Is dad more anxious than mom? This psychologist\’s 30 years of research has shown us how difficult it is to be a father…

In the traditional impression, compared to women, men tend to have more \”anti-anxiety\” physiques. However, this year’s newly released “Family Education Blue Book (2024): Report on China’s Family Raising Environment” provides an interesting finding. This mental health data based on nearly one million families shows that when it comes to education issues, fathers are more anxious than mothers. Among them, 70% of fathers are anxious and 55% of mothers are anxious. Parents of boys are also more likely to be anxious than parents of girls, with 64% and 55% respectively. The contrast between the two allows us to see the new pressures and challenges faced by fathers in an era of increasingly sophisticated parenting. Especially in families with boys, how to be a father is a big test. Michael J. Diamond, an outstanding American psychoanalyst and father, has conducted research on the father-son relationship for more than 30 years in clinical practice and in the process of witnessing the growth of his children. In his book \”What a Father Is: A Father-Son Relationship That Affects Each Other\’s Lifetimes,\” he proposed the concept of a \”good enough father.\” What is a good enough father? To put it simply, he may not be a perfect father, but he is a person who can cultivate his own emotions, devote himself to his children\’s inner world, and promote their growth. Michael discovered that a father who is highly involved in the growth of his children can not only influence and enrich the child\’s life; the father himself will also be profoundly affected in the process of acquiring fatherhood. The role of a father is richer than we imagine. On the Internet, we often see complaints about #fatherparenting, such as \”Using taking care of the baby as an excuse to buy the toys you want to play with\”, \”The risk factor is extremely high, imitate with caution\”, \”Every \”I don\’t know what will happen in the next second from one day to the next\”… Why is the father\’s style of raising children always so weird? Unexpectedly, in the view of psychologists, there are also some special educational significance behind the \”trap\” style of parenting. For example, the fight between a father and his child also helps the child develop some necessary psychological structure to control his aggression and regulate intense emotional expression. A father who can fool around with his son is not only teaching his son to enjoy his male body, but also telling him that \”instinct impulses\” such as violence can be regulated and enjoyed, not just used to be feared. Michael reminded that in fact, the role and functions that fathers can play in parenting are richer than we imagine. For example, \”Guardian Role\”. This statement may sound very old and traditional, but Michael found that no matter which country or cultural background he is in, fathers need to be able to assume the \”guardian role\” in the early stages of the pregnancy and birth of their children. This is because if the father can provide his wife and children with a nurturing \”holding environment\” in a timely manner, especially to help new mothers resist excessive anxiety, strong worries and unnecessary external disturbances, the mother will be able to Develop a secure attachment of the baby to the mother. In other words, the more fathers do, the more mothers can do to help their children develop themselves. This \”holding environment\” is still reflected many years later,When adolescent children begin to experiment with various identities and want to escape from family attachment relationships, fathers also need to show conditional acceptance and support for these \”outrageous behaviors.\” When the child reaches early childhood, the father is still an important \”second other\”. At this stage, the father needs to use a unique way to pull the child out of the \”mother-child oneness\” state and encourage the young child to leave his \”little nest.\” Dan Siegel, a child psychiatrist who studies brain development, said: A baby\’s mental development is the result of various physical stimulations and attempts at interpersonal interaction with different people. Among them, the mother\’s interpersonal energy is centripetal, which leads the baby to the inside of herself; while the father\’s energy is centrifugal, which leads the baby to the external world. At this stage, the father will often play with the baby in a more exciting, energetic, novel and unpredictable way, introducing this novel world to the child. In addition, the father is also the \”emotional regulator\” of the family. When the child and the mother fall into conflicting emotions, the father needs to act as a lubricant: while calming the child\’s emotions, he must also explain patiently to the child, help him think from the perspective of the mother and understand the inner experience of the mother, broaden the child\’s thinking, and help him Think about problems from a new perspective. Through these interactions, children\’s minds move from a developmental stage where they can only respond automatically to external stimuli to a stage where they can think about and even feel other people\’s inner experiences. This is a huge improvement in cognitive development and emotional control. Interestingly, the success or failure of this father-son interaction lies largely in the hands of the mother. Mothers need to accept, recognize, and appreciate their partners as the other pole of the triangle and as the \”second other\” in their children\’s lives. Michael reminded that the roles played by fathers and mothers are highly complementary. \”Life Issues\” at Different Growth Stages Although the importance of father\’s participation in child care is well known, what comes to everyone\’s mind every time when father\’s child care is mentioned? It may still focus on: helping change diapers, going to parent-teacher meetings, teaching children to play football… How will a man change when he becomes a father? What impact does it have on his partner? What are the emotions, the hopes and fears, the joys and pains of becoming a father? In what ways does a father need to be involved at different stages of his child\’s growth? Michael points out that until today, these issues have been largely ignored. In the book \”How to Be a Father\”, he systematically sorted out the life issues that fathers and children need to deal with from infancy, toddlerhood, childhood, and adolescence, as well as the tests that the father-son relationship has experienced. 1. The Oedipal stage in early childhood Freud named the stage between the ages of 3.5 and 6 years old in boys as the \”Oedipal stage\”. Intimacy and competition are the two major characteristics of this stage. It manifests itself in the fact that on the one hand, the boy will seek guidance from his father, and on the other hand, he also begins to blow the horn of attack to his father. Boys between the ages of 3 and 4 are going through a process of gradual separation from their mothers, both physically and emotionally, and will respond to their fathers.Some unique male behaviors, such as shaving, generate curiosity and imitation. Michael emphasized that the father\’s main role at this stage is that of a guide. He wants to safely guide his son into a male world and shape his son\’s male gender identity. At the same time, in order for his son to accept and absorb his own masculine power, the father also needs to give up the desire to \”control his son\” and compete with his son in a controllable and controlled way. For example, when a father is playing a competitive game with his son, should he let himself win or let his son win? Meyer suggests that a father needs to observe his son\’s reactions to victories and defeats before he responds to them. In short, the father\’s purpose is to challenge his son and push him, not to suppress him. If the conflict between father and son at this stage can be successfully resolved through negotiation, then the son will learn how to creatively use his aggression, competitiveness and desire to explore, thus gaining a healthy masculinity. 2. The \”latent stage\” of middle childhood. Children aged 6-12 enter middle childhood and grow rapidly in terms of moral, physical, social, and especially cognitive development. At this stage, boys are eager to imitate their fathers, and in order to win their father\’s approval and admiration, they will also work hard to become more perseverant and efficient. Freud called this stage \”latency.\” The strong aggressive impulses in the previous Oedipal stage will go dormant during this period, waiting to rise again after the \”stormy\” adolescence. While boys at this stage are adjusting to the outside world, they also need to learn from their fathers how to effectively deal with various contradictory and strong emotions. So we will also find that if a boy can have close interaction with his father in primary school, he will be more empathetic and have high self-esteem, will have a lower probability of depression, and will be more confident about his gender role and his life as a whole. Attitude will also be softer and more flexible. In middle childhood, it is necessary for fathers or others who act as father substitutes, such as brothers and coaches, to let children taste the sense of accomplishment brought by group activities through a series of group activities. Psychologist William Pollack said that when fathers bring their sons into team competitions and collective activities, boys have the opportunity to learn to transform their aggression into healthy competition, and even into love and intimacy. On the contrary, if the father is absent during this stage, they must deal with the incubation period alone, which may lead to a significant lack of self-esteem and self-confidence in their future work, and even a persistent \”father hunger\” for guidance from a certain male. 3. The child’s adolescence is also a difficult period for the father. During this stage, adolescent boys need to reshape their identity. “Who am I” is a very troublesome and critical question. As a father, you not only need to empathize, accept, and support your child in finding his identity in this world, but you also need to set appropriate boundaries for him. Michael reminded that if a father has been idolized by his son before puberty, then this process will be especially difficult. Because as adolescence progresses, the son will feel that the connection with his father is childish, and he will want to find out his shortcomings and no longer want to have too much contact with his father.touch. The disillusionment of the father\’s ideal image is painful for adolescent boys, who will eagerly look for father substitutes from their peers or other adult men. This is why boys during this period are more willing to get along with their peers or adult men other than their father. At this stage, the father needs to adopt a supportive rather than destructive attitude to deal with the child\’s separation needs, and even allow the child to regard himself as an individual independent of the family of origin. At the same time, the father of an adolescent child has to face his own midlife crisis. When the children have grown up, middle-aged parents need to have a new identity besides \”good father/good mother\”. We often see that after their children leave home, many parents suffer from the so-called \”empty nest syndrome\”. Underlying this phenomenon is actually a midlife identity crisis. Of course, fathers themselves also benefit from positive parenting at different stages of their children’s lives. Research by psychiatrist Kyle Pruett shows that fathers who are highly involved in parenting will be more emotionally active, more flexible, more open-minded, and healthier. And a father who actively raises his children will usually reconcile with his parents. As a father, Michael only fully understood his father\’s conflicting inner feelings after his children entered adolescence. Looking back, he deeply appreciates all the loving efforts his father made: he sees his need to be independent while also wanting to stay connected. \”A father\’s love does not have to be like a mountain.\” \”The connection between mother and child is purely natural, but the connection between father and child needs to be cultivated.\” These philosophical words of Rousseau explain the relationship between father and son very incisively. Differences in mother-child relationship. How to cultivate the bond between father and child? Active involvement in children\’s lives is thought to be the secret to nurturing an emotional connection between father and child. To what extent is participation specific? The famous British pediatrician and psychoanalyst Winnicott once coined a term called \”good enough mother\”. \”Good enough\” means that the relationship between mother and child is close enough to help the child\’s spiritual growth, but not so close that it feels suffocating. Correspondingly, Michael proposed a \”good enough father\” who also took a \”middle path\”: on the one hand, he guides and guides his children to regulate their emotions and gain a sense of control over things; on the other hand, he must encourage his children to Accept the challenges of the world to the fullest. In the eyes of psychologists, compared with mothers, fathers are often more able to consistently treat their children as a relatively independent existence with their own inner subjective world. More importantly, a “good enough father” is an ideal image that is accessible every day, rather than perfect. Today, we often use the phrase \”father\’s love is like a mountain\” to describe the deep, silent father\’s love. But few people try to figure out what\’s wrong with this commonly used expression. Famous psychiatrist Zeng Qifeng gave us another perspective: \”Father\’s love is like a mountain. What I want to express is the depth and stability of this love, but it will also become a negative impact on the father and son or both father and daughter in the conscious and subconscious mind.\” A heavy burden. How many fathers are unable to give such a heavy burden?He ran away from Shan\’s father\’s love, and how many children were also hurt by Shan\’s father\’s love. In his view, father\’s love can be light, like a shower of petals flying all over the sky with a fragrant fragrance; it can be an understatement but meaningful joke at the dinner table; it can also be calm and calm when the landslide and the earth are falling apart. . In short, being a father should not be heavy. When father\’s love is overemphasized as a \”responsibility\”, it will also destroy the natural joy of being a father and turn the role of father into a profession or labor. The process of becoming a father is actually a process in which a man constantly cultivates himself while playing, learning, communicating, admiring and even worshiping his children, making himself more happy and fulfilled, and gaining the meaning of life. As Zeng Qifeng said in the preface of this book, a father is not just a helper and substitute for his mother. The simple fact that he is a man and the fatherly love he carries will affect the child\’s life.