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Can Men Join the Family?
I needed a screwdriver. Passing the bag of recycled
cans on the steps, I went straight to the tool shed
in the garage and claimed my screwdriver. “Why
would you walk right by this bag of cans and not
take it out to the garage?” my wife
shrieked.
“Well, I was thinking about the screwdriver
and didn’t notice the cans,” I said
defensively.
As my wife left the area shaking her head, I
knew that I was guilty of a specific
offense—being male. You see, we males are
interested in goals and tasks to be done. When we
have a task, very little is allowed to get in the
way. It’s a trait shared by most males, and
one that drives many wives to the brink of
insanity.
This fundamental difference in men and women is
the source of most of the conflicts that occur
between husbands and wives in our country today. He
focuses on tasks to be done and individual goals,
and she focuses on the relationships in the family,
or what needs arise for the family as a whole. Both
sides believe that they have the same
priorities—to help the family. But when each
side is coming from such a vastly different
perspective, conversations can fall apart in a
matter of moments.
“What more does she want?” I used to
say to myself. “I’m doing all these
things around the house!” What she really
wanted was for me to pay closer attention to the
family as a whole. She wanted me to think about
whether lunches were packed for the next day and
whether our daughter should be playing soccer or
some other activity. She wanted me to think about a
better system in the morning to get the kids off to
school. And yes, she wanted me to take out the
recycling bags when I was on my way out the door
anyway.
As a father and husband, I’ve seen the
value in seeing the family from the
“whole” perspective. I feel better able
to stay close to the lives of my kids. My wife
appreciates the help and feels like she has a
“partner” in the family. My kids see what
a loving relationship really looks like. And in a
country with a divorce rate of around 50%, modeling
a committed relationship to your kids is an
incredible gift. There may be no other thing you
can do for your kids that will have as much
influence.
If you’re a husband and father who’s
interested in figuring out the needs of your
family, rather than what tasks need to be done,
here are some ideas:
- Start by just trying to use a “needs of
the family” focus for one day. See what
changes happen for you, and go from there.
Sometimes all you need is a starting point.
- Take account of the areas where you need to
improve (your wife will help you identify them
quickly!). These might be spending more time in
planning for the family, time with the kids,
etc.
- Write down the ways in which you may be
diverting your time and energy away from being
more involved in the needs of your family. This
might be TV, golf, work that isn’t
absolutely necessary, etc.
- Find a way to shift from the goal-directed
mode at work to the needs-directed mode at home.
Use the drive home to make this shift. Start by
thinking of questions you can ask your family
and what your family might need.
Men aren’t to blame for the problems in
American families today. But they do have
opportunities to make their family life better and
more fulfilling. They have a chance to improve the
lives of everyone in their family by taking the
risk that all family men face: the risk of being
intimately involved in their family. The risk of
being incompetent and messy at things they’re
not good at. And diving into a place where
there’s nothing to “fix.”
American families don’t need “men as
islands” anymore. They need men who are
willing to join with their families in a way they
may never have learned.
And if they have the courage to learn this new
way, I don’t think their families are going to
mind a few mistakes.
© 2007 Mark
Brandenburg
Other Father Issues,
Books,
Resources
* * *
To this day I can remember my father's
voice, singing over me in the stillness of the
night. - Carl G. Jung
Mark has
a Masters degree in counseling psychology and has
been a counselor, business consultant, sports
counselor, and a certified life and business coach.
He has worked with individuals, teams, and
businesses to improve their performance for over 20
years. Prior to life and business coaching Mark was
a world-ranked professional tennis player and has
coached other world-ranked athletes. He has helped
hundreds of individuals to implement his coaching
techniques. Mark specializes in coaching men to
balance their lives and to improve the important
relationships in their lives. He is the author of
the popular e-books, 25
Secrets of Emotionally Intelligent
Fathers
 ,
and Fix
Your Wife in 30 Days or Less (And Improve Yourself
at the Same Time
).
Mark is also the publisher of the “Dads
Don’t Fix your Kids” ezine for fathers.
To sign up, go to www.markbrandenburg.com
or E-Mail
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