Father's role affects how teens approach relationships

I was 14 or 15 when real girls, not just the calendar pinups in my grandfather's work shed, began to agitate me so obviously my dad decided we needed to talk.

It's a safe bet my mother had told him our little chat should include details about sex, because when I assured him I already knew that stuff from school (and the schoolyard), the look on his face relaxed from horror into a mere grimace.

So, instead, he plunged determinedly into territory where he felt at ease, and where, as it turned out, he was an expert: how to treat girls.

Your guy friends, he said, expect to be jostled and poked and humiliated. How else can a fellow know his friends like him?

Girls, on the other hand, require kindness and respect. Sure, they want you to be strong and opinionated and funny, he said, maybe even a bit reckless. In fact, they expect it -- they've seen their own fathers in action. But girls also want you to show a soft side, that you care about their interests and feelings.

It was good advice, and about to get even better. Although girls rarely show it, he continued, they are torn up by all the same dating worries as guys: Will he like my clothes, my taste in music, my hair, my parents, the way I kiss?

Not that I believed a word of that last part. As a young teen I'd seen enough of girls, especially in packs, to know they were as insecure as that killer Uma Thurman plays in Kill Bill. And about as accessible. Forty years later, though, I know he was right.

Memories of that fatherly chat came to mind recently when I read about a North American study of teen dating behaviour in a U.S. medical journal. A survey of 3,500 teenagers revealed that one in five girls was physically or sexually abused by a date sometime in the previous year. That's nearly twice the rate of the 1970s and, according to the study's authors, linked in part to a decrease in the involvement of fathers in their children's activities.

"A majority of teens who reported ... difficulties in their dating life also reported that their fathers weren't there to offer advice or support," says Brian Goonan, a Boston public health psychologist involved in the study.

When taken separately, teenage boys whose fathers played a smaller role in their lives turned out to be more aggressive and less able to express feelings, the study showed. And without fatherly guidance, girls were more likely to pick creepy boys.

The reasons for the drop in male involvement are plentiful and complex, and no one is quite sure how the trend has influenced the rise in troublesome dating.

AWe do know that over the past 30 years, the number of children being raised by a single parent, mostly women, has tripled. And although schools have picked up some of the slack, we know lower church attendance means fewer teens are attending religious study classes where dating is - or, at least, was once - a regular discussion topic.

At the same time, more teens are taking their relationship cues from TV, movies and video games, where abnormal behaviour is regular fare, and often glamorized.

TV has also provided poor role models for fathers themselves. If you buy the argument that TV dads have been the most influential agent of paternal culture over the past 50 years, it's little wonder even more fathers haven't turned out to be ineffective, hapless idiots like the Tim Allen character on Home Improvement or Ray Romano on Everybody Loves Raymond.

According to the study, daughters tend to get advice from their fathers about dating more often than sons. The study found that while nearly one-quarter of fathers insisted they meet potential suitors before allowing them to escort their daughters, fewer than 10 per cent of boys said their fathers even asked about their dates.

Sometimes, fathers were a bit overprotective toward their daughters. In one case cited by the study, a Texas father - a 6-6, 300-pound former pro football lineman - invited every Tom, Dick and Jason over for a family dinner.

Later, he took each boy to his den for a Meet the Parents-type grilling where he asked the young man whether he was a virgin, where he was taking his daughter and with whom, about his driving record and condition of his car, the name of his insurance carrier, the church he attended, his Boy Scout rank, his marks in school and, most crucially, what the word "no" meant to him.

Another girl said that before every date, her father would get out his shotgun and cleaning apparatus and sit in the living room silently oiling his gun - in his undershirt - while the poor schmuck waited inside the front door for her to put on her makeup.

It's hardly a surprise these approaches turned off more than a few suitors. Still, while the screening annoyed the girls at first, as time went on several reported they felt most comfortable around boys who had passed their fathers' stern tests.

"Sure, some of this stuff is over the top," says Goonan, "but you can understand why it happens. Every father was once a teenage boy with raging hormones and wild ideas."

If memories of their own adolescent impulses are enough reason for fathers to counsel daughters, they make an even better reason to talk to sons, says David Krueger, a Toronto psychologist who specializes in teen angst.

His practice suggests sons whose fathers have discussed "dating protocol" with them generally experience more rewarding relationships with girls than those who stumble blindly through the early stages of dating.

Obviously, mothers also need to talk to their sons about dating and sex. But research suggests the message carries more impact when it comes from a man, even when he isn't the father.

"I can't even pretend to understand the pressures of being a boy on a date," one mother told a Philadelphia newspaper. "My boys need a man's touch."

Someone like my dad.

Ottawa Citizen


DOUG FISCHER
CanWest News Service

Dad, it's time to talk dating