Having just come off of a few days with my kids, I’m a bit worn out. Dealing with such little ones is hard work. One of the odd contradictions of being a parent is that when you aren’t around your kids you miss them terribly, but when you are with them they can drive you nuts. It is this kind of sentiment that leads me to believe that parenting is instinctive for the human male. If it weren’t, after all, wouldn’t men just abandon their kids? That so many do not, despite the best efforts of so many women and the state to kick men out of their children’s lives settles the question.
Here on The Spearhead, we’ve gone over the reasons men are important to children many times. Men have a civilizing influence, they protect their kids, they instill values that boys need to learn from other men, they teach girls a sense of honor and how to relate to men without resorting to the use of their sexuality and so on.
However, I think there’s a far more complementary interplay between men and children. I’d go so far as to say that children need men in order to fully develop as human beings. Deprived of certain aspects of male psychology, kids will miss out on one of the most unique and fundamental characteristics of humanity.
What I’m thinking of here is art. Creation for creation’s sake. Drama, music, storytelling, works and industry. The manner in which men relate to the physical world is special and unique, and fundamentally different from women. Physical creativity has always been dominated by men so overwhelmingly that it would be entirely disingenuous to suggest that there isn’t an innate difference that has made it so. Of course, that doesn’t stop the feminists from claiming otherwise, but their defiance of truth and reality is nothing new.
From the dramas acted out by primitive man with intricately carved masks around the campfire to the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel, this fundamentally male expression of humanity has evolved into a cultural DNA that is passed down from one generation to the next. We see it in architecture, hear it in songs, feel it in the ancient sagas and legends that have marched on through the centuries, surviving as relics from those distant ages obscured by the mist of time.
Every single human society is characterized by myth and art. More than anything else, this is what makes us unique in this world. Chimps can learn to use money and tools, they can make war, they can communicate, and they can count and figure, but they can’t paint pictures in their children’s minds.
As it turns out, the humans who expend the most effort doing this – the ones who give the overwhelming share of these mental gifts to children – are men. Until I became a father, it never dawned on me what significance this could have for children. We all hear about the importance of reading stories to children at bedtime, and I assumed that was mainly to encourage literacy, so I dutifully cracked the children’s books and read away. But over time I grew tired of them, and eventually dispensed with the books and simply made up stories for my kids. I found myself making up tales about supernatural animals, adventures, strange lands, etc. It seems to come perfectly naturally to me, and the kids absolutely love it, and now far prefer my stories to the books. Before bed, we all lie down together and I tell them stories made up on the fly, going into some detail about things that they’ve never seen or heard of before. Amazingly, they remember them with great clarity, and seem to learn more effectively from these stories than from school, TV or simple instruction. However, what really surprises me the most is how much these exchanges are a part of my own nature — using my imagination to teach children seems to be an innate skill.
Different men will naturally have different strengths and use different methods to teach children, but in the end it all comes down to a form of communication that transcends utilitarian language, which may transmit information quite efficiently, but doesn’t seem to “stick” in children’s minds. Art takes that information and gives it an extra dimension, creating a canvas upon which children can paint their own images, and giving them a narrative that provides structure for their own stories.
The man who is a builder can imbue his work with meaning, as can the fisherman, the farmer, and even the butcher. Obviously some of them do so quite effectively: Jesus was a builder who drew from his work to drive home his message in parables. Laozi drew from the work of a skilled butcher to explain the effortless nature of the Dao. The Hebrew prophets called forth the imagery of the fields of wheat, the vines and the orchards that all knew and saw every day. Being engaged with the world around us offers us more opportunities to teach and to spark the imagination of children. Today’s professional storytellers – the moviemakers, TV producers and so on – are probably significantly less effective at developing and influencing the minds of children than the ordinary men they see around them every day.
Unfortunately, it seems that this human connection between men and children, that crucial human link that separates us from the beasts, has been suppressed in favor a shallow electronic substitute. Perhaps this explosion of mass media and entertainment has simply helped to create the impression that fathers are no longer necessary — what good is the guy when you can just park the kids in front of the TV anyway?
As I have learned from the time I’ve spent with my kids, there is no substitute. Humans are far more compelling than a flickering screen, and human interaction in service of imagination and learning is far superior to the sterile media to which children are overexposed. Children with an engaged father who unlocks their minds with his own imagination are receiving a nutrient essential to their full mental and psychological development, and men who engage children are fulfilling a role that nature itself has granted them. It may be – and I am starting to believe that this is the case – that the relationship between fathers and children is the foundation upon which human civilization has been built. Without this feature of humanity, we would simply be intelligent beasts living in stasis in a world devoid of meaning and significance save for the fleeting physical and emotional urges that compel us to eat, breed and survive.
The art and imagination of men unlocks gates and frees our minds. For most children, it is their fathers who hold the key, and they must be encouraged and allowed to use it.
