Military Dads Struggle with Work and Fatherhood ? The Good Men ...

Soldier-fathers have added challenges in maintaining a balanced life at home.

Fathering can start with a paradox?fathering a child is so simple and easy that it frequently happens ?by accident,? and yet being a daddy can prove one of the most daunting, intimidating, and difficult tasks a man ever faces. While there are millions of involved, nurturing fathers in the world, realities such as poverty and incarceration can contribute to a sense of impossibility about fathering for some men. Additionally, conflicting social expectations (e.g. good fathers provide for their families, and good fathers are regularly home spending time with their children) worsen the situation by making ?good? fathering a lose-lose proposition.

Most men have the choice between spending time at home, or excelling at work by spending long hours in the office. In some cases, men must work extra hours and pick up overtime just to make ends meet, let alone excel. Few men feel as if they can accomplish both, and choosing one invites criticism and judgment for not doing the other. Studies reveal that even highly motivated fathers feel confused and uncertain about their role. Specific family situations, too, can create even greater barriers to involved fathering. Military fathers frequently experience the confounding effects of general, social obstacles, and specific difficulties related to their service.

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Military service does provide several benefits for families, such as economic stability, early retirement, health benefits, and an existing social structure. But there are also costs: frequent moves to new geographic locations, periodic father absence (due to deployment), the potential for injury or death of the father, and a rigid structure. These challenges can interact with the aforementioned situations and expectations to create frustration and discourage involved parenting for some military men.

In the 1990s, David Dollahite and Alan Hawkins proposed a framework intended to facilitate men?s healthy involvement with their children. In their book, Generative Fathering: Beyond Deficit Perspectives, Dollahite and Hawkins cited research demonstrating that involved fathering provides specific benefits for children (e.g. decreased incarceration, improved academic performance) as well as specific benefits for the men. Generative Fathering (GF) is defined by concern for the next generation, and results in improvements on measures of personality development and life-purpose for fathers, which in turn positively impacts their emotional wellness, physical health, and interpersonal relationships. Involved fathering benefits children, men and families.

The GF approach argues that fathering is work?a job to be done. According to the authors, fatherwork, a central construct in GF, is the most challenging and the most meaningful job a man can have. Fatherwork consists of identifying the various biological, psychological, and social needs of one?s children and helping those children address their needs by maximizing the father?s individual strengths and abilities.

Also central in GF is the assumption that children?s needs and fathers? abilities exist within the specific contexts of individual families. This attention to context becomes extremely valuable when considering men who need to integrate fathering with serving in the armed forces.

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Soldier-fathers and their families must raise their children amidst the realities of long and often dangerous deployments, sometimes without the benefit of regular phone calls or Skype conversations; frequent moves that can take children away from their schools and their friends; and a rigidly structured environment. Staying mindful of specific risk/protective factors that effect military families and adopting a GF perspective can facilitate good outcomes for children and improved quality of life for fathers.

Researchers working with military families have identified factors that have the potential to either ease or exacerbate the stress and difficulty that accompanies deployment. First, the relationship quality between fathers and their children is a powerful predictor of family adjustment to the deployment and post-deployment reintegration. By maintaining a loving, involved relationship with his children, a military father can help ensure family success during and after deployment. Also, an important predictor of family cohesion and adaptability with regards to deployment is gender expression.

Families with more rigid adherence to traditional gender norms tend to struggle more with deployment and post-deployment reintegration. When gender roles are less rigid, a female partner or child can take over some of the family duties and household responsibilities typically expected of men (e.g. automobile maintenance), thus easing some of the stress resulting from his absence. Similarly, a service member willing to participate in some of the more ?female? household chores (e.g. washing dishes) can help smooth his transition home. After a woman in the home has spent months performing her regular tasks as well as the ?man?s work,? his returning home and resuming his old responsibilities, but refusing to assist with her work sends the message that, while she is expected to help with his jobs during his absence, he is somehow above helping with her jobs when he returns home.

Finally, finding meaning in military service seems to predict more successful family outcomes during and after deployment. Families who consider military service meaningful and important work tend to cope with stressors related to deployment and reintegration better than those who join the military for pragmatic reasons, but do not find the work meaningful.

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Another potential threat to functioning in military families is the frequency with which they tend to move. Military children are often moved away from their friends and forced to change schools, sometimes mid-term. While challenging, military Psychiatrist Kay Tooley observes, ?moving house seems to improve family adjustment or individual adjustment almost as often as it disturbs it.? In fact, military children tend to realize better academic performance, higher scores on IQ and achievement tests, and lower rates of delinquency and incarceration when compared to civilian children. Family attitudes about diversity and long-distance relationships seem the most important factor in predicting adjustment to frequent moves. Families who enjoy new foods, customs, and people tend to thrive from frequent moves, seeing them as an opportunity for adventure and instead of a disruption of the status quo. Families that enjoy maintaining cross-national and international relationships with friends and relatives do even better.

The bottom line? Fathering can be elusive and intimidating for many men. Fathers serving in the armed forces must contend with the challenges of fathering within the context of a soldier?s life, which contains its own struggles and difficulties. By helping military fathers to build strong relationships with their children by understanding and addressing their individual needs, understanding the importance of more flexible gender expression, developing an appreciation for diversity and adventure, and find meaning and value in their work, friends and clinicians can help these men foster resilience, health and happiness for themselves and their families. Happy Father?s Day.

Author: Jerry Novack is a doctoral student studying counseling psychology at Ball State University (www.bsu.edu). He is a second lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force (www.airforce.com), a husband, and the proud father of a 1-year-old son.

?Photo DVIDSHUB on Flickr

Source: http://goodmenproject.com/fathers-day/military-dads-and-fatherwork/

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