The Whys of Wise Parenthood: Why the Father

Tonight, the Junior League of Chicago incorporated in cooperation with Station WTTW is the first in a series of four programs entitled The Wise of Wise Parenthood.

This series will consist of unrehearsed group discussions of the normal problems arising in everyday family life.

The particular subject for tonight is Why the Father, for which fathers only have been invited to participate in our studio discussion.

In addition to the studio participants, many home discussion groups have been formed to watch and to carry on their own discussion of tonight's subject at the close of this program.

Leading the group discussion here is Dr.

Herbert Ratner, Public Health Director, Oak Park, and Associate Clinical Professor of Preventive Medicine and Public Health at the Stritch School of Medicine.

Dr.

Ratner has since 1951 conducted group discussions in his own community on family and parent -child relationships similar to the discussion which is now in progress.

The opinions expressed on tonight's program are those of Dr.

Ratner and members of the discussion group and not necessarily those of the Junior League of Chicago incorporated.

What else is on tonight? And I suppose I should first make it clear, in fairness to the mothers of the metropolitan Chicago area and with our personal family friends, that any opinions expressed tonight by us fathers are not necessarily those of our wives.

The mothers will have their turn next week.

I only hope that I'll be able to get a disclaimer out of them, at least we don't want to be talking of a disclaimer so that they're not talking for husbands, at least not on television.

The other thing I want to assure you about is that you don't have to have any fears about talking tonight because the studio is well guarded and you are fully protected from any and all infuriated or infatuated women.

Of course, Count Eleven wants to make it clear that once you leave the air, you're on your own, they have no responsibility.

Now most of you are strangers to me, I presume you already know my name, and I want to make it clear the kind of discussion we're dealing with.

I am a discussion leader but I am not a person trying to tell you what to do.

We are here kind of pooling our collective experiences, trying to unearth our common sense and collectively we are hoping to come out with some insights that come out of our experience so we can get something that is really going to help us and others and our problems with children.

Actually, instead of you asking me questions, with me acting as the expert, I'm really asking you questions tonight.

Here is to help you tackle this problem and to move it along, to get us on the air, to get us off the air and to have some kind of an orderly movement in between.

The real measure of this discussion tonight, of course, is not going to be us.

As I say, I'm not here as an expert, I can't really be the judge of the right thing.

The real judge of this discussion is reality, the real nature of things, the real nature of the family, the experience of mankind.

It's as if we were a panel of male red robins and one of us said, heck, or peck, why does mama have to be setting on the eggs all day long? Now obviously all of the birdwatchers in the country and the ornithologists, you don't know what ornithology is, there's a course in biology that they give early in the week on this program, all know that we don't know what we're talking about, see? And as a matter of fact, we don't know what we're talking about because when we ask why is mama setting on the eggs all day long, we don't really know what a robin is all about.

Now there are two final points I want to make and make very clear to you, that we're not here tonight to solve individual problems.

We may with an occasional father have him describe a concrete situation, but solely the purpose of getting out of that situation those principles that apply to all children.

We have to realize that really nobody can tell a parent what to do.

A parent is on the spot.

God has seen to it, and if you don't believe in God, the forces of nature has seen to it, that every child has his own individual, personal, private set of parents, because this is what a child needs, see? He needs the understanding that only the person close to him can have, because each child is different even though there are essential differences.

And the other thing I want you to realize tonight is that let us not expect miracles in a 45 or a 50 minute discussion when we're talking about such a profound question as why the father.

It really would take hours to get down below the surface of this question.

We may not come up with any significant part of the question.

We certainly won't come up with any significant part of the answer.

We won't certainly come up with all the answers.

We certainly, we probably might not come up with part of the good answers.

We will come up with answers.

But I think what is a miracle tonight is that you and many others are taking an hour off, an hour more off from your busy lives to really reflect on why the father.

Aristotle has pointed out that wonder is the beginning of knowledge.

And if you don't stop to wonder, you will never end up with knowledge.

The question, as you know, is father to the answer.

Of course, next week on why the mothers will make it the mother of the answer.

But we have to take off time in this busy culture of ours to raise the right questions, face them, and do some thinking and talking about it.

And that is really of only salvation in this matter.

Now, to get you into the mood of the question, we are going to show you a 99 -second film clip.

And immediately following it, we will face the question of the evening.

Everyone knows what a little baby is like.

Charming, helpless, and appealing.

Your father and mother know it too, Michael.

They don't expect you to be anything else.

And then you start to grow up, Michael, and there's a wonderful excitement about every new thing.

Well, about almost every new thing.

There are some new things that don't quite fit with your mother's dream.

You're growing up now, and you don't like to be cuddled all the time.

He never lets me hold him anymore.

Michael, take that dirty thing out of your mouth.

Let him alone.

He's growing up.

And very often, Michael, the things you do, the things every baby does, don't always fit in with your father's dream either.

Does he have to be so messy about it? Here, let me feed him.

Eat.

Let him alone, Daniel.

He's just a baby.

First, father says, let him alone.

He's growing up.

And then mother says, let him alone.

He's just a baby.

Why don't they let you alone? Each of them has a dream about what he wants.

Well, boys, we've showed you that little film clip so you can recognize and identify yourselves as fathers.

And so I put before you the question of the evening, why the father? The $64 ,000 question of the nation.

And what thoughts do you have on this? Yes, sir? Well, Dr.

Ravner, you brought out the point when you said each child has his own private set of parents.

And I believe that a male parent and a female parent really seem to complement each other.

They're both necessary.

And being so entirely different, I believe they're entirely necessary.

The father is as necessary as the mother.

Well, what way is the father necessary? I mean, we can grant the biological fact and we all understand this.

Yes, sir? Well, I think the first thing would be he has to support the family.

He has to support the family.

You mean give him a board and lodging.

I want you to remember that this is what Alcatraz offers, not only for childhood, but for life.

You know, Alcatraz is the Joliette State prison.

And so we have to, though we recognize this is important, I want you to go on.

Well, let's see.

First, to support the family and that's to prepare the child.

And to prepare the child to go ahead in life so that he will be ready to take his place.

To support another family, yes, the humdrum existence.

Well, I think the child comes into the world a blank.

A blank? Don't tell that to a mother.

Well, a blank mind as far as society and adjustment is concerned.

I would, possibly I'm not expressing this right.

Yes, show me.

And I think that both the father and the mother give the child a basis to identify themselves with.

I mean, for example, and this would come out later, a male child would identify with a father and a female child with a mother and so forth.

In other words, it gives them an anchor or a direction to start to grow into.

And I think of as examples, of course, it's very important.

I mean, in every way in the development of their character, I believe the child reflects what the parent is.

So I think you're saying here a father and mother, baby is born blank, starting from birth.

He has to identify with a father and mother.

So I suppose this could lead to alternate changing of diapers, alternate changing of bottle feeding.

You can't alternate breastfeeding, but you can alternate bottle feeding, which is one of its great, one of the reasons it's so popular.

You mean you just go through life right from the beginning? Of course, you know, the father is away all day long and so forth and so on.

Is there a division of labor here? Yes, sir.

I don't think that the father is a second mother by any chance.

I mean, he has a different role than the mother.

Mother.

We'll get the final word on this next week, but you go ahead and talk freely.

Well, the mother has the normal female softness and gentleness, which help the baby to feel secure and feel that it's loved.

And the father principle difference from this would be that, well, for instance, he's not soft.

He's probably got a beard and scratches the kid.

Maybe he can climb up it.

He's the one that sets the rules, you might say, and is responsible for the order of the family.

And although he doesn't set all the rules, he should serve as the head of the family.

Men were certainly doing a lot of pipe dreaming.

You know, the way this sounds, I bet a lot of people over there are listening, and this man sets the rules and the rest of the family obey him or the children obey him.

If this were true, of course, you know, we'd have no problems and we not really have to ask the question why the father.

Let's go a little bit further.

He was talking about economics and making the dollar.

This is a basic point.

Right on the head there.

If an old man doesn't turn a buck, mama hasn't got the opportunity to provide the nest, as you were referring to the rabbit a little while ago, to raise the child.

Well, now let's tackle that point and let's see what headway we can make out of it.

Did you want to say something on that point? I think that what you said about taking the hour off to come here leads to another point of taking the hour off to play with the child, to develop the child, as you see him in your image and he'll see himself in your image.

Then again, from the economic standpoint, there are many people that came to this country without any money, got themselves jobs and labored and labored, even though they didn't have a good standard of living.

Their children went through college and are now doctors and lawyers and way up in the economic sections.

Let's get this economic point straightened out.

We all agree this is a major responsibility of the father.

Is that right? One of them.

One of the major, primary.

This is, well, major, prime or one.

Maybe it's one of the responsibilities of the father.

But let us recognize that if this were the only responsibility of the father, maybe we can work out something in terms of the United States government where we can handle this by giving adequate money, bonuses, scholarships, food and lodging, right from the government, like a social security check in the beginning.

Obviously, there are additional reasons, but let's all accept this.

And I think that we all feel that this is something we want mothers to recognize that this is one job we are trying to do, even if we are maybe doing other jobs as well as we should be doing.

Yes, sir.

This is a somewhat select group, rather handpicked.

I think if you took a great many laborers, you'd find out that a lot of them have wives that work.

And the man really isn't the sole provider.

And actually, he may actually be a second mother in spite of his insistence that he's providing.

The mother works.

He sits at home with kids or babysitter and he comes home and cooks.

He may, in our present society, be the second mother.

And although he insists he's wearing the pants, I'd like to make a quick point here.

We're not that handpicked.

There may be a bias here, but we're all here in our Sunday clothes and none of us know who the flavors are or not.

But let me make one point about the mother worker.

And I think let's all recognize this clearly, that there are some mothers working in the lower economic class because of economic need.

And then there are some mothers who don't have an economic need, who always are, who are also are working, not at a factory, not for money, but for the sake of the community.

And in both instances, really, we have a parallelism here.

We do have a society where somehow mothers, for various needs and for various reasons, leave a little lacunae, a little hole where the father sometimes has to play a role.

And I think we can all recognize that in one sense of the word, in emergencies, we are kind of a substitute mother, so to speak.

When the mother gets sick or has to go to the hospital or she has to go on an emergency trip, the father has to step in there as a kind of a, he's no longer the big wheel, but now he's the spare tire, you know.

Yes, sir.

I believe we all recognize the points that we just discussed.

I'd like to bring up another point here, and that's an understanding of children and the life and pertains to the whole family.

During the early childhood, there is a certain grade of intelligence that the parent has to come to the intelligence of the child.

In different phases throughout the life, in your early teens, in your teenage, and later on when they go to work and eventually get married, the father, being the right kind of a father, having the understanding that he should have, would have to change his understanding many times during his lifetime to cope with the particular phase that the child is in.

Yes.

And I think that's not only important for the child, it's important for the whole family, including the wife.

Yeah, this is an important point, and I think we'll come back to it.

Now there were some other hands up.

Yes, sir.

Well, on this economic angle, I think that there's more to it than just bringing home the check.

That's a sort of an impersonal action.

For instance, a couple of years ago, one of my kids thought I worked on the railroad because I took the train to go into work every day.

This was kind of meaningless to him, and the way we work with money nowadays with checking accounts and so on, it's not like bringing home, the father brings home the cash in the loaf on a Friday evening or something.

That's, I think an important thing is the - It can't appear.

Brushing a growler.

An important thing is the management of the money, and whether or not this would be exclusively the father's prerogative to decide how the money goes is another question.

Well, we're going to get into some, a few rounds on that, but we may as well get this economic thing, this money thing, add.

Yes, sir.

It is true that the father is the head of the family, but also I'd like to point out that it should be a group, the mother and the father together, planning together for the child.

In other words, it is true the father makes the money, but I think that you have a better family life if you plan these things together and work together.

You're talking about an even partnership where the father ends the money and the mother spends it.

Oh, pardon me, I misunderstood that.

No, I mean actually working out your problems together.

Surely.

In other words, you don't, the father comes in as the head of the house and he rules everything.

You have to sit down calmly as a family, the two, and when your children are older, you sit down and have family discussions together.

This brings a family closer together.

It has a better understanding for the child and the child has a better understanding for his parent.

We made some assumptions in this little discussion.

I mean, you just kind of passed it off that the band was the head of the household and everybody respected this and understood this and believed in this.

We may get thousands of letters tomorrow saying, It is true, it is true, doctor, that the man is looked upon as the head of the family, but by the same token, there is some comparison with the mother and the doctor, whereas that they work together.

The happy family works together as a unit.

Right.

And you forget that you're the head of the family and your wife will also recognize you as the head of the family.

And that also goes for that little boy or girl when he gets to the age, because the children watch every movement of mom and dad.

Yeah.

And whatever you do will reflect in them.

If they turn out to have some bad traits, probably it's because sometimes you do the wrong things at home.

You may say the wrong things to your wife or your wife may say the wrong things to you.

This has an effect on the child itself.

I feel one of the important points you're making there is that I don't want to get in the trouble now with anybody, but that insofar as you, the man is the head of the household, really this title in some sense doesn't come to you automatically, because in some sense to be a head you have to earn the headship.

Follow me? And you have to be respected as a head.

Now technically maybe we say man is the head of the household and the head of the home, but if nobody listens to him, if nobody obeys him, if nobody wants to listen to him, if nobody wants to obey him, if nobody has some kind of a feeling for the role he should play, he really becomes the head of the home and name only.

Yes sir.

A lot of hands up and we'll try to get you off.

I've often wondered, doctor, if my home and my father's home are typical and maybe some comments could be brought out on this, I always look to my mother as I think my kids look to my wife as the first one to run to when their hand is cut, when there's loving touch needed, where there's a key to the outside world, a question as to where is it? I feel a need to interrupt the second -note mind, you know, I think if any of us had our hands cut and there was a male nurse and a female nurse, we'd be running for the woman, for the female nurse, yeah.

But isn't this generally typical that if you're looking for love as a child, I know, think back when you were one and when yours now are in need of it particularly, first thought is of the gal, of the wife, and yet I used to like to climb on my dad's lap, I know, and let him key me to the outside world.

I never looked to mother as my source of authority on the what's going on out there place in this wide mysterious outside area.

Well, I think in a general way we can all recognize this point that since one of the sexes has to go out into the outside world to earn money, this is unfortunately the hardest thing we have to do, I mean a farmer doesn't have to do too much of that, but in general since a man has to go out to the outside world, one parent has to go out and the other parent has to stay at home and take care of the children, there's a certain sense in which she gets to know the children better and he gets to know the outside world better, you know, and this kind of really fits in with making them, giving them a kind of a special role which help relates the family and the growing children in particular to the outside world.

Yes sir.

I believe that as far as cuts and bruises are concerned, either parent can take care of them, but I somehow feel that...

But he's making the point that either parent can take care of it, so can American Red Cross trained person, but that's right, what does a child want, child wants mother.

I think a mother instinctively can take care of mental bruises and I don't know where I read it, but a doctor once said that a mental bruise is as much an affliction as a physical cut, one of our problems tonight is the seed of it before we get through that the father isn't producing the mental bruises and the children are constantly running to the mothers to get healed because this would be a terrible thing if this is what's happening and I'd not be surprised in many instances without our knowing this is what this is what's happening.

Vice versa surely.

One thing I think that we have to remember as fathers is that we don't turn over everything besides earning a living to our wives in the sense of education, stimulating reading, stimulating using some of the facilities in the city like this museum that we play a definite role, we don't turn that over to the teachers, we've sort of abdicated this leadership role that's a dynamic role that a father must have, he must constantly earn it and inspire the children to move on from the day they're born till the day they don't want to listen to them anymore, I'm sure they will listen to them.

You know it's interesting we're all saying kind of good things but somehow I feel as a leader here that they are out of joint with reality, I mean I'm a man as well as you are, I know that in terms of my ego I like to get on certain committees, I like to get certain recognition, I know enough businessmen to know that under the guise that they're making a living for their family, they never come home at nights, they attend tremendous number of conventions, they have really all kinds of reasons and valid reasons why they're never home because really nearly everything a man does out of the home even making a deal on the golf course with a with a person whom he wants to sell something nearly everything he does out out of the home is ordered to earning a living for the family see and and so I don't want you to forget that in this whole economic issue here granted basically we are earning this money for our family but if this were our only motivation we'd really have no problem see it's what we do in of indulging ourselves indulging our egos indulging our needs I'm going to use the word selfish needs because other members in the family have needs the wife certainly has a lot of needs she's home all day long the children have needs so let us not be too satisfied about this economic issue because I think I can speak for myself I think I can speak collectively for all of us that if we analyzed this whole drive to earn money that this is not as good and pure you know as it strikes us on the surface because part of the reason we're discussing things tonight and the answers are coming up is that somehow we feel that we have to give to our children more than just food and a roof more than what Alcatraz gives we somehow have to give something of our persons and you know the peculiar thing is this takes time follow me and time is one of our difficult commodities and so the question I want to open up following your line of thinking is how do we go about in your case identifying ourselves with our children I think the whole thing revolves about the development of your own character I mean I think that if you go about deliberately trying to make your children into a certain mold or a certain way that you may idealize as being the thing of the future the thing that's necessary in a child that you're very liable to go wrong because it's too artificial I think that it comes back to developing our own selves and developing our own sense of values and that the children if you can develop yourself your children will see this in you and will have a much better chance of assimilating now you're assuming all along that when you develop your own sense of values these values are good you know a guy may go to married life and develop his own sense of values and his own sense of values is how to keep on maintaining the pleasures and the feed him he had as a bachelor so you want to make you want to excrucate these values of course when you say good that's true now of course that opens a wide field for us too I mean the discussion of what's good and values and so forth but I of course implied these values would be good I mean values that would be worthwhile and that you would desire in another individual possibly well now to get more specific do we all recognize that being a father is a bit different from being a bachelor uh that it's just not a matter of money that somehow we have to play some kind of a some kind of a role and really we haven't really gotten down to this role as yet yes sir well in the old days in our grandfather's or their father's days the father was a disciplinarian he was a little austere a little removed from the family but he was definitely a man in every sense of the word and everyone looked at him in the family as a man maybe through fear maybe through admiration nowadays the man really wonders whether he is a man I think part of the time unless he smokes a certain brand of cigarettes and has a tattoo or yeah if he has a certain odor about him I know the wife misses this that she wants to know that he is a man that's right and he he may have to take to rather devious means to even impress upon his wife that he's a man well how do you feel about this yes well uh I think in order to answer the reason I answered the basic question father you have to get to the point of what is a good father and a good father doesn't necessarily you don't base it on the uh how much money he's making or how much money he's bringing home but more on on how much love he's giving the children and how much love the children are giving him and uh this is basic companionship is one of the things that uh makes a good father now do you boys want to accept this or not because you know uh I don't know well tell us about this because this is something about this whole discussion has been a little bit nebulous in this respect we've been we've been bringing the wife in we've gotten off the track that the subject was why is the father why the father that's right we've been talking about mama and everybody else which I don't believe without mama no father without mama no father all right but nevertheless tonight it's why the father now we talked earlier about this hand in hand together through life someone has to take the lead whether it's in your own business whether it's in your own home yes with your wife with your kids where it is and I believe that's the job of the homeland he's got to do that and I think the children will love you for it I think more important than the I think the love will come but I think most important will not specify this as you do this by remote control as he put notices on the bullet for eight o 'clock the morning he does he does it obviously by example by being the kind of a father that now he doesn't by example he has to be around where the children can see him as an example as much as as much as possible well if he's never around then the examples don't do any good except it's a bad example no no but I think that I think all of us are our day -to -day business schedule that's right are different yeah I may get home at four in the afternoon I may get home at nine o 'clock at night when the kids are in bed I may see them the weekends you may see them in the morning what let's talk about when you get home when I get home I attempt to no I mean what's your time schedule because my time schedule yeah usually nine to five when I'm not trying to find five days a week when I no no when I'm not traveling I miss often weekends I see yeah so my my time is somewhat limited with the children yeah nevertheless I do find that when I'm when I'm with them I can not command their love I believe I receive the love that the kids wants to give me as much as I'm with them five days a week I've seen many I've seen many boys come home at night walking down the street and the kids is hi dad let him know he's home yeah now is that good well I think the point you're making is and this is a very valid point all of us make our livings in different ways uh we're going to remember though in the back of our mind that we can indulge ourselves in terms of the time we spend home and not spend home I know that a doctor goes to the hospital he's working all day but really half of that time he's down the doctor's room bowling around with the boys about a variety of things that doesn't have anything to do with medicine you know but from the point of view of his home he's out saving lives um we recognize that uh that uh every man's time strictly and properly speaking varies in respect to the time he can give to his family see so really the point you're making is it's the quality of what he does when he has the time that means something and so well a lot of hands up so we better get I think it's more specific in explaining why a father are there are males and females in this world husbands and wives well let's exclude the wives for the time being but a young child who is developing whether it be boy or girl must have the outlook of both a male and a female if it is a male someday you will be interested in the female it watches its mother if it is a uh a male child someday it will be interested in women nevertheless the child uh assuming that perpetual uh perpetual uh humanity is the force of nature yes uh then they must sometime come across this problem now if the if the boy has the father to look to for guidance and how to act as a man and if the girl has a father to look to to find out how a man should act speaking only of the father's angle yes I think that in uh creating a background a reservoir from which to to select experiences that they know have been successful with their own parents a father then can teach his child by supplying it with a the volume of information as to what to do under a specific condition now let me see if I can state that point and then anybody else wants to speak the growing child the world is composed of men and women and this is the world the grown child is going to move into now he's going through a long period where his only chance his real chance his only intimate chance boy or girl to get to about men and women whom he's going to meet in the outside world is through having a father and a mother in the home eats with them a good deal of the time uh vacations with them uh spends weekends with them uh sees television together with them uh goes on outings with them they do a lot of things together see and this is very necessary to the wholesome development of any young child boy or girl so let us recognize that uh being a father obligates one it's a kind of a vocation it obligates one somehow to make yourself available to your children and let's not forget uh the mother needs this too now yes sir I might uh like to make a perhaps fine point of distinction to what my neighbor just uh said we fathers tend to think more I would not say of the welfare but of the interest and the development of our boys and uh my neighbor uh uh phrased it this way that the boy is looking to the father the girls to the mother I think I like to speak in favor of the girls here in their relation to the father uh in my way of thinking the girl's picture of the man individual man but the man of the growing girls growing girls picture of the man is formed by the father and I think for a growing up girl the father perhaps as the person the way he acts behaves faces the world neighbors etc is at a certain phase of her development the daughter's development perhaps more important and more decisive than the mother the mother in childhood yes but I think the way the girl the growing girl sees the father will very definitely determine her future aspect of society now let's all repeat this point now so we all see it we don't have uh all of the time to explore all of these points but what we must see is that for the normal development of a child boy or girl have to have for optimum development the experience of both father and mother and there's a little correlate to this because I want to make this a practical point remember that when the child gets to be a teenager or older they are suddenly bursting into the outside world follow me now uh men uh trying to orient their children to the outside world think they play their real role when the child gets older see but I think we have to all of us be aware of the fact that if we wait too long we're going to lose out because somewhere along the line we've lost them I mean in a girl's life a father is the only man in that girl's life maybe till about 15 16 17 18 19 20 but somewhere along that he suddenly is not the only man in the life as a matter of fact he becomes the second fiddle so I want to re -emphasize that if you believe and recognize that this relationship is important you have to make hay while the sun shines you have to establish a relationship and you're using your time quantitatively when it's available but also qualitatively that is if you can give them a lot of time but if you're restricting on them a smaller time you make use of this in terms of really establishing a relationship with the growing infant the crawling child the walking child the preschool child the school and so forth yes sir you were saying before that the father has to be available when needed but I think it's a lot more than this this this idea of leadership that was brought out before I think too often the father resigns the responsibilities of develop the development of the child to the mother leading the child leading the child to religion leading the child leading the child in social development when the child goes to church it's go with mama when the child selection of television programs it's leave it up to mama and I think this is part of the father's job too this is the well I think this is the point we're all trying to make that the father has to become in this country a part of the household yes sir doctor may I reiterate my statements once more I brought up earlier the discussion about understanding one of the points I didn't emphasize on it too long but misunderstanding a child in an early age and through the various phases as they grow up will cause the child not to understand the specifically the father which is the father misunderstands the child is that what you said yes little individual problems they may have a little story in the morning it may sound very nonsensical if I'm not late for work I've got the time I can give a good logical answer to the child and I think that builds up a confidence in the child themselves that my father understands my problem even though it's a little story that they dreamed up in their sleep at night yes the child builds up confidence he knows he can go to his father and the father will give him a good logical answer and of course that will develop as the child goes along with their various problems and they will come to the father at all phases of life or as if you brush them off and say that's very nonsensical the story is fantastic the child will lose confidence in himself and eventually lose confidence in the father yeah well now to throw in something to get a kind of a realistic picture is it true that many fathers including ourselves come home including myself come home from work tired somehow we obviously would prefer to lay down on the couch until the meal is ready we'd like to get at the newspaper we've picked up the late afternoon papers and we're just absolutely dying to read this and interfering with all of this comfort and pleasure and even possibly of a snooze is your child or your children somehow recognizing that you're home want to kind of set up some kind of communication with you and men traditionally use different techniques those with choleric temperament say don't bother me or you actually fall asleep and they hesitate to wake you up or you bury yourself behind the newspaper now this seems to me to be uh uh you know a real aspect of life and all of this talk sounds very pretty to me but what do you do when you come home tired at night you are no more interested in answering the questions of your four -year -old child and well i can i might add to that i have i work very peculiar hours and come home nine thirty ten o 'clock at night and i'm confronted with the same problem particularly when someone has maybe a lot of homework to do but as i say in understanding their problem they understand their father too when you come home and you tell the child that you walked her and it has happened in my home the children they understand well are you going to do this every night no you can't do it every night otherwise like i say the hour will lose count suppose mama says uh i want to put in the word for mama says for mama here uh suppose the child is hungry wet uh cut its finger or any one of the half a dozen little problems have come up none of it's a really emergency can mama say i'm tired child i think you can understand this uh do you mind waiting for two hours uh you know the mother is a woman who's uh and i think it's very nice to have that kind of a child who very sympathetically understands its father when it says i'm tired i'm just wondering whether again um since we have taken on the obligation of being parents whether we have that this is a strong point we have a right to be tired and withdraw therefore into our own shell uh and whether the mother has this right to be tired now i'm not trying to take an excessive position but uh maybe uh there's something more important to your family than you being tired at a moment when your child is asking you a question lots of hands yes sir well uh surprisingly enough although i guess we're all in our good on tv yeah i uh i know you boys are you know this is being taken down by shorthand i know personally when my wife was downtown on saturday and i'm left with the mob uh saturday is an awfully long day and i uh try to get them to take their naps feed them everything seems to go wrong yeah they know what you're trying to do that's why it's going on i'm very relieved when my wife gets home i keep coming home exhausted from the shopping tip that's right oh your nerves at the end of the day and i feel like uh thank god it's over yeah and i'm sure that uh it's nice to say that it's you can entertain your kids but well of course there's an age breaking point there where basic companionship that one of our men back in the back mentioned before and that's uh when this day comes along with the wife goes downtown shopping you can always take the kids to the ballgame work out in the backyard and make an example along with it as to how to get things done a lot of fathers laughing come on speak up yes sir i believe you got to take the bumps with the high spots on the high spots i know that your wife is taking this down now and many another wife which is the unfortunate well she blows on monday nights i look forward to yes yes sir one of the solutions we found without writing up a policy book to govern it is areas of authority rather than there being a boss of the family oh no now we're off the boss subject we're not just talking about what the tide father does when he's home we'll talk about boss next week there are channels of discussion and if it's arithmetic it's poor pa if it's clothing it's ma there if it's fix it it's pa there's a certain number of channeled areas where you then become the eminent source of authority yeah but you act as if you're trying to divide uh i don't know what your business is you might be an efficiency expert or a personnel man uh that yeah you're having everything everything regulated in the home a home doesn't operate in terms of a time schedule and who does this and who does that this is a human relationship where people where love is the cement human relationships and we're not dealing we're not dealing with the division of labor here with we're dealing with people's needs normal natural everyday needs need to be loved you guys like to be loved by your boss i say this hesitantly but you like to be loved by your secretary you like to be loved in general this is a need a human being has this is the way he's built biologically this is the way god has created him see and these children have these same needs so it isn't just a matter of dividing up the work as if this is a problem of certain chores come up and efficient way of handling them we're talking about an intimate relationship between human beings see and if you don't know what this means remember what a relationship you had when you were recording your wife and how much every moment in that period meant to you see you are engaged to your children and your children are engaged to you you are going through a romance a love affair see where they expect love from you and you really expect love from them you may not be expecting at this moment but uh we don't we're not always going to feel the way we're feeling now when we get to be 50 and 60 and 70 and 75 peculiarly you know we might end up the children and they may end up the adults follow me so we're dealing now in a situation where we're concerned about the dynamics of a home relationship and the real cement in that dynamics the real operative principle is love and the question i'm asking is that when you were engaged and friday night came up and you hadn't seen your girl for three days you come home from your office work tired do you say oh heck i'm tired i'm not going out with her tonight or do you go all the way down to the south side from the north side and travel about 60 miles of course yes sir doctor how many of us are there that when we come home tired and are asked a question the questions you're speaking of that do not have a feeling within ourselves that we are shirking a duty by not developing or spending that time with the child i mean how many of us are there that can just go ahead and take that nap you're speaking of well i will say that many of us can take that nap we feel a little bit guilty but we still take that nap with ourselves in the newspaper well that that depends on the individual again that's no all this depends upon the individual and i mean how how how but it also it also depends upon what you think your role is and the farther in the home we've touched the economic question see many of us have made this an end in itself you just have to read the papers whether it's bankers whether it's hollywood people you know if you make your end money success getting ahead this is an end that leads to a kind of a sad role if you are a parent see so uh important problem here is is uh is uh is the kind of attitude we have to the role we play and if we get the attitude straight now and we see the importance of it then peculiarly enough we're not tired we're mostly tired uh i may say we mostly withdraw into the bathroom sometimes to escape the family uh we're mostly tired because this is in a sense a psychosomatic kind of a thing because we really want to get away from uh from the things that annoy us but take the tired father and suddenly have some friends drop in from out of town or business acquaintances and he livens up tears up hops up gets a chair for the guest makes drinks full of energy and activity and this is what the child sees yes sir there was a child's book written for adults called a hole is to dig if we use this uh method of thinking and say that a father is to be happy with his family a father is to worry with his family a father is to love with could we not then quite well simplify the touch on all the diversified points and say what a father is by being an indulger with the entire group under his his roof to perform whatever whatever thing is at hand at the moment tend a wound play with the child love the family yes this is what's written in the books and our problem is how do we get fathers like ourselves and others to see this i'd like to say that one of the problems that father had fathers have in general all the stereotypes that have grown up around the roles and even tonight with people who are thinking seriously about this you hear a lot of the the conventional ideas about about fatherhood and it seems to me that if we're going to achieve this and i agree that that is it i i think that the money making is sort of incidental to the whole thing you know i'd like to i'd like to end on this point because we have very little time left that money is incidental to fatherhood it's necessary but it's incidental the poor father the poor family who have a good loving relationship we know will always make out better than the well -to -do family where there is in love in this home now we recognize that the father has to be outside of the home a good deal of the time in order to make a living i want to end with this one note because really we have left out the mother to some extent and our relationship to the mother the mother for force is a person who has to stay within the home in terms of those four walls and talk to children all day long i would say that in this country the mother is the most unappreciated person in the world this is why and and and like you who need plaudits and appreciation she needs plaudits and appreciation if he isn't going to get it in the home if somebody says you're wasting your college education or some father says husband says why don't you go out like the rest of the women and help get me some attend some of the meetings to me so you can help drum up some business or this is a very very poor way of expressing but you know what i mean of going out and somehow helping you get along under the guise that this is going to help the family this is what the poor american woman does she has to get appreciation if he's going to get it from the community she'll work in the community if he's going to get it from an activity outside of the home she's going to get it if he's going to get it from going to conventions with you she's going to get it that way this is what you demand but realize now your babies are the most delicate instruments that has ever been created they need they thrive on love you have to be away most of the time your wife has to be home most of the time and if you don't give her the energy and the power to appreciate uh what she's doing then she doesn't if you don't give her the love and the appreciation she doesn't have what it takes to do the job that's necessary to do in order to bring up your children well secure stable and happy we will now uh continue with this discussion in terms of any way you want tonight in participating in the first of a series of four discussions entitled the wise of wise parenthood presented by the junior league of chicago incorporated the discussion has been led by dr herbert ratner public health director oak park illinois and member of the faculty of the strich school of medicine next thursday night at eight o 'clock p .m you are invited to join us again when the subject will be why the mother at which time the wives of many of the husbands that you have heard tonight will participate as tonight's discussion continues in the studio so we hope will discussions continue among our viewers in the special home groups which have been organized for this program please send in to channel 11 your summaries and reactions to this discussion not later than sunday night so that they may be reviewed before next week's program this material will form the basis of a booklet to be made available at a later date on the wise of wise parenthood if you wish to form your own home discussion group for the remainder of our series you may have information and a descriptive brochure by writing a letter or postcard giving your name and address to parenthood channel 11 box 1100 chicago 90 illinois this series is presented by the junior league of chicago incorporated in cooperation with station wttw the del mused on tonight's program was from the motion picture preface to a life