I’m on hiatus — at least from substantive blogging — until August 28. Until then, I’m reprinting favorite posts from 2004 and 2005.
I’m not in the habit of quoting from advice columns. Still, I do read them regularly, and Carolyn Hax of "Tell Me About It" is perhaps my favorite these days. I was struck by this one that appeared in today’s Times, but which I can only find online here:
Dear Carolyn: I’m a 15-year-old girl and have a twin brother. I really love my Dad, but he has little interest in doing things with me. He spends lots of time with my brother every weekend, taking him to ballgames and playing golf and tennis with him, and they go on camping trips in the summer, but he never invites me. I recently got up the courage to tell him that I would sometimes like to be included, but he said that a father and son need bonding time, and that I should be spending more "mother/daughter" time with my mother.
I’m really more interested in doing the kinds of things my Dad and brother do together, and my mother is not interested in them. And we do spend plenty of "mother/daughter" time anyway. He is a good father, and I don’t think he understands how much this hurts. My brother has all kinds of souvenirs in our room from the things they have done together, which are a constant reminder to me. How can I make my Dad understand that spending time together is just as important to me as it is to my brother? — Left Out
Hax doesn’t say it, so I will: this man needs to get in touch with the wonderful Dads and Daughters. Pronto.
In my dual roles as gender-studies professor and youth leader, I’m a great advocate of adult men (fathers and others) spending time with boys. Here is where I am in complete agreement with the Men’s Rights Advocates; indeed, a belief in the importance of good fathers and strong adult male mentors in boys’ lives is one of the few points that can unite the entire men’s movement. "Left Out" has a father who seems to have embraced that part of his job, her dad even uses the phrase "bonding time" to describe what he and his son are doing together. The assumption, which "Left Out" rejects, is that this kind of bonding is most important between parents and their children of the same sex.
To some extent, this attitude carries over into youth group work. I’ve often worried that I’m being unfair in the amount of time and availability I have for the guys at All Saints compared to their female peers. For example, I’m willing to give my cell phone number out to any boy who asks for it. (And I’ve had to stress, many a time, that they are NOT to call after 9:00PM, a point some have a hard time grasping!) I’ve got a couple of guys with whom I meet (alone) semi-regularly for lunch or coffee. Except in emergencies, I don’t give that number out to girls, nor do I meet with them alone. Some of this is in keeping with church policy, some of this a result of boundaries that I have in place because they just seem to "make sense."
As I’ve written before, we live in a culture that, with some justification, distrusts adult men who want to spend time with adolescent girls. (I suppose in the wake of recent scandals, we are beginning to distrust men who want to spend time with any child, regardless of sex.) As a youth leader, it’s easy for me to justify spending more time with the boys because, I sometimes assume, they are more in need of a male role model than their female counterparts. I know I’m sometimes guilty of the very kind of gender essentialism that "Left Out" rejects when she writes: I’m really more interested in doing the kinds of things my Dad and brother do together..
Spending time with youth can’t be a zero-sum game — we can’t assume that just because boys desperately need male role models that young girls don’t. Somehow, we in youth work have to find a way to balance the need for public accountability and safety with the very important goal of having safe, strong, loving men play active roles in the lives of girls.
Obviously, youth leaders and fathers have different roles in the lives of young people. No matter how devoted we in youth work are, we are no substitute for good and loving parents. But just like fathers and mothers, we have an obligation to nurture and care for all of our kids, not just those who share our sex. In a world where adult men are regularly viewed as predatory or odd for wanting to work with young folks of any gender, the justification for keeping the "men with the boys" and the "women with the girls" may be difficult to sustain. I’m not saying that we ought to treat boys and girls identically. Male youth leaders should, obviously, still sleep in the boys’ cabin, not with the girls. (Though in a church that has more than one gay male youth leader, that policy has made at least one parent I know rather uncomfortable!) But we cannot allow our fears to outweigh our responsibility to care for all of our children, and we must be careful to avoid a gender essentialism that minimizes the importance of fathers and other adult men in the lives of young women.
Originally published April 21, 2005
Good post.
What people forget is that an adult’s expectations of the opposite gender are formed by the opposite-gender role models they have in childhood. My SO is a lot like my dad - a good man with whom I have a wonderful relationship. A friend who was molested by her father saw and propagated a destructive pattern in her relationships throughout most of her adult life, and even now pursues unattainable men.
Men with smothering mothers sometimes expect an impossible amount of nurturing from their partners in later life. Men with uncaring or absent mothers can become cold and have difficulty connecting to their own emotions. (all these are generalisations but based on my own observation and experiences)
Girls need men and boys need women as much as girls need women and boys need men.
I was so excited to stumble onto these posts while looking for daughter father info on the web. This is the very work I am doing now only in an unusual way. I am looking for daughters to write letters( sent or not ) to their fathers( alive or not) with the idea of using a therapeutic writing process(explained on the website or email me!) to understand and sometimes actually get through to their fathers- the differences and difficulties of being daughters and wanting “real” relationships with their fathers. Some of these letters will be published in a book entitled- “Letters from Daughters to Our Fathers: a Pathway to Healing and Hope” in 2007. This is such a wonderful way to find our way as daughters to understanding our relationships with our fathers( and hopefully passing the word on how important these relationships are). Please pass this on. E-mail me for more info or go to the website at http://www.lifedancecoach.com/letters. Great post Elle. I would love to have you contribute!
I work occasionally with my church’s youth group, and I will probably do more of this (the rector just asked me to teach Senior High Sunday School and I am thinking I should). In interacting with young adults, I notice that I err on the side of caution with inter-sexual relationships. I really want there to be clear and healthy boundaries, but I think I might confuse respect with reticence, and so I have both. I am not really sure how that happened but I guess it’s a “good problem” that just needs tweaking.
I like this: “But we cannot allow our fears to outweigh our responsibility to care for all of our children, and we must be careful to avoid a gender essentialism that minimizes the importance of fathers and other adult men in the lives of young women.”
I don’t think I have issues with gender essentialism, but I do think I might be allowing others’ to determine my behaviour, even if I am not actively doing anything wrong.
Important stuff! Thanks