‘Rules’ for Confronting Life With Father

When men decide to improve themselves, they don’t mess around.

Faced with middle age and/or new fatherhood, more men are now trying to come to terms with fathers whose behavior left them emotionally hamstrung. The authors of a new bucket of self-help books for men get right to the point. Stop whining, they say. Get on with it.

No. 1: Confront the past. Make a list. Write down how you wish your father had been different--for instance, more affectionate, more available, more open about himself, more encouraging, less critical.

No. 2: Get over it. If he’s still living, face him. Write a letter. Give him a call, ask to meet and tell him how you feel.

Here, you might run into a roadblock.

Cris Harper, 48, a Minnesota teacher, said that about three years ago, he decided to become the father he wished he had had. He needed some perspective on why his father, a retired salesman, left home so often, for so long.

Harper called his dad and told him distinctly, so there would be no mistake: “I. Want. To. Meet. With. You.”

Dad: “Yeah.”

Harper: “Alone.”

Dead silence.

Dad: “Yeah. Well. I don’t know.”

Harper (knowing his mother was listening): “Let me talk to Mom.”

It worked out. His mother came along, but left while father and son walked around a mall, talking.

“I wasn’t prepared for the outcome, which was basically my dad saying things I never heard him say before and taking responsibility for things he’d never taken responsibility for before. He said, ‘I’m sorry I missed part of your growing up.’ ”

Since then, Harper said he has lost the resentment, anger and rage he had before. “I found out he had a great deal of sadness and he felt lonely too.”

Still, men needn’t get all misty-eyed about these reconciliations, said Samuel Osherson, author of “The Passions of Fatherhood” (Ballantine Books, 1995). Male anger, competition, and the clash between one’s yearning for approval and the other’s need to control can be fearsome.

Osherson said more father-son pairs are coming to his workshops on unfinished business. When a son comes out swinging, Osherson said, “One of the first things a father feels is judged, accused, frightened and defensive.” Whenever there’s an open confrontation, he said, “In the back of everyone’s mind is, ‘Omigod, is there going to be a fight here?’ ”

In his book, “The Measure of a Man,” (The Berkley Publishing Group, 1993) Jerrold Lee Shapiro offers eight guidelines for father-son reconciliation: 1. Make the effort. 2. Choose a setting conducive to conversation, such as working on a mutual task. 3. Think about your goals. 4. Know what you want to say. 5. Understand your motives and vent any anger beforehand. 6. Diminish any hopes that he will “see the light.” 7. Recognize his limitations. 8. Don’t delay.

At some point, some men need to face the fact that it may not be possible for a father to admit he mistreated a son or didn’t fulfill his role adequately.

Los Angeles sociologist Lewis Yablonsky, author of “Fathers and Sons” (Gardner Press Trade Book Co., 1990), said one son tried to reconcile with his father, who was on his deathbed. But just as the son was going to tell his father that he loved and forgave him, the father turned to the son and said: “I forgive you for being the kind of son you’ve been.” Then he died, having one-upped his son one final time.

Even after a father has died, men can still benefit from trying to understand their fathers through psychodrama exercises or getting information from relatives.

“The bottom line,” Yablonsky said, “is the only one you can change is yourself. If you can change your perspective, you can resolve a situation.”