the world through a man's eyes.
The Initiated Father
It seems that the crucial time the father needs to assert his positive masculine energy in a modern context is still when the boy turns 7 or 8. About this time the boy is starting to confront the world outside the hearth and hut, symbolized by venturing to a modern school. The boy learns that there is a world outside the hut that he is destined for. He learns that this new world has different rules from the world he came from.
As William Jarema says in his book, Fathering the Next Generation, the father represents the strange, outside world to his son. If the father has been initiated he will very consciously take the boy away from the feminine hut, the kitchen and family room, and tell the mother he is taking over the next step in the boy's growth. He will then introduce his son to the world of the marketplace, the world of strangers outside of family, to the social world outside the home. In this way the father is a crucial transitional figure on the boy's road to initiation. He starts teaching a boy how a man acts with strangers. He starts to teach a boy the rules of the world of men.
The father, not the mother, should start setting the rules and the discipline at this age. An initiated mother will understand this and welcome it. She will not get in the way of the father's influence or try to protect the boy from the father's strength. She will start to go through her own grieving process at this point in letting go of her son. This will be part of her initiation.
The father teaches a boy how to interact in the larger society. The initiated father will see this world as an exciting, adventuresome place. He teaches a boy that strangers are potential friends. In this he builds on the message of the good mother, who has given the boy a sense of hope and trust. He also gives a boy the beginning of a comfort level around other men. In this way a father teaches a boy he can reach out to other men and follow his hardwired instincts. An initiated father will not see other men as competitors and dangerous strangers but as sources of support and wisdom. He will see other men as potential fellow journeyors, as 'brothers' in initiation, or elders who can give wisdom and direction. He will impart to his son the goodness of the community of men.
The initiated father starts to teach a boy the wisdom of the elder. He will teach that there is necessary pain in growth. The world of the father shows a boy that anything of value needs to be struggled for. And the father starts to show that value resides within. The father does not shield a son from pain, especially emotional pain. Instead he acknowledges the pain and encourages the boy to learn from it. In this he prepares the boy for his eventual ordeal.
The initiated father teaches a son how a man relates to a woman without turning her into mother. In this way a father gives important lessons about committed, adult relationships. An initiated father will not treat his wife as a mother object. He will model healthy boundaries. He will not be terrified of her anger or dependent on her approval. Thus, he will give a son the example of how to treat a woman with respect, as a companion and true partner. He will also give a son the wisdom to choose a woman who can be a true partner.
In all that he teaches, a father lends his son his own strength and wisdom until the son is strong enough to find his own inner wisdom. As Lewis Yablonsky, author of Fathers And Sons, points out, "A son who has a close relationship with his father is thus constantly examining his own behavior from his father's point of view." An unfathered boy will soon be overwhelmed by the choices and responsibilities of his new world away from home. He can then turn into an overwhelmed man who does not have the strength or enthusiasm for an adult life. An initiated father lends the strength for the boy to make good decisions and the strength for the boy to weather his mistakes. This experience gives a boy confidence that he will eventually succeed in a man's world.
The father is the first and most important model of manhood that a son encounters. A son will carry the imprint of his father in his soul, for better or worse, for the rest of his life. The ideal is for a son to want to live his life with the passion and dedication of his initiated father. The ideal is to see his life as filled with potential for opportunity and meaning, in community with other men and women who share that optimism and hope. The initiated father opens a son up to the camaraderie of brothers, the wisdom of elders, and the companionship of a committed life partner.
William Jarema outlines several types of positive fathers. He talks of the Champion Father who prepares a son for initiation by desiring what is best for his son, championing him by his support, and helping him to excel as a unique individual. He talks of the Mystic Father who gives his son a feel for the sacred wilderness, inside himself and in nature, and the beauty and mystery of human life. He talks of the Mentor Father who gives his son the wisdom of his worldly experience in the marketplace and the world of men. All of these fathers teach by example as well as words. All have found a strength that can only come from completing their own ordeal.
The Modern Age of the Father
The modern man ideally needs a father between the ages of 7-14, as did primitive boys. However, modern men seem to have the boy's need for emotional fathering for a much longer time. I see most men's need for fathering extending past age 14 to around age 36. We all probably need good fathering at least until our mid-30's. Because we are an elderless society, a society without formal initiation, a manÕs initiation now is left to chance, if he gets it at all. It seems to take a man at least until his mid-30Õs to find a sufficient amount of healthy fathering energy to move into psychological initiation. Otherwise, as Frank Pittman points out, men will "go through their puberty rituals day after day for a lifetime, waiting for a father to anoint them and say 'Attaboy,' to treat them as good enough to be considered a man."
This extra stage roughly corresponds to psychologist Daniel Levinson's developmental stage of neo-adulthood. Levinson studied a cohort of men from their days at Harvard in the 1940's throughout their life cycles. He used his study to find if men go through developmental stages their whole life. While older psychological theories seemed to show development stopping at young adulthood, Levinson was one of the first modern psychologists to show that men develop throughout their lives. Levinson showed that adulthood was not a monolithic end state culminating in death. Instead he showed that that men could keep growing past their 20's.
Levinson feels there is a normal structure to most men's lives throughout their lifespan. He claims in his book, The Seasons Of A Man's Life, that men are not considered full adults in our society until around 35. Until then he is a 'novice" adult.' After that he is ready to become a 'full-fledged' adult. A man has a great need for a mentor during his novice phase, according to Levinson, in order to make the transition to full adulthood. A mentor can make up for a lot of missed fathering, as I will talk about later.
Carl Jung also talks of a man being able to start the equivalent of the initiatory process only after 35. His idea of maturity and initiation he called individuation. He felt that a man was not ready for his journey of individuation until much later than adolescence. He felt a man was not ready until the second half, or 'afternoon', of his life.
Jed Diamond, in his book Male Menopause, talks of male menopause, with its physical and psychological consequences, as a passage to the second half of a man's life. This second half, or second mountain to climb, is the time a man finds much of his true purpose and passion in life. This 'Menopause Passage' sounds very similar to psychological initiation. According to Diamond, this time starts for most men at age forty, but sometimes as early as age 35.
J.R. Tolkein wrote a series of books on a fantasy world complete with long histories of many cultures, multiple languages, and mystical geographies. He wrote a myth. Like other myths I talk about, his story contains many psychological truths. The hero of his story is a relatively young hobbit, a boy trying to become a man. The hobbit culture has different stages of hobbit social development. There is a hobbit term called the tweens, a time between hobbit childhood and adulthood that extended from 18 to 36. Hobbits weren't considered adults until 36, after their tweens. J.R. Tolkein also seemed to sense modern manÕs dilemma of psychological growth in giving hobbits an extended adolescence. Or maybe he sensed modern man's desire for more time to prepare for adulthood.
Contradicting our social norms, the 20's is still the age of the father. The father figure is still needed during the age of the tweens. For many men their own father is exhausted by this time, as Robert Bly reminds us. However, some fathers come into their own when a son reaches this age, especially if they have just completed their own initiation. For others there is the hope of a second father whom I will talk about in a forthcoming chapter.
The Father Wound
If the father is absent, or bears negative masculine energy, two things may happen. The boy may be frightened to advance, retreating back to the mother. Then he tries to live out his mother's dreams and obsessively tries to please the woman he loves. Or the boy unites with the negative, competitive father, a process called identifying with the aggressor. Then he lives out his father's dreams or the dreams of the patriarchal society he is a part of. In neither case does he find his own manhood.
The 20's is the age where the father wound first appears for men. I have counseled many men in their 20's who are stuck in their tweens because of their father wound. They feel this great social responsibility to be an adult, yet see little in the adulthood model of their father that appeals to them. So they wander in this limbo of overwhelming expectation and little motivation. They fall prey to the passivity of the dark mother. Adulthood to them is not an adventure, but more like a disease. They cannot identify with their fatherÕs life yet they are hardwired to follow a father. So they stay a teen in a man's body, ashamed and scared and in need of a father figure who can give them a different vision of male adulthood.
There are other men in their 20's who are identified with a remote, successful, uninitiated father. They want to follow their father's lead. They have learned to identify with a flawed vision of manhood. They usually don't feel their father wound until later in their life. I do not see these men in their 20's. They are too busy living out their father's dream. Their father wound appears at mid-life, when they glimpse the dead-end road they are on.
The Traditional Father
If a father is not initiated he may not see the need in his son for masculine energy. Or he may use his son to try to get the masculine energy he never got. An uninitiated father is usually either absent from his son's life, or he is competitive with his son for a sense of lost manhood. He will, by a variety of unconscious ways, leave a boy stuck in the mother's world with no power or insight to get out.
Absent fathers most often are playing out their assigned roles in a traditional way, using the traditional manual. We talked of the traditional role of father as family protector and provider. This is the role Warren Farrell describes in his model of a Stage I marriage. Stage One marriages are survival focused and men are responsible for the economic survival of their family. There is no need for the father in childraising, except in matters of extreme discipline. That traditional father mission concentrates on the financial well-being of the family, and depends on the father being a remote model of responsibility, industry, and ambition. In many ways the traditional family is seen as an economic unit whose goal is to raise sons to head their own economic units.
As we will see in a coming chapter the father's worth has become equated to his net worth, leading to work addiction as the norm. As in Victorian times the worth of the whole family, especially sons, is also attached to the father's net worth. Warren Farrel talks of men substituting the quest for money for the quest of the inner life. Work success has become the father's test of manhood, his initiatory ordeal. For the modern father the most important role of guiding his son through the perils of his mother separation and inner initiation was lost. The traditional father was unaware it was ever there. As Anthony Rotundo says, "By the early nineteenth century, when the work of middle class men began to pull fathers away from home, fathers yielded their traditional roles of shaping the character of their sons."
I have talked to many men who couldn't understand why their wife left them, or why their children left with their wife. They believed they were following the guidelines of fatherhood. Invariably they would talk of how well they provided financially for their family. The most repeated comment would go, "I gave them everything they asked for." They knew they had done everything by the book. They had.
I have also talked to many men who have felt love and pity for their father. These men knew their fathers would do whatever they could for them. They loved their fathers for that. They also realized that their fathers did not have what they needed to keep from feeling overwhelmed in their quest for respectability for their families and themselves.
Larry Pesavento and MENSIGHT ask you to submit suggestions and discuss your opinions on our Men's Issues Forum.
Larry Pesavento ©2004
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