Sociologists, psychologists and educators have written a lot on this topic. I want to say that it is difficult, or rather, impossible, to decide for everyone, to approach this issue in a general way. It all depends on the particulars, details and conditions of existence of a particular family. However, often the solution to the question “is it possible to raise a child without a father” is based on two extremes. Based on two opposing and fundamentally incorrect beliefs, which our society, including other specialists, operates with might and main (depending on the situation).
In principle, of course, this is not without common sense, but that’s it in principle. When you start to move on to specific situations, it’s time to grab your head in a panic: this belief has such serious consequences. Yes, it is a tragedy when a child grows up without a father. But it is an even greater tragedy when children grow up with a virtually alien father who does not understand or respect their mother and does not love the children themselves.
Very often there are families that can hardly be called families in the full sense of the word - communities of two completely strangers. At the same time, each of them has his own life, they live like neighbors in a cramped communal apartment, disturbing each other, terrorizing each other and humiliating... But often such families, when you talk to them about the prospects of divorce, are sincerely horrified: “How can we Can we get a divorce? After all, we have children... We must live together for the sake of the children, children need a father!”
But in fact, does a child need such a, so to speak, “dad”, who in front of the child is rude to his mother, or even raises his hand to her? Or, even worse, there has been a “cold war” between dad and mom for a long time, and this dad tries to remain silent and indifferent, like the same neighbor in a communal apartment, does not notice the presence of his ex-life friend and children, he is indifferent to all their problems and worries... What's the use of such fathers!
To paraphrase the great Ozerov: no, we don’t need such a father! After all, when such a dad is kept “for the sake of the children,” and the dad can be a troublemaker, an alcoholic, and an elementary sadist, it is the children who suffer the most from communicating with such a father... It is better not to have any father than one who threatens safety child.
And the desperate step of the mother will not save the situation at all, when she, having nevertheless decided to divorce her husband and father, who is disgusted with her and her children, literally in a matter of days after the divorce, rushes headlong into a new marriage: no matter with whom, but mainly because that “children still need a father.” So, making a hasty choice (and sometimes simply grabbing literally the first person she meets), she steps on the same rake as in her first marriage. As a result, the stepfather may turn out to be even worse than the father, especially since children are sometimes presented to him after the registry office.
Dear mothers, don’t rush to choose again! You will always have time to step on the same rake twice if you strive for it. If you are getting married a second time “for the sake of the children,” then let your new husband at least make friends with these children before marriage. But in fact, you should choose a husband solely “for your own sake.” After all, the few months or even years that you will look for a new spouse will not change anything in terms of the children’s absence of a father. And if you do meet a person who loves you and your children, and also finds a common language with them, then you will be happy, and the children will get a real dad. Choose not a father for your children, but a husband for yourself.
This belief, which smacks of extreme feminism a mile away, seems to me to have been invented by women who were tired of our social patriarchy. They are tired of the fact that men have the final say both in society and in the family. Then they decided to hit where it hurts: “But we know how to give birth and feed children! And since we know how to give birth, we can also raise them, even without you, arrogant, arrogant males!” That is, everything happens because of a far-fetched but eternal enmity between the two sexes. And a woman who defends her “independence” in this way does not actually understand elementary psychological laws and is mistaken at least three times.
Firstly. Of course, it is always better when a child is raised by both mother and father. Please note that I do not specify the gender of the child, although I have also heard such opinions: they say, a boy needs a father, but a girl can do quite well without him...
A girl who grew up without a father will have serious problems in relationships with men. In other words, the stronger sex will remain incomprehensible to such a girl for a long time; its representatives will frighten and repel with their foreignness. She will react to their actions completely inadequately, and when she hears the advice “understand your husband, listen to him,” she will only smile ironically, because she doesn’t know how. How can she understand a person who is like an alien to her?
Secondly. Again, from birth it is important for both boys and girls to see the relationship between their parents - not fights and swearing, but their mutual affection, kindness and respect. The child builds a model of his future family based on what he observed in his parents’ family. And what does a lonely woman usually say, who feels nothing for men who abandoned her or did not choose her, except anger? “All the men are males and bastards, they only want one thing from women, but if they get dirty, they’ll leave them.”
As a result, a boy who grew up under such accompaniment will unconsciously try to behave in the same way - after all, his mother said that ALL men are like this, which means he should too? Or will he have difficulties in relationships with women of a different kind: his mother said that only bad men behave this way, which means that a good man should not strive for intimacy with a woman at all? Well, a girl in such conditions grows up with hatred of the entire male race and subsequently becomes either a frigid old maid or an embittered lonely bitch who takes revenge on men for unknown reasons...
Third. The problems that arise as a result of one-sided upbringing will primarily affect those being raised - the grown children. They will behave as they were inspired by their mother, not knowing that such behavior in most cases is perceived as inadequate and negatively assessed by society. In short, the offspring will receive a sufficient number of buckets of dirt on his head, but for a long time he will not be able to understand why he is being scolded: after all, he behaves the way he was raised in childhood...
Children who grew up without a father initially do not imagine themselves as members of a complete family. Especially boys: after all, my mother was convinced all her life that raising a child is a woman’s job. And to the question: “Mom, who is my dad?” - the son received a stern rebuke: “Why do you need a dad? We can manage well without a dad, we don’t need any dad!”
As a result, after some time the boy will grow up, become close to the girl, and if, due to inexperience, she becomes pregnant, he will respond to her message indifferently: “What do I have to do with it? Your child, you grow up. Why do you need me?” And no amount of conviction about shame and conscience can penetrate him: because unconscious ideas about the composition of the family, instilled from his mother’s words, are stronger than all appeals to his consciousness.
Well, the girl, convinced that no father is needed for the child and that the mother is quite capable of replacing him, often, as they say, brings it “in the lap” and begins to selflessly raise the child alone, without a husband...
How to be? Where is the truth? Alas, there is no clear answer to these questions. For every family, every mother and every child, this answer is different, its own. But it is still possible to determine some patterns.
Yes, it is better for a child to grow up with a father, but if this father causes only moral and even physical trauma to the children, and even to his wife, it is better if the child grows up without such a father.
It is better for children to live only with their mother than with a stepfather hastily chosen “for the sake of the children,” who can also cripple the same children psychologically and physically.
It is better to give birth at forty, but in a happy marriage, than at thirty - in order to solve your own problems at the expense of the child.
It is better to learn to understand a man than to reject the entire male gender and deprive oneself of natural happiness and harmonious psychological development of children.
First of all, do not limit your own social circle. Don't focus on your child. The difficult task of “becoming both mom and dad at once” scares you and forces you to devote all your time to the child. This is also a dangerous misconception, because first of all it is not good for the child himself. Live an active social life, don’t slam shut like a snail in a shell, strive to be cheerful and active. Of course, we are not talking about throwing noisy parties at home and drowning our sorrows in wine. Firstly, grief is not drowned in this way, and secondly, what is grief?
Even if you are divorced, your life is not over. You will still have happiness ahead of you, and so will your child, if you do not limit your life to his interests and do not degrade yourself as a person “to spite all the men.” Let the child see that his mother has not given up, that she continues to create her own happiness. And if you want your child to receive full development, so that he listens to your advice, so that you have authority over him, the same advice: become happy! After all, the psychological mechanism of action is the same here.
Why would a child listen to a tired, exhausted, lonely mother who is angry with the whole world? To arrange your own life in the same absurd way? Well, I do not! Children obey only happy parents. It’s not even that they obey, but they sincerely want to do everything the same way as them. Only then does parental experience become valuable for the child. And if you eventually find a person who will become your spouse, then the child will accept him as a father. Because from an early age she will know: mother knows how to make life happy. And whatever she does is good!
The problems of fatherlessness are becoming larger every year and leading to devastating consequences in society. The consequences of the fatherhood crisis in our society are very dire. They lead to the degradation of society, giving rise to fornication in all social strata. The paternity crisis is a generator of fornication on an incredible scale. Along with fornication, all kinds of vices also “thrive” in our society: violence, murder, drug addiction, child prostitution, alcoholism etc. These “ulcers” of society are not an accident and did not appear on their own; they are only a consequence of the cause, which is fatherlessness.
According to statistics, 70% of people in prison who have committed the most serious crimes are people who grew up without fathers. In one North American prison, the following experiment was conducted: on Mother's Day, prisoners were offered free cards and stamps with envelopes in order to write to their mothers. Everyone happily accepted and implemented this proposal. When Fathers' Day was announced, the same proposal was made to the prisoners. Not one out of 1000 people wanted to do this. Alarming information, isn't it?
In one of the parks, scientists conducted an experiment with elephants. Mother elephants and their children were isolated from their fathers. After some time they brought to this family other people's elephant fathers; the youth immediately sided with these foreign fathers and began to imitate them in everything. The results of the experiment showed that each animal and even more so, a person needs not only a mother, but also a father.
And it is the father who exercises the function of male leadership in every family, be it animals or people.
Children deprived of fathers tend to become embittered, experience pain, bitterness, feelings of insecurity, inferiority and rejection. Such children begin to take revenge on themselves and others. “I was hurt, and now I want to inflict it on the people around me, so that they experience and feel the same thing that I experience” is the motive and cause of bad behavior in children and adolescents.
Children who formally grow up in two-parent families, but in fact, do not have fathers, may become fatherless.
The most valuable thing we can do to influence and win our children is our time devoted to children. Time spent with children equals securities, bonds, and other valuable legacies we would like to leave to our children. If a father is always busy with important matters and does not find time to communicate with his children, does not consider this important and valuable, and thinks that only the acquisition of money and other material goods is the main thing in the upbringing and development of children, then such a father risks losing the children themselves and becoming necessary for them only as an object to provide for their needs and wants; doom himself to a lonely old age and deprives himself of closeness with children.
A study by psychologists has shown that teenage girls aged 13 especially need the attention and physical warmth of their fathers; deprived of this, they enter into early sexual relationships, seeking physical affection and warmth from a male partner. Children make up for the lack of heat in the family outside. The need for love will be met in any case, but how, where and by whom?
The latest statistics are staggering - 80% of girls who became pregnant before marriage claim that the lack of fatherly love forced them to seek the love of other men.
28% of the planet's children live in homes where there is no father, or he does not fulfill his father's functions.
Apparently, statistics are inclined to keep silent about the real state of affairs, because... Over the past few years, fatherlessness has become very widespread.
As a result of the crisis and misunderstanding of their role, both men and women lost focus on fulfilling their destiny and began to abuse their lives by openly engaging in adultery instead of raising children properly. Children imitate them and, growing up, begin to do the same, resulting in a vicious circle.
The main purpose and goal for every man is to be a father, this is what God created him for. The first and main requirement of God for every man lies in one word - responsibility. God gave man the birthright - he was the first to appear on earth. This means that all others had to come from a man. Birthright gave a man the right to be the “sower of seed.” The principle of primogeniture is very important, because All subsequent generations depend on him. Every man is the founder of subsequent generations. This means that life on earth was given to men as the source of life. The lives of many generations depend on men understanding and understanding their purpose as fathers.
Research was conducted at Harvard University: they took the heritage of two different men - 400 people descended from their seed, and compared the results. The first of the men was an irresponsible person: an alcoholic and a fornicator. Most of his legacy was in prison; among them were prostitutes, thieves, and murderers. The second man was a caring father, a good family man and a God-fearing man.
Among the 400 people of his legacy were doctors, lawyers, advocates, teachers, i.e. People; who were able to build their lives and also benefit society.
Responsibility is the main quality of a man as a husband and father. If a man cannot take care of himself, has no job, no means of subsistence, cannot support himself, he has no right to start a family, since God has given a man the responsibility of being the head, and this means being responsible not only for his own life, but also for his wife and children. God sees every man as a father to his children and wife. If a man does not understand God’s plan for his life and simply “scatters” his seed, then he initially “sows” “weeds” into his life - drug addicts, alcoholics, fornicators. He is guilty of a future legacy. By breeding a depraved generation, he put his and their lives under a curse. The soil for proper “sowing” should be not just a woman, but only a wife. It is precisely this, according to God’s plan, that is that fertile and good “soil” that should bear excellent “fruit.” A man must not only participate in the conception of children, but also raise his “seed” and protect it morally and financially. The model for every man is the image of the Heavenly Father, who takes care of each of His creations, not forgetting for a second about their needs and wants. Fatherhood is the essence of Heavenly Father. Since God created each of us in His image and likeness, this is our essence. Every man who wants to become a father must constantly look to the Lord and learn from Him how to relate to his children.
Interview with many young people who grew up without fathers , or who experienced rude treatment from their fathers, showed that the main quality that they would like to see in their father is reliability. In many families, instead of being a support and protection, the father today poses a threat to his children. Many children are afraid of their fathers, they experience fear because... all educational functions, as a rule, begin and end with shouting, intimidation and physical violence, cruel jokes and humiliation.
Sincerity is another valuable quality of a father. Don't be afraid to appear weak in the eyes of your children by admitting your shortcomings and mistakes. You will gain more authority by being yourself than by hiding and putting up “walls” of insincerity between yourself and your children.
Have you ever wondered why there are so many hungry and homeless children on the streets, begging for alms, sleeping right on the asphalt in the subway, sometimes freezing right on the street? Thanks to statistics, we can find out the answer: these children ran away from their homes because of rough and cruel treatment of their parents, and sometimes were kicked out into the streets by their own parents. No child will ever leave their home with normal parents. Children are soft clay in the hands of adults. Only what we ourselves, dear fathers, have fashioned from them will always come out. Unfortunately, it’s rare that you can equate the concept of father with any man. More often today, a man is a person who differs from a woman only in his physiological characteristics, which he uses for the purpose of obtaining pleasure. Sometimes today's men cannot be real fathers due to the fact that they themselves did not have them.
The outstanding teacher A. S. Makarenko once said that raising an only child in a family is an extremely difficult task. But how much more difficult does this task become if not only the child, but also the parent is alone! If the child is raised by the mother, but the child does not have a father. Indeed, there are many “pitfalls” in such upbringing, and you definitely need to know them in order to be able to “get around” so that your child grows up as a full-fledged person.
The first and probably most important thing to say here is that a lonely woman, a woman without a husband, often begins to develop complexes. Men and women are also very different in this sense: for a man, loneliness is an annoying, but, in general, random failure. A man, if he is successful in his business, does not suffer much from loneliness.
A woman is a different matter. She believes, or rather even subconsciously feels, the so-called. “personal” failures - failures in relationships with men or any one man - are a consequence of one’s shortcomings, connects them with one’s very personality. Sometimes she even begins to feel inferior.
Although we all know that this is not true. There are no objective reasons to think so. Loneliness - alas, is a common state of modern man. Very often it is the result of random circumstances. Finally, you can live your life with dignity without a husband.
However, these are rational considerations, and they do not have much effect on women.
So what to do? It's very simple: your baby will help you. It is the fact that it is so difficult to raise him without a father that makes your task more responsible and worthy. If you achieve success even in such difficult circumstances, your merit will be immeasurably greater. Finally, raising a child without a father requires more effort, time and creativity - and this is good: you will have no time to think about your problems, real or imaginary. And even the smallest achievement in education will become a great joy. This is how children help us, heal our souls, without knowing it themselves.
But, of course, in order to successfully cope with such a complex task, you should first of all understand something.
The only child of a single mother, naturally, can be either a boy or a girl. Raising a girl without a father is also not easy, but it is immeasurably more difficult for a woman to raise a boy without a husband. This is perhaps the most difficult thing that can happen in parenting.
Why is this so?
The fact is that a boy becomes a Man, and a girl becomes a Woman thanks to the psychological mechanism of identification with their gender. That's what experts call it. It’s just that the boy sees the Ideal Man in his father and unconsciously tries to be like him in everything. If he succeeds - and he almost always succeeds, because... children are incomparable imitators and copyists - then he feels like a Real Man, he is confident in himself in this regard, he has no internal conflicts. He himself wants to behave like a man, even if it is not easy; even gets offended if he is not given the opportunity to take risks and overcome difficulties, to be independent
Of course, the same applies to the girl, only she identifies herself with her mother. But she has a mother. But a boy growing up without a father does not! He has no one to identify himself with. He is like a ship that does not know where to sail, and not a single lighthouse is lit anywhere.
Of course, the inner world of such a child is very unstable: first of all, the baby is not sure that he himself is what he should be. Psychologists and teachers call this mental illness an “inferiority complex.” It seems to the boy that something is wrong with him, and hence the uncertainty in everything: in communicating with people, in any business. Boys raised by single mothers are often timid and shy.
How will such a child get out of the situation if he is not helped in time? Very simple: he will identify himself with his mother. Because there is no one else!
The result will be an effeminate man: he will be emotional and impulsive like a woman, and will have little ability to behave rationally and prudently, or to plan his life far ahead. He may also have some feminine virtues: for example, a purely feminine love for children, spiritual gentleness. But it will be “a woman in a man’s body”: physically a man, and psychologically and spiritually a woman.
It’s not hard to imagine what awaits such a person in adulthood. First of all, he will have big problems creating his own family. It will be difficult for him to communicate with men, to make a male friend. He will have an aversion to male occupations and professions.
Those. it will turn out to be Nadezhda Durova’s version - only in reverse. As you, navarnoe, remember, the cavalry maiden Nadezhda Durova, a contemporary of Pushkin, wore only a man’s dress, served in the hussars, was called “Cornet Alexandrov,” smoked a pipe - in a word, she was a woman only formally.
And we will get a “formal man”.
But that's not all.
Mother and father treat the child and love him differently. Mother's love is usually called unconditional, and father's - conditional. “Unconditional” means “not dependent on any conditions.” A mother loves a child no matter what, under any circumstances and no matter how he behaves. She loves him simply because he is her child. V. L. Levi very successfully expressed the essence of such love: “They love for nothing and no matter what.”
But this is not how a man loves his son! He expects some kind of success, achievement, growth, overcoming difficulties from the baby - and his disposition towards the child depends on this.
A baby - and anyone (both a boy and a girl!) - needs both love. Unconditional love makes a child emotionally stable, warms his soul like the Sun, and gives him confidence that he will always be loved and protected. And conditional love “pulls it up”: promotes growth and development.
Unfortunately, women raising an only child are often naturally inclined towards “even more unconditional”, “even more motherly” love - i.e. to overprotection. But if you consciously work on yourself in this regard, you can avoid this. Your son will help you. Yes Yes! When you see how much he enjoys being a Real Man and taking care of you, it will give you both strength and confidence in the correctness of your chosen path.
Deprivation of both love is very painful for a child. Without maternal love, he does not feel protected and warm. And the absence of fatherly love causes excessive attachment to childhood, unwillingness to grow up, bear responsibility and overcome difficulties. And this applies to both girls and boys.
“Excessively maternal” upbringing – this has been proven by numerous studies – leads to the infantilization of children and especially boys. Growing up, such a man remains a child in some very important ways: he brags, puffs up, gets cocky, like in kindergarten, but at the same time he doesn’t really know how to behave like a man and doesn’t even want to.
Of course, the degree of all these spiritual and psychological deviations may vary, but the essence of the problem will not change unless great efforts are made to solve these problems. Moreover, when the child is still very small.
What should be done?
First, the baby needs to find a replacement Ideal Man. It could even be some kind of literary character! Or a famous actor (athlete, writer, etc.). Or just your good friend or relative.
It doesn’t matter how this person (if he is a real person) treats you and your son and whether he treats you in any way at all, whether he even knows about yours and his existence. The ideal is by nature high and inaccessible, this is natural. You just need to constantly tell the child about this person (or even about many people who have something in common: they are honest, brave, strong, caring, etc.), tell them with admiration - and get the child to also begin to admire this Real A man. Do not be afraid to create an Idol for a child: it will not harm such a child; on the contrary, he just needs an Idol in order to develop normally.
If you have achieved your goal, the baby has an Ideal - inspire the baby that he himself is also somewhat similar to this Ideal, to his Idol.
Please note that you should not tell your child “You MUST BE like him”, “try to be like him” - in no case should you say that, because the baby understands it this way: “If I have to be like him, that means I’m not like him at all.” . You should talk to a child as if he ALREADY LOOKS like the Ideal - even if this is not at all the case in reality. Moreover, do this quite regularly and with full confidence that you are right.
It’s even better if you can find a male friend for your son. It is not necessary that they see each other often. It doesn’t matter who it is: your brother, a distant relative or a formal stranger. Another thing is important: your baby must like it. Just like a man! That is, to be, to some extent, a Model of Masculinity. He should have a positive attitude towards your child: not necessarily with obvious love and warmth - the main thing here is interest, this person’s indifference to your son. This is what matters for the baby: his Ideal is interested in him, he means something to him.
The second thing that is absolutely necessary: learn to treat your son as a Man. Even if he is still very small! Have you come home from work or from the store, are you tired? Let him take the bags from you. Yes, it’s very difficult for him: but he’s a man! Let him help you unzip your boots - ask him. It's raining? - Let him, if he can, hold an umbrella over your head. Will he get wet, will his hands hurt? Nothing! But he will be proud and happy that he TAKES CARE OF MOM.
And so every day expect from your son, demand MANLY BEHAVIOR from him. No, fate has not deprived you - you have a man in the house: this is your son. It’s okay that he’s only 3 or 4 years old now.
And third: try to learn to combine both a male (at least partly) and a female position in relation to your son. That is, purely maternal unconditional love should be combined with fairly high (although not exaggerated) expectations regarding the growth of your son’s skills, knowledge, and independence.
Of course, many sports sections are useful for boys: martial arts, hockey, football, swimming - everything he might like.
Well, what about the girl, the daughter of a single mother? What are her problems?
She has someone to identify with. That is why, for the time being, it seems that such a girl is developing completely normally. Problems usually begin when a girl becomes a girl, the age of love comes. It is in love that she behaves incorrectly.
Why? Because in her childhood she did not have a “beloved man” - a father. No man has ever loved her, and she doesn’t know what it is. Therefore, on the one hand, she is deprived of the experience of such relationships, and on the other hand, she is exclusively attracted to them - precisely because it is something incomprehensible, unknown, untested - they are attracted to the flame of a lamp like a moth.
Meanwhile, we all know that the so-called. erotic love is a very risky business. Here you have approximately equal chances of finding happiness and breaking your heart. Alas, for such girls the second option is common.
A girl who grew up in a complete family, despite the fact that her father loved her, having entered a “dangerous and wonderful” age, already has experience of a love relationship with a man - and the Ideal of such a relationship. The ideal, naturally, is her relationship with her father. She knows that the man who loves her must behave towards her in a certain way - and she is no longer afraid of any womanizers, she almost does not risk making a fatal mistake, making the wrong choice. She does not lose her head from compliments, kisses and caresses: she continues to think and evaluate, comparing the behavior of her lover with the Ideal.
And a girl who grew up without a father has nothing to compare with. And she throws herself into her first love, like into a pool, often with the most tragic consequences.
There is only one salvation from this danger: even in childhood, a girl must be loved by some man. Grandfather, uncle, someone else. It is important that this is a worthy person and that he really loves the child. This is possible, although it is very difficult.
With a girl growing up without a father, it is especially important to discuss in advance what love is between a man and a woman, how to behave correctly in order to arouse self-love and retain it. At the same time, such a girl may subconsciously be afraid of love. She should be very carefully, delicately taught that love is wonderful, but at the same time she has a lot to learn in order to love and be loved.
If a girl likes to read and has a rich imagination, “slip” her books that talk about “ideal” love in a form accessible to a child: for example, “Roni - the Robber’s Daughter” by Astrid Lindgren. This is a book that you can read (if not the whole thing: it’s big, then in fragments) before school, and then re-read. If you really like the book, the girl will live the love story of the heroes in her imagination, and then your daughter will already have a Model of the relationship between a man and a woman. And involuntarily compare with him everything that will happen to her in real life.
It would also be nice if such a girl had a boy friend. Only this should not be an “artificial friend” (imposed by adults), but a real one: one with whom she herself likes to communicate and play. Such friendship will help her understand the peculiarities of “male psychology” and learn to apply to them.
The only truly dangerous ones are those “pitfalls and shoals” of upbringing that we don’t notice. Once you see a threat, there are almost always means of salvation!
If you are raising a boy without a father:
If you are raising a girl without a father:
How many families in our time are “with one wing”... Mostly in families there is no father. As a result, the child from childhood does not receive the most valuable experience of communicating with a man. He does not see the behavior patterns, reactions of this person to difficulties in everyday life, and cannot analyze them. Therefore, he will not be able to create a correct, or at least more complete, model of his behavior... Realizing this, many single mothers try to somehow rectify the situation. That is why we are talking about what it should be like to raise a boy without a father; we will give expert advice on this matter. We will tell you what special attention should be paid to in behavior and how to prevent the appearance of undesirable character traits in a child.
About the difficulties of raising a boy without a father
Of course, any boy is a future man and for proper and harmonious development he simply needs a male example. It is optimal if it is the baby's father. Just who needs him in life more than him?! But, nevertheless, as it turns out, there are alternatives, for example, grandfather, uncle.
A future man needs a close person who will not scold him for such a trifle as knocked-out knees or a torn shirt, in some cases, someone who will teach him to endure the first pain, and also tell him how not to lose heart at the first failures. How to meet and communicate with children of the opposite sex.
Of course, my mother is hardly suitable for the role of such a mentor. Whether she wants it or not, she will always try to wrap the boy in care and tenderness, and the future man needs something else besides affection, so that he does not soften in character and does not grow up to be a girl...
Raising a boy - advice from a psychologist, what you need to understand...
How do most psychologists answer the question - how to raise a boy without a man? In most cases, the answer will be “no way.” Many women, left alone with their problem, begin to rush from one extreme to another: grabbing the first male representative they come across, who, upon closer examination, may turn out to be a crook or even worse.
When faced with such a task, you should remember one important rule - the absence of an example to follow is better than a bad example. You should not try to mend long-broken relationships just for the sake of caring for your son.
If a child notices coldness in the relationship between mother and father, his worldview may not be formed in a completely correct way, leading to defects in personality development, which sometimes have very serious consequences. That’s why psychologists advise mothers to always speak warmly about their father.
Among their advice:
– send your child to a sport with a masculine character;
Fostering independence from early childhood;
Mom should take the position of a weak woman whose son should take care of her;
Often encourage your son in his endeavors.
Negative Outlook
It is impossible to unambiguously predict how the lack of male influence will affect the behavior of a boy in the future. However, men who grew up without a father, as a rule, are not able to get along in a male group, they do not integrate into the society of their peers, and in most cases show extreme conflict.
The second extreme of fatherlessness can be expressed in the formation of so-called henpecked men - men who always strive to please women in everything and to avoid any conflicts, even if this may lead to negative consequences for themselves.
Important periods in the formation of a boy’s personality
So, it just so happened that the boy would grow up without a father. Well, this happens. What a woman needs to know and how to behave correctly in order to turn her son into a man and how to “lay a strong psychological foundation” that will provide the child with all the necessary skills.
According to most psychologists, a child begins to feel his gender identity from about the age of two. At this time, the baby begins to understand that the world is divided into boys and girls.
Of course, during these years the child spends most of his time with his mother. And how her baby will grow up depends on her behavior. However, the influence of the father when the child is only one year old is difficult to overestimate.
The baby needs an experienced mentor, optimally if it is a father, even a step-parent. In addition, as mentioned above, a grandfather or uncle may be suitable for the role of “senior comrade”.
As the child grows, approximately after reaching the age of five, there should already be room in his behavior for some courage, boldness, determination and initiative. Generally speaking, the boy's behavior should begin to differ radically from the girl's behavior.
At this time, the boy can be enrolled in some sports section, where the coach will be a charismatic man. During this period, the mother should slightly moderate the degree of care and not scold the child for every fall from the bicycle.
According to psychologists, the best action when falling off a bicycle is to get back into the saddle. It is unlikely that every mother will be able to demonstrate such fortitude. Even if she is able to perform such a courageous act, concern for the child’s health will not allow her to be sincere, and children always feel such a catch.
Upon reaching the age of 10, perhaps a little earlier or a little later, boys enter one of the most difficult periods of their lives. The child is growing up and may begin to ask questions that the mother will not have answers to.
If the boy does not have a father nearby during this difficult time, the child may develop hostility towards his mother, since she could not provide him with a role model.
In such cases, misogynists often grow up. In addition, the formation of sexual preferences may go the wrong way and as a result the world will receive another representative of sexual minorities.
Upon reaching 14–15 years of age, in general, the formation of basic personal characteristics has already been completed. In the absence of male influence, a teenager, as a rule, will independently seek the limits of what is permitted, possibly committing very deplorable acts.
If a child has grown up without a father all these years, it is certainly possible to try to influence him, but it is unlikely to lead to anything positive. Any edifying talk will be received with hostility by the teenager.
Conclusion
Summarizing the above, we can formulate the main theses: a bad father is no better than no father; other men, for example, a grandfather or uncle, are suitable for the role of an experienced mentor. Mom needs to learn not to show extreme care, but to take on some of the functions inherent in the father.
