Fatherhood the Family Is a Basic Part Essay

Fatherhood

The family is a basic part of human existence; it provides the principle institution of socialization and cultural training. Typically, it is a unit that is affiliated by emotional feelings, relationships, or in some cases, tradition. In the west, the traditional family of one female mother, one male father, and children -- often called the nuclear family, is being challenged by changes in cultural acceptance, tradition, openness about sexuality, and even the evolution of the core nature of society. However, one interesting thing about the family: over time, the concept of the nurturing mother and motherhood has received far more attention in the arts, popular culture, and even in scholarly research than fatherhood. This, in fact, has resulted in there being a number of professions that traditionally have been oriented toward women: teaching, especially younger children, most of the carative professions, and even nursing.

At least one educator noted that this is a clear tragedy for millions of children who can benefit from simply having a male perspective in the classroom."As a result many children who have no man at home, find no man at preschool and no man at primary school, and never meet a stable, reliable male figure in all their preteen years. Girls never experience nurturing from a trusted older male. Boys, cared for only by women, learn that nurturing is no part of the male job description. And in the absence of reliable men, too many of these boys learn their male role from violent television and music videos, and on the street" (Ballantyne, 2008).

Historically, may reasons exist for this bias toward women as caregivers and the mother role. In prehistory, the earth as mother translated out to the sacred feminine; Mother Nature, worship of the feminine, fertility goddesses, etc. This certainly makes sense because women give birth, and likely in a traditional hunter-gatherer culture, the men are our hunting for protein while the women are foraging and caring for children. That this tradition of the sacred….....