Being The Female Dad, Accepting The Freudian Mom
Sara Sarasohn is an arts editor for NPR News.
Every night after dinner my son sits on my lap. He's going into the seventh grade, long past the time when most boys sit on their mothers' laps. Luckily for me, I am not his mother.
I gave birth to him and he looks like me, but he doesn't call me "mommy." That title is for my wife, because she changed the diapers and volunteers at school while I work for money. For almost 12 years, our family has been an extended experiment in nature versus nurture. I am constantly surprised by the limits of what it means to give birth.
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Jacob and his younger sister Ruth both love me, but Ellen is their mother in ways that I never will be. When they were younger it was even more striking. Toddlers have one special person and Ellen was always it. They cried for her at night, rebelled against her when they were in their twos, looked to her when they were feeling insecure.
It made me uncertain of my place in our family for many years. It's hard to have babies and then watch them love some other mother with that special Mommy-love. Devastated because my children only wanted comfort from Ellen, I had to make up with a way to describe who Ellen is and I am not: she is their Freudian mother.
In the past I used to say that I am the biological mother and Ellen is the stay-at-home mother. That's accurate but not true. I contribute more to the lives of our children than biology. So when Jacob was a toddler I came up with the term "the female dad" to describe myself. I don't use it very often but I feel that it is the most expressive of my place in our family. I am part of the generation of new fatherhood, when dads do more than pay the bills and mete out punishment when they get home from work. Dads change diapers and pick up from school and read bedtime stories. I am proud to be that kind of dad.
Sara Sarasohn lives in Berkeley, Calif. and blogs at sarasarasohn.wordpress.com. Courtesy of Sara Sarasohn hide caption
Sara Sarasohn lives in Berkeley, Calif. and blogs at sarasarasohn.wordpress.com.
Courtesy of Sara SarasohnHowever, I feel a little uncomfortable simply calling Ellen "the mother" and leaving it at that. If her position is "the mother" I feel like I am entirely cut out of any mom-like qualities or obligations. I can't deny that if we were to have a mother-off she would win it. The place she occupies in our household and in the emotions of our children is singular and symbolic. I want to be clear about that but I don't want to call her "the real mother" because it would imply that my motherhood is fake.
So I came up with "the Freudian mother." The kids pin on her all the psychological things you pin on your mother: the expectations, the emotions, the rebellions, the resentments. When Jacob is in disequilibrium he lashes out at her but will still sit in my lap because his relationship with me just isn't as loaded.
A dozen years into our family's binary of parenthood, the female dad and the Freudian mother, Ellen and I have traded places. When the kids were toddlers, they went to her for comfort, not me. Now I get to cuddle with Jacob after dinner and Ellen has to hound him to brush his teeth so he won't be late for the school bus.
I have a great deal.