What Makes a Great Father? | Mark Trahan | TEDxTexasStateUniversity

I'm standing in the middle of this circle of men and I feel trapped. There's nowhere to go. And in that moment, one man, he steps forward and he says to me, he says, why are you here? And in that moment, I'm completely paralyzed. I have no idea what to say or how to respond. I feel completely frozen. And he says to me again, he says, why are you here? And again, I have no idea what to say. And in that moment, everything inside of me is completely frozen. And he takes a step forward and he puts his hands on my shoulders. And he turns me around to face a man that I have always known, but a man that I have never really known. And in that moment, something inside of me just broke. And I dropped to my knees and I began to sob like a six year old boy. I began to say over and over again, where were you? Where were you? Where were you? Where were you? Where were you? For about the past five years, I have been researching fatherhood. So even though my work started about five years ago, it's actually been going on a long, long time. I think my work around fathering began back when I was a little boy. You see, I grew up with a that was my everyday human. There were moments where I felt a connection to him, moments where I felt like my dad was the safe person for me in my life, moments when he would take me to a sporting event or coach a team of mine, moments where I really felt connected to my dad. And then when I was about 15 years old, my parents, they separated. And my mother, who had an alcohol and prescription drug habit, and my dad who worked an awful lot, they split. And something inside of me split too. I felt betrayed because the man that was my hero was all of a sudden gone. There were only moments where I felt that connection again. Maybe it was every other weekend. Maybe it was once during the week when he would visit. There were only moments where I felt that sense of connection with him. And then as I got older, I noticed there were some things in my life that started to happen. Problems with my confidence, feeling like I wasn't adequate, like I wasn't good enough, not knowing what my identity was. Who am I? And then when I was 22 years old, my father invited me to a men's retreat. Right. And I said, no, I'm not interested. And then he asked me again, he said, I really want you to go to this men's retreat. And I agreed. And so I went to this weekend, this weekend retreat. And it was a lot more than I had bargained for. The focus of the weekend was on helping men trust other men. And it was intense. And there was a moment in this weekend when I was standing in the center of a circle of men all around me. And I wanted to run. And I felt trapped. And in that moment, a man stepped forward and he said to me, he said, why are you here? I had no idea what to say. I was 21 years old. I had no idea how to answer. He said to me again, he said, why are you here? I had no idea how to respond. And then he stepped forward and he put his hands on my shoulders and he turned me around to face a man that I had always known, but a man that I had never really known, my dad. And he asked me, he said, what do you have to say to this man? And in that moment, something inside of me just broke. And I dropped to my knees and I began to sob like a six-year-old boy. And I just said over and over again, where were you? Where were you? Where were you? Where that have these deep questions in their minds, questions related to their fathers, questions like, did you want me? Do you approve of me? Why did you hurt me? Do you love me? Do I have your blessing? These questions that are in the recesses of our minds and we don't think about. And then later they turn into things like addictions or depression, but really they started a long time ago. And some of you out there might be thinking to yourself, you might be thinking I had a great relationship with my father. This doesn't impact me. But you see, as a father researcher, I've learned a lot about fathering. And what I know is that there is an impact for all of us related to fathering. You see, children that grow up with active, engaged fathers are more likely over their lifetimes to make higher levels of income. They're more likely over their lifetime to have higher levels of education. They're more likely over their lifetime to adjust well to situations. They're less likely to have depression, anxiety as adults. They're more likely if they have an active, engaged fathers to move past at-risk behaviors like substance abuse and early pregnancy. You see, this impacts all of us. And as a father researcher, there was two areas that I had concern about specifically related to our culture. One is the divorce rate. So I, as a product of divorce, grew up in a family where I got to see my father infrequently. And a lot of children have this experience because judges are more likely to give custody to the mother. And therefore fathers often have to either fight or they get less time with their children. But the other statistic is about single unwed mothers. And this concerned me more because in 2014, the National Center for Health Statistics reported that 60% of births in our country to women ages 20 to 24 years of age would be and was to single unwed mothers. 40% of births to women of all ages in 2014 was to single unwed mothers. You see, there's a culture here. There's a culture that's happening. And if we don't take a look at how we look at fathering, it will impact all of us. And so as a father researcher and as a very young, optimistic guy, I was interested. I was interested in what is it that makes an active, engaged father. And I was soon to be a dad. I knew I was going to have children. And so I was also interested for myself. What is it that I need to know about being a father? And so I created a survey with all the different factors related to what we know works in terms of engaged fathering. Things like what we call co-parenting alliance and relationship satisfaction, religion, the kind of job people have. And I sent it out across the United States to social service agencies all across the United States. I got back all this information and there was one factor that just rose to the surface. You know what it is? It's the level of confidence a father has in his ability to be a parent. Does he feel like he can handle a situation with his child? Does he feel like he'd be a good model for other parents to look to? Confidence. This was terrible news. This was terrible news. You see, because by this point I had a little tiny three month old baby girl at home and I was up at night holding this baby girl trying to calm her, help my wife, because this little baby girl was a screamer. And she would scream for hours at a time. And we read all the books. We're smart people. We know how to swaddle. We know how to pacify. We know how to rock. We could figure this out, but she kept screaming. And there was one moment when I'm holding this child and she's screaming and I had no idea what to do. And so I find the dude with every smart parent does when they don't know what to do. I screamed. I screamed and I screamed because I felt like a complete failure. Like I had not been able to help my child through her distress. And of course, that was when I was relieved of my duties. And so here I am in distress, feeling like a complete failure because I can't calm this child. There's been so many of these moments. Moments where I felt like my child didn't live up to our expectations and I got angry for really no reason. Moments when I lost it. Moments when I wasn't available when I should have been. Moments when I felt terribly uncomfortable, like I was a failure. So this was terrible news. So I started to think about what is it that had positioned me, created me, socialized me to feel so bad about myself as a dad. I mean, I'm an accomplished guy. I've done some good things. And then I realized that my life as a man has been socialized to solve problems. I've been socialized that when there's someone in distress, it's my job to figure it out. I've also been socialized that the outcome is based on my performance. And it's very important that that outcome is good. And that's the way I judge my own performance. Whether it's how many goals I scored in lacrosse when I was in high school, or the kind of car I had, the kind of money I make, or my education level. All of these had to do with the outcome of my performance. And I realized that I've been socialized away from loving this child in the most distressful, ugly moments, because I was trying to fix it. It was then that I realized that fathering is not about my performance. It was about me wholeheartedly loving this child, even in the most difficult moments, without the expectation of what was to come or what I wanted. It was sacrificial. It was vulnerable. It was open. I was there not just to teach about love, but I was also there to exemplify it, to show my child what love looks like. It changed my whole philosophy about what it means to be a dad. And so what I want to offer is just a few ideas to you. We are all mothers or daughters, fathers or sons. I want to offer you a few ideas to take with you today from a father research group. The first idea is reflect. Reflect. Reflect on your relationship with your father. Think about the things you got that you didn't like. Think about the things you missed. Think about the things you got that you didn't like. Reflect on your relationship with your father and begin to work through the pain of the past. Because on the other side of working through that pain is forgiveness. And forgiveness is a gateway to confidence. So reflect. The second thing I want to suggest is actually for you mothers out there. It's reinforce. You see, you don't realize it, but you have so much power over the fathering in your household or for the father that is co-parenting your child. We fathers take cues as to what we're supposed to do from you. You will teach us how we're supposed to be involved with our child. And when you tell us that it's important for us to care for that little baby at two months old and how much you appreciate that, we will show up. Reinforce us too. Remind us of the good things we do when we do it. One of the things we often do is catch people doing things wrong. I remember when I was newly married and my wife Lisa and I, we were living together and my wife loves a clean kitchen. I'm a tidy person. I'm not a clean person. I'm a tidy person. And so I cleaned the kitchen thoroughly and she came home and she noticed how clean it was. And she said, wow, this is so clean. You did a great job. Thank you. She made a big deal about it. She celebrated me. Guess what I wanted to do? I wanted to clean that kitchen. You see, you catch us doing things right. Remind us of what we're doing right as a father. It'll make us want to do it more. And the third thing, the third thing is for you men out there. Maybe it's your father, maybe your future father. The third thing is check your role. Think about your role. Sometimes we think of fatherhood as an opportunity to be a disciplinarian or a teacher or maybe a provider. That's our role. Consider expanding your role. You're more than that. You're there. You're going to teach your child how to love. Teach them about what it means to be appropriately affectionate. Teach them what it's like to express love. Teach them what it's like about the spiritual and about the connection with something bigger than themselves. Be there in sacrificial moments. Even when it means you have to read that frozen book one more time. So, finally, in sum, I want to take a moment. I want to take just a moment and thank a couple of people that are very important to me. I want to thank someone in my life that has really helped me to reinforce my father. Someone that has been with me through the process, I want to thank you for being my partner. I want to thank you for being with me on this journey. I love you. Thank you for reinforcing me today. And there's one more person that I want to acknowledge today and this is somebody that has taught me how to reflect on myself. He has taught me, he's been reinforcing to me as a father and he's also taught me to expand my role. He's come all the way from North Carolina to be here today. Dad, would you stand up? Dad, I want to thank you for the work we did 20 years ago. I want to thank you for being a father. I want to thank you for being a grandfather. I love you.