For all its primacy to life, fatherhood is a relatively neglected subject in academic and public conversation. This newsletter is a small attempt to explore the topic in all its cultural, historical, and literary dimensions.
In an effort to start somewhere rather than nowhere, I’ll begin with an anecdote that harbors lessons on the role of trust within fatherhood.
Last December, my grandfather passed away at the age of 95, and at his funeral, one of his sons told the following story:
Like many families, our family had rules. And when I was 15, there was one with which I didn’t agree. And feeling confident in my reasons, I confronted my dad about it.
As I made my case against having the rule, my dad mostly listened. But I remember becoming more and more agitated as I realized my dad wasn’t going to budge on the issue. Ultimately, he told me he respected my opinion but that he would not excuse me from the rule. And then he said this:
“I wish I could explain it to you better. But I hope you will trust me.”
There is something profound in this statement. On the one hand, the insistence on maintaining structure (i.e. the rule) strikes me as deeply archetypal. It hearkens to a traditional father-child hierarchy in which the father imposes order on the child: “As long as you live in this house, you’ll follow my rules.” On the other hand, the request for trust has a rarer character.
In his 1990 The Consequences of Modernity, Anthony Giddens theorizes that in traditional cultures, family networks have a default trust built into them that is integral to functioning in society. But in modernity, trust in family networks becomes less assumed and must instead be deliberately cultivated if it is to exist at all. Giddens blames this partly on emerging “abstract” systems, which allow you to navigate society even without strong family ties. Take the invention of money, for instance. It allows any two people to cooperate—no matter their relationship. So instead of relying on your children to take care of you when you get old, for example, now you can pay strangers for eldercare. In other words, money has helped displace the importance of the family network by making it less necessary for modern life. And as a result, familial trust has become a “reflexive project” to be worked at.
When my grandfather encouraged his son to trust him, he was acknowledging that trust within father-child relationships is not guaranteed. The scaffolding of tradition is no longer there to support it. It must be won. And at the end of the story, it is:
My dad's response to me resonated because I knew that he was worthy of my trust.
Of course, not every child has a trustworthy father. And where trust is lacking, the relationship becomes dysfunctional. But where trust is actively nourished, father-child relationships become more intimate.
In future posts, I’ll further explore the many negative and positive impacts this modern need to intentionally foster father-child trust has on society.
Very well put. Has me reflecting on building trust. I look forward to reading more!