“You want to leave to attend the birth of your son, a disgusting moment, in which the father is completely useless”, this is how the journalist France Pierron addressed the Belgian footballer Jeremy Doku, who between the glory at the World Cup and the joy of the birth chose the latter without hesitation, leaving America. Social media lashed out violently against the sports commentator, it became a global media case so much so that the TV channel L’Èquipe distanced itself from its commentator’s statements and suspended her.
A father cannot be defined as useless, at least in the world of political correctness. Even if the reality seems to be very different. The transformation of fatherhood into an evanescent entity is the real key to understanding the violence in which GenZ is drowning. Killing fathers, all of them. It was a slogan of the seventies. The pater familias, the master father with the belt ready in his hand, the “breadwinner” described by the sociologist Talcott Parsons, symbol of the American dream (Spencer Tracy so to speak), was ultimately overthrown. Not just killed, but buried, forgotten. Goodbye also to the aforementioned “Telemachus complex”. After multiple changes, men have found a new model to inspire. Reassuring, helpful, the always available friend. Playful, blue-eyed. A cute Labubu to attach to the stroller.
This is how the famous pedagogist Daniele Novara describes it in his latest essay The stuffed animal dad is useless (Rizzoli, BUR): «It’s just an escape route that arises from a double opportunism. The first is that of mothers, who do not trust their companions, the ghost of the authoritarian parent is still alive in the memory. They continually repeat: “You have the wrong tone, you raise your voice, you’re not empathetic, put it down because it gets hurt, you’re always with your head at work.” Until the paradoxical “You stress him too much” at three months. The other opportunism is the historical indolence of the head of the family, who from distant times has never done anything, he only had a position. He was a figure of system rather than quality. Invoked by her wives in the fateful phrase: “Tonight I’ll tell your father”. While the puppet father is harmless, even if he continues to do like his ancestors: he has no real responsibility.”
Novara confesses that she spoke to her for perhaps less than two hours in her entire life: «He didn’t even put his hand on my shoulder. The contact was not foreseen at the time.” While an author like Antonello Piroso, only by writing the book Dad. Anatomy of a desperate love on the hard and distant parent, he knew how to deal with the pain.
It seems like we are falling into the times of Franz Kafka who in Letter to his father wrote: «Because you were the measure of all things for me».
If then it was the children who chased their unreachable father, today society expects too much from them, has put them under strong pressure, making them fragile and exhausted. Novara continues: «Pale, background figure, playmate rather than a strong point with an educational value. These two opportunisms generate the perfect storm, which in the end is good for everyone.”
Perhaps the cruel truth is that the male figure in the family was a role regardless. This deadly void hurts. Books such as the moving Our Fathers by John Niven (Einaudi) and the award-winning film One Battle After Another by Paul Thomas Anderson, where Leonardo DiCaprio is a dad on the run, perpetually confused, talk about it.
The era of mammo, which appeared on the scene in the 1990s, is also over. An antagonist in emotional competition, generous with kisses, cuddles and fuss. So much so that his children found themselves having two mothers, which is why he was also ousted from this position. And since a parent who sets limits in a narcissistic world like ours is against the grain, all that was left for him to do was become a cute Instagrammable influencer (and how many there are).
Crushed by a sense of guilt, inhabited by despondency, they perpetually feel inadequate. They say: “There is never a chance of recovery.” Obsessive, they see the betrayal of their partner (especially in the first year of the child’s life) as the escape route from a cage where they didn’t expect to end up. Because after all, no one had clearly explained to him what awaited them. There is a film that tells all this: Daddy Burned the Biscuits by Jeffrey Zani. From 2024 it will be screened followed by crowded debates. «There was nothing that spoke about fatherhood in a different way. The topic continues to be controversial, yet when we show the documentary they bombard us with questions”, explains the director. He talks about men who feel: «As if they put a pot on your head and started playing the drums», «You’re tired, but no one at work cares that you haven’t slept. The child feels nervous and becomes even more irritable and unmanageable.” Zani continues: «We are not used to talking about difficulties, much less depression, suicides. The stigma remains. It’s not fashionable to have a father in crisis, no one cares. If he’s sick, he’ll make do. Instead it is everyone’s problem, starting with the partner who experiences discomfort, without reaching the point of violence. It’s true that mothers have always faced everything alone, but the fact that someone is worse off than you doesn’t console you.”
A profound loneliness emerges. We alternate in the treatment, but it is the couple that disappears. There are three of us left with the stroller, the fridge and the microwave, rather than the entire village that helps raise the puppets. Everything disappeared, even the grandparents (now rare), not to mention the uncles, non-existent. Fatherhood is fragile. Franco Baldoni, associate professor in Clinical Psychology at the University of Bologna, psychoanalyst and the most important Italian scholar on the subject for over thirty years observes: «The substantial change is linked to the transition that has taken place since the last post-war period from patriarchal to nuclear family forms. Now care is required, which was previously very rare. As a caregiver, he takes care of the newborn, picks him up, puts him to sleep, changes the diaper. His greater involvement causes changes on an epigenetic and neuroendocrine level, inevitably also influencing his health. We now know that paternal perinatal affective disorders are as frequent as female ones.” Compared to thirteen percent of women who suffer from it, there are ten percent of men affected. «An underestimated figure, because males avoid research, do not respond truthfully to questionnaires and minimize their suffering. Anger and violent behaviors are significant markers of paternal depressive disorders. Doctors must learn to intercept these crises, which tend to hide.”
Parents are not authoritarian and often not even authoritative. It’s an epochal problem. Dario Ferrari writes about it in the book The Family Idiot (Sellerio), the literary case of the year, where central is the relationship of the forty-year-old protagonist with Herr Professor, the fearsome progenitor, Russophile and with uncompromising rigor. «My parents were liberal, members of the 1968 movement, he worked, but he tried to be there and have an active role. It was a patriarchal family, but dad was very different from the demanding and cold protagonist of the novel. Back then the adult world was solid, it had its rules and was not questioned. In this era, with two small children, I see that the unassailability of the family structure is no longer taken for granted, probably because we are more doubtful. We are halfway, and with difficulty, in the role, we are hopelessly young. Not very credible because they are less willing to perceive themselves as having grown up. If I feel the need to impose authority, I also have a certain resistance to having it accepted”, concludes the writer from Viareggio.
Today’s fathers must cross the shadow line and finally decide to grow up. Paolo, 45 years old, confesses: «I’m afraid of staying in the second row waiting for my wife’s instructions, like cabin boys waiting for orders from their superior, knowing that there is only one captain on a ship». Silvana Quadrino, psychologist and psychotherapist, however, disagrees: «But what a stuffed toy dad, they just want to commit. I see everywhere a greater need to be more active in caring for little ones. It is wrong to say that he helps, instead he manages fatherhood, like the mother. The appearance of a genuine emotional interest in caregiving is the big difference with yesterday’s generation. Until now it had never appeared in the human race. Commitment to babies has gone from a boring obligation to something emotionally engaging. It produces pleasure and concern. As always, not all changes are glorious. It has produced conflict within couples, women are not so willing to leave spaces for male-style assistance. Initially we dragged them by the hair into the delivery room. Now participation in pregnancy is not a trend, but a need. I meet many husbands who claim to be the primary parents, they are the ones who ask for parental leave. It’s not a duty, it’s a need to be there from the first few months. It enters into the planning of parenthood.”
But the shared project is not a simple thing, as the educational psychologist Barbara Tamborini underlines: «The percentage of those who want a greater role has certainly increased, but it takes a long time from wanting it to understanding what is the best way to do it. And we all feel this complexity, both mothers and fathers. The main challenge is to be able to find a solid point of balance that can guide, be a point of reference for protection, stimulation and support in times of difficulty. Mothers have more experience, they have always had to do it, often alone. For males it is new terrain, the risk is making clumsy moves without having a clear idea of where to go. You have to train to become a good parent. Instead I see them tired, individual vulnerability makes everything more difficult. If we are insecure, drowned in this widespread immaturity, we are weak. Previously we only thought about economic stability and basic needs. In this time, much importance is given to psychological well-being. An authoritative figure who has firmness is needed. Who knows how to set limits and maintain them.”
But if then in a double pike they were able to change again and go back to educating as soft toys with the power of Superman’s incinerating gaze, would anything change? Matteo Lancini, psychotherapist, president of the Minotauro Foundation, is clear: «Now we have to talk about maternal and paternal functions. There is no clear division of traditional roles. The changes that have occurred have brought about a fluidity that has made it increasingly less easy to define mother and father. We are a society where the sexual act is no longer necessary for the survival of the species. And we must have this concept very clear. Assisted procreation, surrogate motherhood. It is the first generation to grow up with the idea that you don’t need to join forces to become parents. There is a lot of that frozen sperm that is superfluous, not so much the father, but the couple as a project.”
