Finding proper balance in parental roles helps children mature

A while back (April 8), I wrote a column in answer to a reader's question about home schooling. In my reply, I listed three questions/concerns I had about home schooling. Not necessarily criticisms of home schooling, just questions I would have.

One of those concerns drew pretty serious and consistent fire from readers, even umbrage. I wrote: "Modern society makes healthy individuation/differentiation from the mother complicated enough. I have some concerns that adding yet another layer of intense presence by Mom (home schooling) will make healthy separation even more difficult."

I made a mental note to get back to this at some point. And "some point" turns out to be today. Let me alert you, however, that this column is no longer about home schooling. It's about culture, child-rearing patterns, and the consequences for human health and development.

The Industrial Revolution fundamentally changed the way we raise children in Western civilization. I don't mean just a little. I mean a lot.

Prior to the Industrial Revolution, fathers and mothers more or less shared a continuity of presence and participation in child-rearing. While their respective roles and duties were different, they were both there. A man's vocation often was exercised right out of the home. Right there on the property. Other men had but to walk a few blocks to begin the workday.

It was common for small children to linger and play at the father's work site. Older children shared in the work or apprenticed. They learned their father's trade. They knew him.

A balance of masculine and feminine in child-rearing was the norm even in the case of fathers who traveled (e.g., merchant seamen), because extended family included the proximity and participation of grandfathers and uncles in child-rearing.

The Industrial Revolution created a huge shift in how men make money. The new vocational norm was men leaving their homes from five to seven days a week for eight to 16 hours a day, working in settings that excluded children.

Small village life began to give way to urban and later suburban flight. The values of roots, clan, birthplace and extended family gave way to a new No. 1 most important credential for participation in the economy: mobility. Mind-numbing commutes across town. Cross-country uprooting of family. The nuclear family was born, a historically unprecedented way to raise children.

The Industrial Revolution took fathers out of the home. It significantly reduced the proximity and the participation of men in child-rearing. This had consequences for both fathering and mothering.

In dad's absence, mothers became "too big." The biggest chunk of caregiving, teaching, socialization, moral development, etc., fell to Mom. The vast majority of the time, she was doing both jobs. Over time our culture began to shape the idea that, beyond breadwinning, fathers aren't particularly relevant, especially for infants, toddlers and young elementary children. Until quite recent times, divorce courts had a reflexive prejudice that child-rearing was about mothering (see Dustin Hoffman/Meryl Streep in "Kramer vs. Kramer," 1979).

This is the "too-intense presence of mothering" to which I was referring in the April column.

In their absence, fathers, too, became "too big"; that is, exaggerated in the lives of their children. They became mysteries. These silent, all wise, all powerful men were like conquering rock stars, coming home to cheers of "Daddy! Daddy!" Ironic, since it was Mom who had spent the day providing all the needs for the children!

Individuation from the mother is a critical part of psychological development. This movement is greatly aided by the presence of a healthy masculine. In other words, as the child faces down the anxiety caused by separation from the mother, he/she is nurtured and soothed into the arms of a healthy father, then to be turned around and reacquainted in a new, more differentiated relationship with the mother.

Individuation from the mother is complicated and made more difficult when the mother is psychologically exaggerated -- too big -- and the healthy masculine presence is absent. This has consequences for children, particularly for sons. I think it explains in large part why most modern men struggle with one degree or another of narcissistic features in their personality.

I'll be interested to hear from readers on this, especially those who were made unhappy by the April column. But, in my work as a family therapist, especially when those families have adolescents, the two things most often included in my interventions are ...

1. Coaxing and encouraging mothers to loosen their grip, as it were, and

2. Mobilizing more active and proactive (and strategic) presence and participation of fathers.

And I don't think that's any coincidence.

Steven Kalas is a behavioral health consultant and counselor at Clear View Counseling Wellness Center in Las Vegas. His columns appear on Sundays. Contact him at skalas@reviewjournal.com.