Fathers finding their crucial role
By Cheryl Rosenberg Neubert
Knight Ridder News Service
Dan Hazard left his corporate job six years ago to spend more time with his only child, Brittany.
He was there to walk her to school when she was still young enough occasionally to need a hand to hold along the way.
He joins her on the father-daughter activities through the local YMCA. He cheers her at her soccer games.
And now that she's 13, he has pored over books to help him prepare for those often-tumultuous teenage years.
Hazard, 50, who has a business with his wife at their Huntington Beach, Calif., home, has been a willing and avid participant in raising his daughter. His involvement will pay enormous dividends throughout her life, experts say.
"There's an awful lot of cultural belief that fathers are second-class citizens," said Joe Kelly, who founded the national advocacy nonprofit Dads and Daughters. "We're not more important than moms, or less. We're different."
A father's impact and the role he plays are far more important than one might think.
Fathers are cited more than mothers in issues such as psychological maladjustment, substance abuse, depression and behavioral problems, according to research by Ronald Rohner, director of the Center for the Study of Parental Acceptance and Rejection in the School of Family Studies at the University of Connecticut, and his colleague Robert Veneziano. They found that a father's love helps prevent these problems and can contribute to a child's physical health.
Their influence is equally vital for daughters and sons, although different for each.
When it comes to girls, Dad is clearly the first man in her life.
"A daughter looks to her father, and there she sees the standard of what it means to be a man," Kelly said. "Girls are hammered thousands of times a day with outrageous messages that boil down to 'how you look is more important than how you are.' They think so much is based on whether or not a man notices them.
"I can be the most important force in her life to tell her that is a lie. What I value is what you have to say, what you do, what you think, your spunk, your soul, your heart. That's what's important. We can show that about all women," Kelly said.
Girls notice the relationship their father has with their mother, even in families where the father lives outside the home. They see how their father talks about women, how he treats them, and that's her foundation for her future relationships.
The father's job is to show her the way.
"A lot of us don't expect ourselves to be involved parents," Kelly said. "I think it's changing with younger fathers, but it's not changing fast enough. ... We grow up with the idea that we are supposed to be providers. We have too narrow a definition of provider; we reduce it to the wallet. We have to provide time, strength, masculinity."
Hazard counts his father-daughter activities, including camping trips with the group from the YMCA, as among his favorite times. He does not want to forget a moment of time he's spent with Brittany. He also wants to leave her a legacy, something to revisit. Since she was born, Hazard has kept a journal of Brittany's life.
"It's a story of her," Hazard said. "It's a family heirloom to pass on to generations to come, something so special and unique that few children ever receive this kind of gift from their parents. When she's older and she's a mother, she can look back and see life was good."
Being a good father isn't important just to daughters. The father-son relationship also is critical.
"What your son gets is an emotional foundation that very few men have," said Dr. Stephan Poulter, a licensed clinical psychologist in West Los Angeles and author of "Father Your Son: How to Become the Father You've Always Wanted to Be." "It's like giving your son gold bricks. He gets emotionally fluent. He becomes comfortable with showing love, hopeful, generous and compassionate."
Poulter has seen what happens when there is no father or strong positive male influence in a boy's life.
"So many times, the guys I would see for violent crimes were always fatherless sons," Poulter said. "And I mean 'always' in the true sense of the world. A lot of men don't think they matter, but fathers matter to their sons."
The powerful idea that the father matters can help change a father's behavior.
"You're going to act differently," Poulter said. "You're going to take into consideration his feelings, your time commitment to him, your job."
The job of fathering begins when a child is born. An emotional connection to the father helps with the development of cognitive and motor skills, and with the child's ability to bond and attach to others.
But the crucial time is the teenage years. That's when the father teaches the son limits and rules. He shows him, literally, how to be a man.
Men who aren't heavily involved in their son's lives at the beginning can still repair any damage.
"It's never too late," Poulter said. "And that's the truth. All men crave their father's approval. If you don't know what to do, give your son approval. It's like watering a plant. They're going to thrive. Don't blame him; understand him. That takes time. At the end of the day, give him your time."
