In my doctoral thesis on Fathering, I open by quoting N. R. Gibbs from a Time Magazine article in 1993: “More children will go to sleep tonight in a fatherless home than ever in the nation’s history.” Gibbs said this more than 17 years ago, a haunting statement that is even truer today.
The absent father shows up all too frequently in my one-on-one sessions with clients, often as the source of debilitating behavior, depression, self sabotage, unhealthy relationships, and other destructive patterns. In organizations we find the effects of his absence in bullying behavior of bosses, impoverished personal resources of those charged with leadership and power struggles from top to bottom. Furthermore, many of today’s social challenges – increasing crime rates, substance abuse, physical abuse, and racial and economic disparity – are also rooted in the absent father.
When the father is experienced as absent but represented as present, either by himself, the child or someone else, the child is placed in a double bind; trust yourself and lose the other or trust the other and lose yourself.
Men who father can make a choice to be present. As fathers, if we are willing to hold presence, our children will find a way to receive what they need from us. Our presence and the consciousness we bring to our relationships with our children, becomes the context that defines our ability to father.
The Present Father ™ is an active and compassionate posture available to the father in all moments of parenting. Through Gifting Presence, the direct application of consciousness, the father can choose to bring about connection and relational development while nurturing a context for growth and change for himself and for his children.
Additionally, anyone who lives with a man who fathers, is integral to the father’s presence. There is an inter-relational mandate that tells us that we can no longer imagine that we live separately from one another. We are already fundamentally connected and denial of this lived reality fuels our confusion and discord.
In any given moment, the journey a man takes in order to be present and show up for his child is no small matter. It is not just based on accumulated experience; it is a risky and unpredictable odyssey which calls into being the very soul of a man.
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