Meg Meeker, M.D.
© Copyright Meg Meeker, M.D. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical
means including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval without
the written permission of the author.
Hero: A person admired for achievements and
noble qualities. An object of extreme admiration
or devotion.
Most fathers don’t think of themselves as heroes. They haven’t
rescued anyone from a fire, won a Superbowl or safely landed
a plane flying with only one engine. Fathers size up their
achievements, or lake thereof, and reason that they are simply men
who do the best they can with their families. But within the family,
they believe, they are certainly not heroes.
After listening to thousands of kids talk about their parents over
the past 30 years, I am here to tell you quite the opposite: fathers
are their children’s heroes. A child looks at his father and sees
authority, security and safety. At least, that’s what he longs to
see and the truth is, most kids get these. Beyond viewing fathers
as a source of comfort and protection, children see and admire
qualities in their fathers that most fathers don’t see in themselves.
For instance, I have had children describe their fathers as: smart,
strong, patient and capable. But when I ask those fathers about
these character qualities, many are astounded. They don’t see in
themselves what their children see.
The purpose of my book HERO: Being the Strong Father Your
Children Need is twofold. First, to help fathers see themselves
through their children’s eyes because only then will they
understand what they need from them. Many fathers spend a lot of
money on books and programs trying to do a better job parenting.
The problem with most of these is that they fail to shift a father’s
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perspective of who he is to his kids. Once he understands how his
kids see him and what they need from him, then he can parent in a
way that genuinely transforms their lives.
Second, I want fathers to learn how to use the skills they already
have in order to enjoy deeper, healthier relationships with his
kids. Great parenting is simple, but it’s hard. And one thing I have
learned over the years is this: every father has all the wiring he
needs to be a great Dad. Whether he is a CEO of a Fortune 500
company, an owner of a small mechanic shop, unemployed or
recovering from an addiction in a treatment facility, his child wants
him- no one else. And every father can deliver what his child needs
if he has a little bit of help. So if you are a mother reading, keep
going. There’s a lot that we mothers can and need to do in order to
help our husbands have good relationships with our kids.
FATHERS (AND MOTHERS) CRAFT
A CHILD’S IDENTITY
In HERO, I write at length about how and why children study their
parents. Every day when you come home, your children scour your
face and body language for clues regarding what you are thinking
about them. Are you happy to see them or are you in a terrible
mood from a bad day at work? If so, they may conclude that you
aren’t happy to see them so they will leave the room. If you admire
a painting they are making, cookies they are baking or how well
they are throwing a baseball, they conclude that they are good.
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Children study their parents, not because they are interested in you
(sorry to say) but because they need to learn some things about
themselves. They search you for answers regarding what you think
about them, how you feel about them. Then, they take the answers
they received (some are accurate and some are not) and internalize
those answers. In short, many children become who they think their
parents believe they are. This is particularly true when it comes to
what their fathers believe.
Think back to the days when you were a child. If your father was
home and gave you adequate attention, you felt like a valuable
person. If he ignored you or disappeared altogether, chances are
good that you felt that you weren’t worth sticking around for.
Again, these are child perceptions. But as we grow older, those
perceptions stay with us unless our father changes.
Many men and women live with scars from fathers who never
showed them affection, admiration or love. When a father fails to
give these to his child, that child learns on a deep level, that the
problem isn’t with her father, it is with her. This occurs because
children are egocentric and believe that much of the world revolves
around them.
Mothers and fathers both influence the identity formation of their
children in powerful ways. Mothers provide comfort, security and
unfailing love (in a child’s mind.) Fathers provide approval, respect
and a sense of value. Interestingly, many children feel differently
about the love they receive from mothers versus the love they
receive from fathers. They feel that their mother’s love is nonnegotiable. In other words, they believe that their mothers have
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to love them because that’s what mothers do. We are the ones
who always have the child’s back, always offer love and usually
understand (even if we don’t.) This makes sense. At the beginning
of life, a mother is there. She is the primary one who feeds a child
and if she- the one the child comes to rely on first and foremostdoesn’t love the her then no one else in the world will love her.
A father’s love is perceived differently by a child and we can see
this in the way the child responds to her father and her mother. She
perceives her father’s love as negotiable. He doesn’t have to love
her but if he does, then she reasons, she must be very valuable.
Even if the father is a kind, dependable father, the child may well
believe that he needs to stay on his toes in order for the father to
keep it up. Often, this is why children behave better with fathers
than mothers. They fear that they may lose their father’s love but
feel so secure with their mother’s love, that they feel that they can
do whatever they like to them. This is good news/bad news for
mothers!
As women, we must understand this and help our children know
that they can have security in their father’s love (if they do have
a dependable father.) If they don’t and you are divorced or your
husband struggles with mental illness, addiction or anything else
that would keep him emotionally or physically absent, it is very
important to understand that your child still needs male love and
approval. This isn’t simply to fill an emotional void, it is to help
him or her develop a strong and healthy sense of self. This is why
it is imperative that good mothers help foster good relationships
between fathers and their children.
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WHAT COUNTS ISN’T HOW WE
SEE FATHERS, BUT HOW OUR
CHILDREN NEED TO SEE THEM
After my book Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters came out, I was
stunned by the enormous amount of comments I received from
really good fathers who said, “thank you for saying something nice
about us.” I found this quite sad and it made me reflect deeply on
how our culture teaches children to perceive their fathers.
The next time you turn on the television to watch a movie or
sitcom, pay attention to the father in the plot. Is he cast as a
strong, compassionate but authoritative man? Nope. Is he funny
or lazy, even a bit stupid? Probably all three. There is a popular
car advertisement showing a father playing catch with his son.
The father is trying to teach his son how to throw a baseball but
he is so bad that he has nothing good to show the boy. Because
he is terrible at baseball, the car company encourages the father
to take comfort in the fact that he can at least leave his child a
good car. The ad is funny on the surface but laughing at a father
who can’t give his son anything of substance but a car is a terrible
commentary on fathers. Can you imagine what we mothers would
do if an advertisement showed us a bumbling idiots who were
clumsy athletically, poor performers at work or terrible at raising
good kids? We would scream, lobby and probably hire a lawyer
or two in protest. But fathers don’t because they have become
accustomed to being the butt of jokes, the ones who hog channel
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changers and drink too much beer.
When children see fathers portrayed this way repeatedly, make no
mistake, they learn that fathers aren’t worthy of their respect. And
when they act according to what they are seeing by disrespecting
their fathers, their relationship with their father begins to
deteriorate. So we need to help fathers out because we mothers
know that children need healthy relationships with their fathers
in order to become strong adults and develop healthy identities.
What can we do? Here are a few tips for starters.
1. Never criticize the child’s father in front of or
to the child. I can’t stress how psychologically
damaging it is for a child to hear his father
demeaned. Hearing criticism not only hurts his
relationship with his father, it hurts his relationship
with his mother too. Work out your differences with
your husband or the child’s father on your own and
never involve the child.
2. Refuse to make your husband (or ex) the butt
of jokes. I cringe at how many jokes about dumb
fathers circulate among women on the internet. We
may think they are funny, but in the same way that
cultural projections of fathers changes the way our
kids see fathers, jokes change the way we see them.
We have worked hard for equality with men so think
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about it. If we see them as worthy if stupid jokes,
then we see ourselves the same way. When we bring
down one parent, we demean the other.
3. Compliment your husband regularly in front of
the children. Most men respond positively to praise.
The truth is, tired wives and mothers rarely offer
enough praise to husbands. (And vice versa.) If you
want your husband to spend more time with your
children, make him feel like a good dad. Criticism
of the job he is doing will only discourage him from
engaging them more. So find one thing each week
that you admire in your husband (or yes, even your
ex) and point it out to your children. Then, praise
him for it. The reason this is important is twofold: it
helps children feel more secure and it bolster’s your
husband’s involvement with the children.
4. Let your husband do what he does well. Most
mothers are control freaks when it comes to their
kids. I was (and am) and I struggle to allow my
husband the freedom to parent well. The truth is,
your husband is equipped with a different skill set
when it comes to parenting and there are things
that he does better than you do when parenting.
Because men use less words and don’t feel the
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need to talk much, they can be better listeners.
This is enormously helpful during the teen years.
Fathers don’t feel the sense of competitiveness with
daughters that mothers often feel and can be more
objective when it comes to correcting them. Fathers
can be very protective with daughters and we need
to allow them to care for our daughters. After all, they
know exactly how teen boys will view daughters who
wear skimpy clothes to school. If you watch for your
husband’s parenting strengths with an open mind,
you’ll be amazed by what you find.
Great parents have one thing in common: they recognize what
they’re really good at and they let those talents loose on their
children but they also recognize their limitations. Leaders do the
same. One of the most important lessons I learned in medical
school and residency was to understand when I had reached my
limit. Professors taught us that when we didn’t know what to do,
that we should never pretend that we did. Because if we did, we
could seriously hurt someone. Then, we learned how to look for
and find answers for our patients. Good doctors, we learned offer
patients more than what we alone could bring.
The same is true with parenting. Great mothers know what they
give their children and they come to grips with their limitations.
Then, and only then, can those great mothers look beyond
themselves and find how they can help fill in the holes in their
children’s lives. What they find is that every child has a father-
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shaped hole in his or her heart. This is a hole that they want their
father to fill. We must be strong enough to see this in our children
and do what we can to fill it.
As we do this, we must also remember that each of our children
has a mother shaped hole. It is the same size and it is no less
important. When we embrace our strength and behave as
confident, secure women, we are not threatened by good fathers.
On the contrary, we have compassion and wisdom to embrace our
children’s needs even when those needs don’t involve us.
Every son needs to grow up with the stamp of approval from his
father if he is to live his adult life content in himself. Sadly, many
men never get that blessing and if you are one of those men or are
married to one, you know it. And every daughter takes one man to
her grave- her Dad. If she had a great relationship with her dad, she
wants more time with him and if she had a painful relationship with
her father, she wants healing.
We mothers must resolve to do everything in our power to improve
our children’s relationships with their father. And men must push
back against the toxic messages they hear about their value
from our culture. Then, they must find the fortitude to walk in the
opposite direction.
Children want their hero- the object of devotion and admiration.
And they want that hero to be their father. The questions for each
of us who love them is this: will we find the strength to help them
have that hero?
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