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TechnoratiFathers, on the other hand, "excel when it comes to discipline, play, and challenging their children to embrace life's challenges." This "array of distinctive talents" indicates the importance of fathers to the parenting task.
Wilcox observes that mothers discipline their children more often than do fathers due to the larger amount of time they spend with the children. Nevertheless, "fathers do have a comparative advantage in this area," Wilcox insists. He explains: "Typically, fathers engender more fear than mothers in their children because their comparatively greater physical strength and size, along with the pitch and inflection of their voice, telegraph toughness to their children. Fathers also are more assertive than mothers in their dealings with their children, and are less likely to bend family rules or principles for their children. In a word, fathers tend to be firmer and more compelling disciplinarians than mothers."
This appears to be especially important in the raising of sons. Fathers "are more likely than mothers to get their boys to respond appropriately to their disciplinary strategy," Wilcox argues, "both because of their uniquely firm approach to discipline and because boys seem more likely to respond to discipline from someone of the same sex."
In addition, fathers play with their children in a distinctive way. Fathers are more likely to be physically engaged with their children – including infants and toddlers – and to be involved in play just for the sake of play. This paternal play plays a role in building social skills and a sense of self-control. "The playful side to fathers teaches their children how to regulate their feelings and behavior as they interact with others," Wilcox explains.
Fathers also play an important role in challenging children to face the outside world. "Compared to mothers, fathers are more likely to encourage their children to take up difficult tasks, to seek out novel experiences, and to endure pain and hardship without yielding," Wilcox notes.
Interestingly, Wilcox argues that fathers' strengths in the arenas of discipline, play, and challenging behavior are tied to the distinctive position fathers fill in the family structure. "Because of the smaller role they play in procreation and because they do not have the same hormonal priming to engage in nurturing behavior as mothers do, fathers are – to some degree – more distant from their children and, more generally, from the daily emotional dynamics of family life than are mothers," he asserts.
Some fathers may translate this distance into neglect. Nevertheless, the attentive father takes advantage of this distance "to engage their children in a distinctively fatherly way." By this, Wilcox means that fathers often feel freer to challenge their children and to be firm in discipline. Accordingly, fathers are more likely to push their children toward an adventurous future.
Wilcox understands that the most controversial dimension of his research has to do with the distinctive role of fathers. He argues that boys "learn self-control . . . from playing with and being disciplined by a loving father." Thus, boys who live with engaged fathers are much less likely to demonstrate the overly-aggressive behavior of what is described as "compensatory masculinity." Without the controlling influence of a father, boys are much more prone to translate masculinity into violent behavior. Continue »
