Mind Moves: Fatherhood is special. The relationship between fathers and sons is special. It is a unique connection of exquisite gruff intricacy. It is central to emotional development and mental health.
It is a significant factor in the development of the baby, the exploration of the infant, the courage of the child, the strivings of the adolescent and the success of the adult.
It may make and shape a young man's attitudes, values and beliefs. It is one factor which determines his tolerance or prejudice, his behaviour towards women, his expression of aggression, his views of marriage, of divorce, of love, of sex-roles, of self-esteem. It is one key in his capacity for compassion and his acceptance of the splendour of manhood in its most honourable manifestations.
The father-son relationship is the exclusive domain of men. It has sometimes been privileged, often derided, occasionally obsessed about and frequently fought about in ridiculous, unnecessary and illogical competitive disputes about the influence of motherhood versus fatherhood on the child.
This is because fatherhood, like motherhood, is a socially constructed role. In the past it confined itself almost exclusively to patriarch, protector, provider, decider and disciplinarian encapsulated in the catch-cry of many childhoods "wait 'till your father gets home". It disparaged men who wished to child-care with caricatures of apron-bedecked pram-pushers, equally deriding the role of women at that time. It denied many men their capacity to nurture and know their children. If, tragically, parents lost a child, a father grieved silently as if this dead child was not his child, swallowing the exclusion of the question "how is your wife coping?"
When their own fathers died, denied the chance to show the craggy compassionate care that many men express wordlessly to each other, sons also grieved silently; grieved for what might have been, for time not spent together and for words that were said or not said to each other, for memories of the texture of a coat, the fixing of a toy or the tallness of paternal protection. Indeed, sons whose fathers die young or who leave, neglect or reject them in childhood, move into high-risk categories for later adolescent and adult depression unless the loss is acknowledged and addressed.
Fatherhood also has a unique impact on men. It is not just mothers' hormonal levels that change with childbirth. Fathers' testosterone levels plunge by as much as one-third when the new baby comes home. This conflicts with the many images in Irish literature of the absent, ineffectual, feckless and violent father. In sport, men march on the football pitch with miniature versions of themselves. In word and song Father is Father, Da, the Old Man, Papa and Pa.
Psychodynamically, Freud's famous Oedipus Complex, represents sons as incestuously inclined, envious, in anxious competition with their fathers for their mothers' love. This was beautifully expressed by our own writer, Frank O'Connor, whose short story on the matter resolved it better, perhaps, than Freud, by father and son colluding as comrades in adversity when the new baby arrived to replace them both in "mother's" affection. And who could ignore Adrian Mole's description of his father's definition of the "perfect son", plunging the boy into adolescent angst at the impossibility of being what his father wants him to be?
But how do fathers determine what their sons will be? The accumulated research evidence of three decades confirms fathers who are warm, supportive and involved can assist the cognitive, academic, social and emotional well being of their sons. Self-concept, stability, conduct, school behaviour and substance use are amongst the factors researched. Rejection by fathers has been associated with adolescent delinquency, polydrug abuse and, most especially, with dissatisfaction with life and high levels of depression. Boys usually imitate their fathers. Good and bad they imitate them.
If fathers are not there, whom can they imitate? Many boys from fatherless homes have been found to be less well-adjusted, less competent in forming friendships and frequently to confuse masculinity with violence.
Conduct problems often mask the yearning of a son for his father's attention and approval. Sons usually love and admire their fathers more than their fathers may know. Fathers often love and admire their sons more than their sons know.
Clinicians often observe from professional sidelines the yearning for attention and acceptance between fathers and their sons that gets diverted into anger and hurt, destruction or depression. Women therapists observing this process must also acknowledge we do not know what it is like to be a boy or man, a father or son, but that this is of immense dimension in relationship terms. It is the most significant male-to-male relationship. It has little to do with "begetting" and everything to do with commitment; it unfolds in everyday communications and conversations. It is made.
So what kind of relationship have you made with your son? How much time do you spent with him? How does he know that you love him? What qualities do you admire in him? What is the nicest thing you ever said to him? What, if anything, is the worst? What does he admire most in you? What, if anything, does he wish was different in your relationship?
What do you think he would answer if asked those questions? The father-son dyad is as intimate as a "scrum", as triumphant as a "try" and as celebratory as a "conversion", when fathers and sons are in warm relationships with each other. But it cannot succeed without time, tactics and commitment.
When the opportunity is lost, the "match" is lost. This is a cruel defeat. Time spent, not money spent is what sons remember. Fathers too need recognition for what poet Hayden calls "love's austere and lonely offices" so that their sons will not regret, as the poem "Those Winter Sundays" regrets that "no one ever thanked him".
• Clinical psychologist and author Marie Murray is director of psychology at St Vincent's Psychiatric Hospital, Fairview, Dublin.