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Did your father have friendships with other men? Did you learn about how to make friends friends from him? We interviewed 386 men for Buddy System: Understanding male friendships and asked them specifically if their fathers had friends and what they learned from their fathers about friendships. The men we interviewed were diverse in terms of age, face, and religion. Read More
In your book did you offer any insight about how men can forge c
In your book did you offer any insight about how men can forge close friendships - especially if they did not see it modeled by their Dad?
Also, did you study whether the Mother's influence was felt more (and more negative or positive) on the men who felt their Dad's had no or few friends?
reponse to fathers and sons
Yes - the book does talk about men who did not have fathers and sought approval from other men, often through sports. If you cannot please your own father because he is absent, you can still please other men (teammates' fathers) by excelling on a team sport or you can please a coach. A number of men said they wanted to be more available for their sons than their father was available for them. And men also had great relationships with their fathers and wanted to continue that, too.
I also looked at women and their relationships with their mothers as role models for how friendships are formed. I did not look in depth at sons and their relationships with their mothers as mediating factors, though I did ask whether men were raised primarily by their mothers (as some were).
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