In some ways, the role of the father in the family is radically different than it was twenty or thirty years ago. That's great! Many fathers are as comfortable caring for their kids as their wives are. But lurking below the surface there remains a deep bias in our society that women are better at raising kids than men, and that assumption jumps out powerfully in situations of divorce. Although, where I live in the province of Quebec, the trend is toward 50/50 living arrangements, in many divorced families, kids still spend significantly more time with their moms and dads "pick them up" for dinners and weekends.
As far as I'm concerned, as a family therapist who has worked for decades with families grappling with this issue, it makes less difference how much actual time each parent is awarded than how they handle it and talk to their kids about it. If the parents both support the arrangement, whatever form it takes, then kids feel secure, too. But that's usually not the case and the kids often know that one parent is angry or sad about the set-up and that makes them feel angry or sad too.
In my office, mothers often complain about the father's style of parenting, saying either that it's too lax (the kids stay up late eating Twinkies) or that it's too severe (he won't let them go to sleep till all the homework is done). Whatever the case, moms often take the role of the arbiter of what's right, both during the marriage and after, so dads feel devalued and criticized for their style.
The mom is often more intimately connected to the child and takes the position that she has to protect his emotional state, and that attunement is good and valuable. But kids can also benefit from a father's kind of parenting, which may be more black and white, challenging the child to push himself to achieve. That is a male vibration that is less centered on the child's emotional state and more about his success in school or sports, and, in my book that's also good and valuable too - the reality principle.
If a child is lucky enough to have both dynamics in his life, he can grow. But only if the parents, married or divorced, are not at battle with each other about this and recognize the role and importance of both the male and female energy in the child's life. A strict but loving dad, who expects a lot from kids, won't hurt them, even if the kids sometimes don't like what he has to say.
A side bar to this is that I've often heard moms complain that the divorced dad is not seeing enough of the kids. Dads, for their part, say that they want to be more involved but the have to run the gauntlet of their ex-wife's anger every time they go to pick up the kids and it inhibits them. People, could you try to keep your grown-up issues out of the kids' arena? Find other times to talk about money and affairs than when the kids have their backpacks on and are on their way out the door at the cross-over time. To you, it's ordinary, but to your kids, it hurts.
That's my rant for today!
