By: Almas


Sometimes men wonder which is the role of a father, and they even do not know exactly what is the importance they have for their children.

• First role of the father: Giving identity

This is the first role of a father. Giving identity to a child is not a theoretical or a one minute thing, on the contrary, it is a long and concrete process of the day to day life of the child that consists in letting him know who he is, teaching him/her to be himself/herself and to live his unrepeatable identity. On the other hand it is not either a sexually indifferent process. Giving identity to the other does not only consist in telling him/her who you are but in telling him/her what you are: a man as a father, or a woman as a mother. It means that giving identity implies necessarily to give sexual identity. Both daughters and sons, will learn how to be men and women thanks to their father’s figure, sons because you are their model, daughters because you symbolize contrast. The father gives the sons his masculinity being a man’s prototype and confirm in his daughters their femininity referring them to the mother. This second aspect is much more important than it can be thought.

• Second role of the father: Giving security

When a child feels loved by his father, discovers that he does not have anything to fear from him, and he/she realizes by his/her own sustained experience in time that threatening presence in the beginning not only does not hurt him/her, but he loves, takes care of and protects him/her, and not only him/her but also his/her mother. Then he/she can live in peace, there is nothing to be afraid of: on the one hand he/she is surrounded by his/her mother’s love and on the other hand this love is guaranteed by another one that he considers stronger and wiser, the love the father offers to him/her and his/her mother.

• Third role of the father: To introduce the child to reality

Man’s life moves between two very close related verbs: to be and to do. In this role division between mother and father, the role of being is played by the mother and the role of doing is played by the father. This are not unconnected roles but complementary ones: the father does not disregard the being part nor the mother disregards the doing part. Introducing someone in reality means introducing him/her in the dynamism of life, where we can find things and people that we will necessarily have to relate to. He /she will have to compete, to defend himself, to make friends, play and work with others, have fun and sympathize with others; there is no other alternative than living in the world. If the child did not leave the mother’s world, he would live no other experience than receiving everything in exchange of nothing, without effort. But life is not like that, there is a certain amount of maturity and experience that has to be obtained with effort, there is no other way. This involves a great risk, and it is that if there is nobody there to help us to find one’s way in life, we could tend to consider life as, nothing but, an obstacle race in the middle of a competitive and hostile world full of enemies. But this is not true either, not everything is totally easy nor completely hostile. It is necessary, essential, to have someone who loves us sincerely and at the same time trains us to live in the world with objectivity and truth. The father is the one who adjusts the child to the truth, the one who teaches how things must and must not be done. The father represents the law, the objective goodness, the know-how. His words and his examples are essential.

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