Even if it is kept secret as yours has been, incest does not
usually drive people crazy later in life. In fact, most survivors of such
abuse are people much like yourself, sensitive men and women who are
concerned with everyone's feelings and emotional rights except their own.
Talk to your brother and sisters. It might be a great relief to all of
you, and it is likely to bring you all closer together.
You can be sure your father remembers it, even if he hopes you all
have forgotten it. Getting it out in the open may be a great relief to
him, too. In fact, there is a good chance he was abused when he was
growing up, too. Back then, people didn't talk about it as much and
didn't realize just how damaging and confusing it could be for children
throughout their lives.
It may help to carry out these confrontations in the presence of a
therapist, but only if you can find a therapist who can deal with incest
without hysteria. The therapeutic setting may be more comfortable than
talking it over at a restaurant or during a break in the ball
game.
Contrary to all the uproar in the media about the so-called
recovered memories of forgotten childhood sexual abuse (a highly
questionable business), incest does not necessarily lead to severe adult
mental illness--neither schizophrenia, multiple personality, nor any
other form of craziness. Instead incest is likely to produce sexual
inhibition and/or fuzzy sexual boundaries.
For example, in one case I saw recently, a young man had had sex,
growing up with all three of his brothers, his sister, and his mother
(she liked to dance naked for her sons while they masturbated together).
He never had sex with his father, who slept routinely with the sister. No
one in the family had considered this behavior abnormal; they laughed
about it then, they laugh about it now.
However, this young man's wife brought him to see me because he
routinely had sex with her relatives, with their friends and neighbors,
male and female, and with his patients (he was a chiropractor). The man
had no sexual boundaries, and was often in trouble about it. His wife was
afraid he would have sex with their children as well. His family's
comfort with the casual sexuality left everyone uninhibited, free of
sexual shame, but unfit for relationships in the real world.
The predictable legacy of sexual abuse in the family is not
spectacular insanity, but sexual boundaries that are too tight or too
loose. Still, incest is not good for children.
Dear Dr. Frank: My wife and I are expecting our first child in a
few weeks. We just found out the baby will be girl. I'm really
disappointed. I don't know how to be a father to a girl. I would be
uncomfortable changing her diapers. I wouldn't want to play rough with
her--I might hurt her. I don't know anything about girl things, so we
just wouldn't have much in common.
In my family growing up, my mother took care of me and my brothers
until we were old enough to play sports and go hunting and fishing with
my dad. I was all boy growing up and I'm a man's man now. I hoped I'd get
a chance to be a father like my father, but now I don't know what to
do.
My wife tells me I'm afraid of anything female. I don't think I'm
afraid exactly--it's just so foreign to me. I want to be a good father,
and I especially want my wife to see me as a good father, but it seems
such a waste for me to sacrifice so much of myself to be a father to a
girl when she'll grow up to be a woman who'll have no need or use for the
things I have to teach. How can I be a father to a girl when girls are
the opposite sex from guys?
Dear Disappointed Dad: Congratulations! You now get a chance to
learn how to be, not just a man, but a full-scale human being.
You grew up in a family, like so many, in which nurturing and
loving were women's work, while men played games. Your daughter can help
you get over your fear of females and teach you all the things you have
categorized as "girl" things and avoided up until now. You finally get a
chance to clear up the mystery of gender. Whatever wonderful things you
do as a father to your daughter, she'll do some things just as important
for you. She can show you that females are not at all opposite, and not
really very different, from you.
Start early. Change lot of diapers; that should get you over your
fear of your daughter's femaleness. As a father, you must do your share
of the nurturing and loving, and in the process learn how to love others.
You don't have breasts full of milk to offer her, so you'll have to be
more creative about entertaining and stimulating her. Babies, like
puppies, are easy for amateurs to love since they like anything and they
don't try to tell you how to do it right.
As a father to a daughter, your job is to teach her everything a
man knows about the way the world works, and at the same time to show her
what a man is like and what it feels like to be a man, so she'll be
comfortable with men as she grows up, but won't be overly impressed.
Everything a boy needs to know, a girl needs to know, too--anything she
doesn't know will leave her at the mercy of mates.
Don't spoil and pamper her by treating her feelings as if they are
too important and treating her as if she is so fragile she has to get her
way. You can be tough with her without being cruel. Females do not have
to get their way, any more than you have to get yours. Support her tough
ness, her activity, and her assertiveness.
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