Pinoy Kasi : Every father a son
, June 22, 2005
Updated 05:41amam (Mla time)
Michael Tan opinion@inquirer.com.ph
Inquirer News Service
YOU don't have to be too old to recognize the lyrics and start humming away: "It's not time to make a change, just relax, take it easy. You're still young, that's your fault..."
The title of my column probably gave you a hint as to the title of the song. That's Cat Stevens' plaintive "Father and Son," the father advising his son to be patient about the world, and the son responding with frustration: "How can I try to explain, when I do he turns away again."
Stevens composed that song many years ago, perhaps speaking of his own pent-up feelings. Last Christmas, reborn now as Yusef Islam, he teamed up with pop singer Ronan Keating for a music video revival of the song. The Keating-Islam single topped the hit charts for several weeks, showing the enduring appeal of the song's messages.
Stoic distance
I thought about Cat Stevens' song last weekend, on Father's Day, ironically provoked by the title of an article, "Every mother a daughter." Hey, I thought, every father's a son, too, and that's often a more difficult relationship than that of mothers and daughters.
Why so? Because in many cultures, there's still a sharp division of parenting roles, the mothers expected to be nurturing, flexible and understanding while the father has to be firm, providing the discipline sometimes with an iron hand. Certainly, there are variations across and within cultures but generally, the father is expected to maintain some distance from his children.
Paradoxically, a daughter may have an upper hand here, able to approach her father and bargain. She is actually privileged by gender roles, allowed to be coy as she negotiates to get her way, often successfully. Now, try to imagine a son whining, "Please, Dad naman, pretty please?" He could get away with this if he's still a little boy (well, not by saying "pretty please") but as he grows into adolescence, he's expected to be, well, "a man."
The tensions -- and the distance -- grows. And when the son himself becomes a father, he passes on this stoic tradition.
It's sad that we are captives to these gender roles. "Father and Son" speaks of one sad scenario: "From the moment I could talk I was ordered to listen. Now there's a way and I know that I have to go away. I know I have to go." Even if the sons don't leave, conflicts may remain unresolved, carried through a lifetime in an uneasy relationship with the father.
Oedipus revisited
All that may not be so bad, actually. Even worse are the situations where sons have to compete with their fathers. Freud's famous Oedipus complex talks of a weak or absent father producing a homosexual son. That explanation of homosexuality has been thrown out but the Oedipus theory is still intriguing. I'd even stand the theory on its head and suggest that the problems come when fathers are too strong -- in public or private life -- exerting great pressure on their sons.
I've read quite a few commentaries in American newspapers suggesting that George W. Bush Jr. is obsessed with trying to prove himself to his father. The senior Bush was president in the 1990s and launched the Desert Storm adventure that ended short of capturing Saddam Hussein; Bush Junior, even before 9/11, was intent on taking up where his father left off. He got his prey, but look at what he got the world into.
Of course, there are many other reasons for Bush's war instincts, but it's intriguing, this idea of leaders going to war to prove themselves to their fathers. Yes, I did think too of presidents who are their father's daughters, such as Indonesia's Megawati Sukarnoputri and our own Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. I have no doubt that Ms Arroyo, too, lives constantly in her father's shadow with her attempts to prove herself a strong president and build a strong republic. She hasn't fared too well, I'm afraid.
Whatever, I think the psychological dynamics between fathers and their offspring offer us still another reason to be extra careful with dynasties. All through history, whether as emperors or business magnates, sons have gone to great lengths to prove themselves to their fathers.
'Haplos'
Certainly, there is nothing wrong with idolizing our fathers and wanting to emulate them. It is when men equate fatherhood with machismo that we get into problems: having as many children as possible to carry the family name, an extravagant lifestyle, including spoiling the kids with the latest gadgets just to prove one can afford it. I'd go as far as suggest that corruption is driven to a large extent by distorted machismo concepts of fathering.
We owe much to the fathers who dare to defy those norms by leading honest and simple lives, teaching their sons (and daughters) that a simple life can be a good life, too. My father went against both Filipino and Chinese traditions by not giving us birthday parties when we were kids. He was not being a tightwad here; instead, he was teaching us priorities. Parties he felt were needless luxuries, but he and my mother were always ready to splurge when it came to books and travel, stretching the household budget so we could learn more about the world by reading and by seeing places.
There are many ways of breaking the mold, sometimes even for what seems to be the most trivial. Last week, I asked my freshmen students if they thought fathers could give haplos, a gentle touch. Most of them shook their heads, some rather vigorously. Asked to explain, one student volunteered, "Only mothers can give the haplos."
That answer was revealing, and disturbing. There's more than a gentle touch involved here. Haplos has connotations of comfort and succor, of alleviating pain, even of healing illnesses.
Are men, specifically fathers, incapable of giving that haplos? I think not. It's our own fathers and their fathers who taught us to economize on the expressions of affection and concern lest it reflect badly on our masculinity. After all, we are taught, too, not to cry even when in the deepest of grief.
I told my students that I'd like to see a new generation of Filipino fathers who can learn to give that haplos to their children. I know the barriers remain. In these difficult times, as more and more cases of incestuous sexual abuse surface, fathers may feel constrained about showing their affection toward their daughters. Yet I feel that precisely because of the problem of sexual abuse, a father becomes even more crucial in teaching his children-again both sons and daughters-to tell when a touch is sincere.
We are our fathers' sons (and daughters), each generation carrying on the wisdom of the past, but ready as well to move forward and break new ground for parenting, being firm as fathers have always tried to, but learning as well to be more intimate and nurturing.
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