Fathers Must Face Their Fears

by Jack Heinowitz, Ph.D.

It's pretty hard dealing with the idea of really being a father. Scary feelings come up about accepting it, getting involved, learning what to do and how to participate in family life. The commitment part is a heavy thing for me right now.

The dramatic lifestyle changes that accompany the entry into fatherhood bring up fears of all sorts. Some of us worry about being able to provide for a family ("How in the world will I be able to put my kids through college on my own, like my dad did?"). Others agonize about being a good role model for their children ("How can I teach them when I have problems of my own?"), while still others are afraid of the unknown ("I've been through a lot, but I don't know much about being a dad."). Even veteran fathers worry: They brood about paying more bills, or being too old for the sleepless nights they know lie ahead. Reluctant to speak about the fears that plague us, we suffer in isolation. And in not addressing them directly, we inadvertently pass them on to our children who, after all, internalize much of what they see at home.

But our fears need not lead to loneliness or darken our children's view of life. Approached head-on -- as uncustomary as this may sound -- they can work wonders, for they help make us whole.

FIGHT THOSE FEARS, MAN!

We come from a long line of proud men for whom combating fear was the hallmark of manliness. Psychologist James Hillman calls this manly legacy our "Hercules complex." He writes:

We are taught to rise above the failings of body and emotions, To never surrender, to be victorious. We keep our wounds invisible.... We never admit that we are afraid -- so afraid that there are times it is unbearable, yet we endure.

While caught up in our Hercules complex, we operate under the delusion that it is our "failing emotions" -- our sadness, grief, or anxiety -- that cause us pain. What actually keeps us hurting has nothing to do with weak emotions; it is instead a direct result of the lengths we go to in averting our emotions. Pain, in other words, is the inevitable by-product of our compulsive resistance to feeling what is really there.

We hurt because we refuse to allow ourselves to experience certain "undesirable" emotions. Then as we stifle our tears and brave our fears alone, we pull away from those close to us. Although our Herculean bravado, muscled and stoic, gives the appearance of strength, it masks the truth. And the truth is that we are hurting. As one father of a two-week-old points out:

I feel like a babe in the woods -- and sometimes it's mighty cold out there. I've gotten so lost in the shuffle that I don't think anyone here really wants me. My wife's totally focused on our kid and otherwise exhausted. The baby does whatever it is babies do, which doesn't seem to have much to do with me.

Worse, we dare not ask for the understanding, support, or tenderness we need. Is it because of ego and pride? Not really. Here, too, the culprit is fear. We assume that our cries will go unheeded and our needs mocked, belittled, or rejected -- an assumption that frightens us more than we can fathom.

To keep up the facade of impermeability and self-sufficiency, we isolate ourselves and hide behind our roles of "big man," "success story," "protector," and "breadwinner." We pretend to be the mythological heroes we think we should be. Determined that no one will hurt us, we fool ourselves into believing that by puffing out our chests and pushing ever onward, we will never have to feel our pain.

I recently met with a group of dads attending childbirth classes with their partners. I asked them, rather boldly, "How many of you are satisfied with your present sex life?" Not one hand went up. I then asked, "How many of you can't wait for the pregnancy to be over?" Every hand shot up. Finally, I asked, "And how many of you are having some fears about becoming a father?" No response.

We are adept at sidestepping our fears -- often so adept that we refuse to cop to anything that suggests we don't "have it all together." Michael, a "green" father, as he reluctantly put it, came in to talk with me at his wife's request. Holding back tears, he said:

You build up a picture in your mind that things will be positive, and when they're not it's very hard to accept. I've been trying to get rid of the negatives -- the worries about being a good father. I'm wondering if I ever really can, and to make matters worse I've put up a shield against my wife because she wouldn't like knowing about the "down" side. I'm kind of lost here.

Ashamed to acknowledge our concerns and worries, we overextend ourselves to prove we're not afraid. But ironically, all this time those who love us see through our camouflage and yearn for us to be real. They feel helpless, wishing they could only reach us.

Our women, who tend to know us better than anyone else, cry out for us to slow down, to talk, to share, to be vulnerable, intimate, and real. The last person they want is Superman. (Even Lois Lane, who had Superman's love, still longed to see the man behind the mask.)

Time and time again I hear women pleading with their partners to go into counseling, "open up," and get involved. Too often, the macho reply is "I don't need that. I can fix the problem myself." Marriage counseling has become a last-ditch effort for many women wishing desperately to connect with their partners before calling it quits. They hope that with the help of a therapist, their men will start to share feelings, desires, and dreams with them. But most often their men stand firm, too proud -- and frightened -- to admit that the prospect of feeling out of control threatens them in ways they don't even understand. An alarming number of marriages end because men refuse to let down their guard and women get tired of feeling alone and unloved (despite an abundance of fragrant bouquets, elegant dinners, and good sex).

We men are just "getting" what women have known for a long time -- that sustaining a close, satisfying relationship requires inner work. Historically, introspection and psychological thinking have never been an integral part of the male curriculum. Now, however, we must break ranks and explore the "interior." For deep connections with our partners and children, we must learn to address our anxieties effectively.

In the 1950s and 1960s, television commercials urged young men to be all they could be by joining the U.S. Army. The challenge today is to be all we can be in our families. The mandates have reversed: In lieu of following military commands, we must strip off our "uniforms" and reveal every aspect of ourselves -- good or bad, weak or strong -- stop judging ourselves, and resolve the male pain we inherited. Moving through fear rather than trying to defeat it takes more courage than boot camp ever did, and with it comes the greatest sense of joy, power, and security you can possibly know. Being a fatherman is a truly heroic task, requiring you to face your dragons head-on, see them for what they are, discover where they come from, and learn how to live with them, for they will never all be slain.

FEAR IS

Fear is a basic human emotion -- something we may have forgotten since ours has been in the closet for such a long time. To reacquaint ourselves with the naturalness of fear, we need only remember our childhood nightmares. As best I recall, my mom or dad came whenever I screamed out in my sleep. I knew I was safe as long as they were within earshot. I knew it was okay to be afraid. At least I did then.

For many of us, there was no relief, no calming of our fears. Instead, our childhood calls of distress were repeatedly met with indifference, annoyance, anger, or resentment. Such responses to our appeals for comfort and reassurance convinced us that our vulnerability was threatening, that being scared was unsafe. We learned that if we showed our fears, the dreaded thing would happen -- we would be rejected (ignored, reprimanded, criticized, punished). To avoid rejection, we became masters at "covering our heads with the bed sheets," feigning invisibility or invincibility.

Now as parents witnessing our own children's vulnerability, we have a major challenge ahead of us. To avoid passing on our unexamined fears to our children and to teach them to deal well with their own, we must come to terms with how, when, and where we learned to be so afraid in the first place.

WHERE DOES FEAR COME FROM?

When we were first learning to cope with life's stresses and anxieties, our parents were our emotional anchors, protective shields, and primary teachers. Their responses to our actions fostered our concepts of "good" and "bad." If passivity and obedience, or friendliness and helpfulness elicited a positive response, we quickly adopted these "winning" behaviors. If being smart, grown up, outgoing, or quiet evoked a smile or a gentle touch, those were the characteristics we cultivated. We took on whatever behaviors were deemed acceptable because when mom and dad were pleased with us, we felt loved and secure.

If we did not watch over ourselves, play by the rules, and fulfill our parents' needs before our own, we feared we might not be loved. Living with the constant threat of being hurt, rejected, or abandoned, and uncertain whether we would ever be accepted for who we were, we learned to hide our true selves away.

In this dissociated state, we developed a repertoire of survival strategies. Unable to count on receiving the emotional nourishment needed to grow our self-esteem, we strove to at least avoid insult, punishment, and rejection. Toward that end, we adopted behaviors that we hoped might contain the tension around us by meeting some of our parents' expectations. In the process, we mastered the arts of bargaining, pleasing, performing, and avoiding conflict. Self-management, rather than self-expression, came to drive our other relationships as well, moving us further and further from our authentic selves until we became strangers to our true thoughts and feelings.

Our fear of being fully ourselves originated in these early childhood experiences. And sadly, we continue to play out many of the fear-driven survival tactics we relied on as youngsters -- especially with the people we most care about and whose love we most depend on. We do this automatically, unaware that we are sharing our "conditioned" selves rather than who we really are.

Understandably, in learning to play our parts so well, we have come to regard these beliefs as our own. We also mistake our adopted roles for our true selves, which we long ago sent into hiding. The thought of stepping out of these comfortable roles fills us with anxiety. And yet the scripted lines so deeply etched into our unconscious, and the stage directions so tightly woven into our ways of being in the world, keep us from growing up.

Roles we adopted early on to protect ourselves from rejection and abandonment now prevent us from knowing our hearts' desires and from being genuine with our partners and children. In continuing to resort to them, we abandon ourselves even more. The solution? We've locked ourselves up for too long -- it's time to break free and become all of who we are.

In technospeak, our parents' outdated child-rearing programs have corrupted the files we've kept on ourselves. We are stuck in a psychotechnical time warp, crammed with values and beliefs about ourselves, relationships, and parenting that must be scanned for errors and viruses lest we pass them on to our own children.

Make no mistake about it: Old patterns are hard to break. For one thing, we have grown so accustomed to them that we may not recognize when we are slipping into them. For another, we are reluctant to return to their origins and risk reopening old wounds. Then too, like our parents before us, we have learned to cling to the tried-and-true rather than embrace change, which can lead to growth-promoting opportunities. Afraid to let go of "security" and fearful of getting lost, we resist the pull to venture into the unknown.

So, what are we to do? First, we must gather up the dust-filled lessons we have learned about being a man, a partner, and a father, and examine them with new eyes. Then we need to discard the attitudes and behaviors that interfere with pleasure, intimacy, and growth, moving boldly through them toward new life goals. All along, we'll be getting to know ourselves well, daring to be more authentic, and opening up to our honest beliefs, feelings, and needs. This shift takes great determination and regular practice, for we have much to unlearn.

Becoming a father in the twenty-first century, unlike in earlier times, means coming to terms with the realization that behaviors we developed to stave off our childhood fears are outmoded. We used them to survive in families that did not attend to our basic emotional needs. And these responses are neither appropriate nor effective in adulthood. To form and sustain loving relationships, we must learn to operate from our inner power, not from our fear.

Fortunately, we are lifetime learners and fatherhood is a venerable teacher -- a highly charged personal calling that screams out for our attention. If we ignore our inner experiences as fathers, we will be swept into the whirlpool of changes taking place around us. When we choose instead to heed our fathering cues and to journey forth boldly and consciously, we can become the dads and the men we most want to be.

We begin our conscious journey into fatherhood only when we are willing to be our imperfect selves. This is as it must be, for we are living in a time of rapid change that forces us to experiment, risk, and flounder, all the while facing our fears. It is in confronting and moving through them, not around them, that we find our wholeness, simultaneously developing true character and self-confidence.

This article was excerpted from the book:

Fathering Right from the Start: Straight Talk About Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond
by Jack Heinowitz, Ph.D. ©2001.

Reprinted with permission of the publisher, New World Library, www.newworldlibrary.com

Info/Order this book.

About The Author

Jack Heinowitz is the father of three children ranging in age from 11 to 26. He is a leading expert in new parenthood and men's issues, having taught and counseled individuals, couples, and families for more than 30 years. He holds Master's degrees in Elementary School Teaching and Counseling and a PhD in Psychology. Jack is a popular speaker and offers workshops to expectant and new parents and to health professionals. He is the author of the Pregnant Fathers series and co-director of Parents As Partners Associates in San Diego with his wife, Ellen Eichler, LCSW.