Hormonal Fathers

About ten days after my third son Gabriel was born, something happened that likely has impacted the way I think about myself and others as fathers. It certainly has had lasting ramifications for my marriage.

Gabriel was born by Caesarean Section. Ten days after his birth means, in other words, about five days after my wife and Gabriel had come home from the hospital. It was the middle of the night. Gabriel had already begun to sleep through long periods of every night, but he didn't quite yet make it through the whole night. My wife had nursed him just a little while ago and he had fallen asleep fast. Just about forty-five minutes later he woke up again. I picked him up and started walking with him, humming quietly. Just as I was leaving the bed-room, my wife said "give him to me." I responded saying he was fine and that I would just rock him a while. "Give him to me," she insisted. I said "No, I want to hold him. He is fine,and besides, you need your sleep" and walked out of the room. What ensued was an almost unreal seeming pursuit. My wife got out of bed and slowly, because of her incision from the c-section followed me through the house first saying I should give him to her, then screaming, then wailing. I finally surrendered him. I was sobbing. He was crying again (he had immediately calmed down when I first picked him up). My wife turned her back to me and started comforting him. I stayed back, attempted to calm myself, trying to understand what had happened.

The most poignant part of what I realized was, perhaps, this: the whole time through this incident I heard two voices. One kept saying "give him to her, she is the mother, he should be with her." The other kept asking "But why? He is fine! I just can't give him up right now. I want to hold him!" I also felt a tremendous amount of shame, feeling that I had broken an unspoken contract that supposedly exists between every woman and her non-pregnant partner. Essentially this contract says

"I am the birth mother. This child was with me for nine months. Therefore I'm closer with him/her and should always be the first to have him, when he is in distress."

My wife has recently retold this story emphasizing those aspects that give the impression that I acted like some kind of a baby-thief. Someone who carelessly and selfishly took the baby and, not paying attention to the mother (who was in pain and far from being completely recovered), refused to surrender the baby to the person who should rightfully have him. I feel the sting of humiliation and embarrassment in this description because it so accurately matches what one of the voices I heard at the time seemed to say to me. That voice also says "Fathers should never be so arrogant to think that they can do what a mother can do."

But the problem is, aside from my wife being so very upset about this and me second-guessing myself as she was following me throughout the house, nothing felt wrong about the situation. In fact everything felt as it should. I was rocking Gabriel, he was falling asleep in my arms. I felt a seemingly un-ending rush of love for him. I felt connected and inseparable. After nine months of waiting for him, he was finally here. He had been born into the emptiness I had been feeling throughout the pregnancy and he was beginning to fill it.

This doesn't mean that I would, at all cost, want to do and be everything for him. If my wife had picked him up first, I would not for a second have argued about it with her. But this time I had picked him up, had begun to soothe him; and the small bond of 'parent-comforting-fussy-baby' that forms and increases in strength every time we pick up our babies and children to comfort them, this small bond had already begun to develop in those first minutes. It is, in a way, no different from the first few moments when a mother has her baby latch onto her breast. The connection is beginning to form. It would simply be cruel, if someone tried to take the baby away at that very moment. And so, every time I sit down with Gabriel to eat, read, sing or just diaper him, this bond is there immediately. I don't like for it to be disrupted. Disruptions range from being told he shouldn't eat what I'm feeding him to having his brothers interrupt the reading with questions about something unrelated. Disruptions also include another person talking to him, while I put a new diaper on him. Diapering makes for an intense connection with our babies and toddlers,as does all physical contact with them.

This episode also makes me think of hormones again. The research is still small that supports the possibility of hormonal changes in men who care for their babies and children. It is clear that it happens in certain mammals. To my knowledge there are two studies that have, with a very small sample size, researched this phenomenon in human males. But if I had to choose a label for my feelings, their intensity and their absoluteness, then I would choose the label "hormonal." I felt hormonal in a way that seemed to successfully short-circuit my frontal cortex and lead me directly down into a primal region of fathering and caring that had, up to this point, perhaps served as a source of my fathering, but that I had never encountered this directly before.

Further evidence that hormones might play a role in this is beginning with puberty I felt strongly also that I could be, would be and wanted to be a father. I have certainly not ever heard another man talk about this as something that they experienced as well. It might very well be that in my case becoming a man and becoming a father were synonymous because of the role my father has played in my life. The upshot of all this is that men can be affected by their future or present babies in ways that might make them seem irrational and, to some, perhaps even dangerous. We have yet to understand this phenomenon in men, not to speak of the fact that we have to find out how to respond to it. The article that can be accessed at this link might enhance our understanding somewhat. http://www.slate.com/id/2168389/

In Two Different Languages

My native tongue, German, has always been a strong part of my fathering my boys. I spoke to them in that language from the time they were conceived. I greeted them in German when they were born. I have spoken German with them ever since. German has created an intimacy for us that I have come to associate with being a father. It has connected my sons and me in ways that reach far into my own deep past, my childhood, my upbringing and my roots in Germany.

What about my wife? My wife understands German, but she generally does not like to speak it with me or the boys. On occasion she will speak a word with us. At times she may pronounce my first name in the German way, "Mahteen". For a little while my middle-son attempted to give her German lessons. However, her German is not bad. She took a couple of classes when we first met and she took private lessons from a fellow German student. Most of her German, to be sure, stems from having been around German speaking folks for the last twelve years (i.e., the time since our first son was born). When she speaks to them, she will speak English with them. All are fluent in English as well.

So, everything should be fine. But it isn't.

We spent this Christmas at my on-laws' house in NJ. Neither speaks German. For the past 12 years we have done while visiting with them what we also do at home. I speak German with the boys and Leslie speaks English with them. With one difference, however, I do a lot more translating for my in-laws and so do my sons. Yesterday, after what now looks like years of stewing, a pretty heated argument broke out between them and us. My in-laws felt offended, excluded and marginalized by my sons' and my German conversations and exchanges.

I took in a lot of information. Most importantly how important it is for my in-laws to connect with my sons and how deeply they feel disconnected from them when we speak German with each other. There suggestion to me, out of politeness, was to speak English only when they were around. I was shocked. Shocked by the contrast between their feelings, which make so much sense, and the seeming absurdity of their request when I listen to my feelings about it.

It was clear to me that they were well-meaning about this "German thing," but that they were not really getting it either. Mention was made of German things they had done to please me (i.e., get a tape made by a band with a German sounding name, marinated herring-filets as they're sold in North Germany). They offered how "impressive" they think my achievement of "teaching" them German is.

Did they know that in asking me to speak English with my sons they were asking me to give up my home? I mean not the home I still remotely have in Germany with my parents, sister and other relatives. I mean the home of my language! Did they realize that their request amounted to nothing else but a final refusal to enter that home? Did they know that my convictions, objectives and outlooks have a home in that language as well? Did they know that their request feels like a request to cut myself off from my boys? Did they consider that it was Christmas, a time of deep-seated rituals, songs and stories all mediated in German? Did they understand that, not having those songs, rituals and stories already made things emotionally complicated for me and that I am yearning to recreate at least some of it with my sons?

For a while I was considering giving into their request. Well, perhaps, I thought, this would be easier than it seemed. We'd just speak English with each other and then, when we're among ourselves, switch back to German. But I couldn't. And the more I thought about it, the more I recognized something I had never really figured out before about my speaking German with them: I saw my anxiety about losing them. I realized that this anxiety had been with me, and still is, since the time they were conceived them.

It is odd to see this as it is. At the same time it is the most normal and known feeling to me. It comes as anxiety to release them into a culture that to some degree still feels foreign and inhospitable to me. It is a culture that pledges allegiance to a flag and sends their children into unjust wars. It is a culture that proclaims itself highly ethical and moral but still hasn't come to terms with the holocaust-like treatment of Native Americans. It is a culture that proclaims itself to be highly religous but has little tolerance and interest in faiths other than their own garden-variety Christianity. It is a culture whose values I still can't trust. After almost 25 years!

This is, in a way, a chicken-and-egg situation. I can't figure out, if my anxiety is a result of my cultural observations or if it is the case that my cultural negativity is a result of my anxiety. Am I dealing with a prolonged case of post-partum anxiety? Have I been afraid of losing my children for the past 13 years? I am almost positive that this is the case. I realize that speaking my language with them has become some kind of insurance, or better some kind of immunization from this potential loss of my children.

What did I tell my in-laws? I told them that I respected and appreciated their feelings. I told them that I didn't want for them to feel or be marginalized by my German interactions with my sons. I told them, too, that the solution to this problem could not lie with me simply giving up speaking German with my sons while they are around. However, I told them, that I could see myself be less dominating in conversations. This means that I would interact with the boys less frequently, redirect them to their grandparents when they had questions and only answer questions that were clearly only answerable by me. I voiced my hope that this conversation alone might sensitize us enough to behave differently in our ways of interacting with each other.

My in-laws, to their credit, responded graciously. He pointed out, however, that I had all the power in this (meaning only I could decide to switch and that made them dependent on me). I thought, but did not point out, that he and she had the power of the dominant culture and language. A fact that would only be different, if we lived in Germany.

What is worse in all this is that it has made more visible a crack that is going through my relationship with my wife. I don't believe in relationships with no cracks, by the way. Relationships are like houses: when they settle cracks will develop along the ceilings, walls and floors. These cracks speak of incompatibilities, of arguments, of hurt, of confidence, arrogance, of a lack of understanding, etc. This crack is more visible and more in need of real construction work, though. It seems that my anxiety about losing my sons may have contributed to my wife's feelings of being marginalized. It may have contributed, even, to feelings that I was taking the boys away from her. This, I am certain, was never my agenda. She and I have mostly agreed on things, especially cultural politics, etc. Though we often do disagree on parenting issues (discipline, clothing, food, etc.). For my part I can say that my opinions about some of these issues (discipline and clothing are over-rated, food doesn't always have to be organic, etc.) are mostly just in need of a healthy compromise. They're not in need of dominance.

It's easy to see that speaking two different languages may increase the risk of the crack getting or seeming wider than it actually is. Differences of opinion suddenly more look like manipulation by the children as they attempt to speak to the parent with the more lenient attitude in that parent's language. They will also switch to that parent of the two who is less likely to fly of the handle, to be sarcastic or otherwise off-putting in their responses to them. Often, I have been the parent in the role to whom they boys switched. There are some famous examples to the contrary, however. When my sons wanted to join a community of internet gamers, I refused. They switched to my wife and she agreed. My sons wanted a new cat after our last one had died. I had said no, they appealed to her and got their wish fulfilled (that one made me mad, by the way). My wife has in the past more often agreed to McDonalds than I have. (Although my disagreement is in no way a claim to healthier food-choices at home.)

Imagine that these disagreements and moments of single parent domination always happen in different languages and it is easy to see that the language could be mistaken as a the culprit. It is easy to see, too, that especially with respect to their children (where couples need to show utmost unity), two different languages could amplify a sense of disunity and make it seem that the parents work against each other. Aside from the two languages, though, it is likely that the kind of anxiety I described above is one that other fathers feel as well. I do not believe that this is just about my being a foreigner (though that might add to it). Rather, I believe that fathers may have these feelings quite frequently. They begin to feel protective and quickly turn out to be over-protective. Paternal anxiety about losing their children may be a strong factor in how fathers act towards their children and their spouses

How can we begin to speak about this anxiety? It's something I feel. It is something that's real. Is it acceptable that, as a father, I feel these things? How might other fathers feel about this? How can mothers begin to understand this without feeling that fathers are trying to dig away part of their territory?

Further Thoughts On Death

One of the thoughts that has recently been going through my mind is triggered by watching our kitchen-timer run down the last 45-50 seconds. One day, I keep thinking, one day 45 seconds will be all I have left to live. Who, I wonder, will be there besides me? Will I have made peace with all those I need to make peace with? Will my sons be on their way towards their own accomplishments, families, love, passion and happiness? Will those last 45 seconds be filled with regrets and worries or will they be filled with gratitude. And what are the things that will truly count?

And no, this doesn't feel morbid to me. It doesn't feel like fear, more like wondering. A deeper sense of what is, what will be and what will be without me.

Philosphers and other thinkers have remarked on the fact that we cannot think our own existence. I agree, thinking I don't exist is a paradoxical concept bound to confuse us and, ultimately, not make so much sense. But, I hold against this, we can feel what it means to exist no longer. I am deeply interested in this feeling. Nothingness is palpable emotionally and it is, perhaps, this experience Irvin Yalom refers to when he reminds us that death is no different from not being born. In other words, it is a state of being we're already deeply familiar with.