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Thanks
C
Crying is a strength, not weakness…
Many have criticized news man Anderson Cooper for what they consider diluting his credibility by doing a daytime talk show. Whatever you think of it though, you have to give him credit for shining a light on topics that are important to him. One such topic is loss and how “closure” is not something that can easily happen, or happen at all, when missing a loved one. All we can hope for is that time and working through it lessens the pain of the loss, and that missing that person becomes less of a burden and more a remembrance.
Here’s his latest show, wherein he calls on his mom’s wisdom to help him, and his guests tell the emotional truth about their experiences.
This particular clip is of a boy, Kyle, who lost his dad at 10, two years ago (coincidentally the same age that Anderson Cooper was when his father died). Kyle tells Anderson he allows himself to talk about his dad and cry as much as he feels he has to because it helps him. Kyle says that crying is a sign of strength, not weakness. Wise words for a 12 year old.
Kyle also talked about feeling frightened when his father died, and in the aftermath he felt that it was his duty now to step up and look after his mom and baby sister. This is an all too common result of father-loss (whether death or divorce), causing a boy to grow up too fast.
I recommend watching the show. It’s not a topic Mr. Cooper is likely to let go of.
Anderson Cooper celebrates his mom, remembers his dad
Sometimes when you ask a man who grew up without a father about his dad, he will immediately talk about his mother. He’ll talk about her strength and her sacrifice in having to play both roles. Sometimes he’ll even say that she was so good at it, that he didn’t know what he was missing.
Not Anderson Cooper. In his 2006 book, Dispatches from the Edge, he wrote:
“Sometimes I wonder if I’m the person I was born to be, if the life I’ve lived really is the one I was meant to, or if it is some half life, a mutation engineered by loss, cobbled together by the will to survive.”
Yesterday, on his new daytime television talk show, he interviewed his 87 year old mother, Gloria Vanderbilt. Now, apart from his infectious giggle, this serious news anchor is usually pretty composed. What brought tears to his eyes on this day were memories of his father, who died when he was 10, and specifically, his mother telling him his dad would have been so proud of the man he became and his accomplishments.
The interview also covers the suicide of his brother.
Some people like to criticize Mr. Cooper for aspects of his personal life he doesn’t talk about but I think it’s more important that he has never shied away from discussing his father and brother and the impact their loss has had on his life. It takes courage but it helps others in immeasurable ways to use your public platform for the good.
Watch the show here.
Failing boys
Last month the Globe & Mail had a series of articles on so-called failing boys, causes, solutions. One reaction to the series was by a young, Toronto student who wrote this illuminating article:
16-year-old: I’m fatherless, black, but no “failing boy”
This insightful youth also contributed an article to the Toronto Star a few years back:
Choices for children with no dads
It’s not a predicament any boy wants to be in, but good to know there is an awareness and some great role models out there for lonely boys.
Fatherhood 4.0 & Superdad
As part of my fall books preview for the Post Media, I discovered new fatherhood publications that are worth a peek:
Two disparate but important books explore fatherhood and all it means. Fatherhood 4.0: New iDad Applications Across Cultures, edited by journalist and broadcaster Dalton Higgins, is an anthology of stories that looks at the responsibilities of fathers through African and Aboriginal Canadian eyes.In Superdad: A Memoir of Rebellion, Drugs and Fatherhood, National Magazine Awardwinner and former Citizen writer Christopher Shulgan recounts his journey from the distraction of drug addiction to the embracement of fatherhood.
Reflections on Dad
Daniel Goodwin has written a thoughtful essay on his father in today’s Globe and Mail. And the reader comments are just as interesting.
Father-less-ness resources
I recently received a comment from a gentleman who found this site looking for resources and help and came away disappointed by the lack of it here. (you can see his comment on this site and I encourage engagement with him or me upon reading).
As I explained to him and I hope he understands, this is a fairly new site, created in tandem with a book on which I am working which will present stories by Canadian male writers who have lost their fathers through death; through abandonment due to divorce or separation; or through emotional absence. What I mean to do is provide a jumping off point for comments, thoughts, stories, and a sharing of resources from men to other men, or the women who love and support them.
What I have yet to do, and I will correct that with this post, is to provide the background materials that I used when researching this topic. Some of the books were help guides, written by psychologists, others were stories of fathers and sons that somehow illuminate the issues, resolve them, or just provide insight.
This topic is close to my heart for many reasons, particularly because I have seen too many men in my life, and in general, in pain due to father-loss. I have this idea that a place like this could help to ease the pain a little by providing an open forum for discussion, sharing and also by guiding those who happen upon this site to information that they can use in a practical way.
My commenter thought maybe I was exploiting this topic in order to sell books. I have no connection to the books I recommend here. Upon such time as my own book is published I will of course recommend it because of the important and necessary to tell stories contained within. I am not the writer of said book – I am well aware I don’t qualify by virtue of not being a son without a father. I am the collector and editor of the stories only.
Lately, I have come to believe strongly that men get short shrift in our society and so part of my purpose with this website as well is to be a repository for interesting and insightful books, news articles, stories, websites, etc that address the issues that men regularly deal with, beyond the father/son topic.
Here now though, is my father/son research list, which I am always on the look out to expand. So please feel free to write me with your finds.
A Wolf at the Table, Augusten Burroughs, St. Martin’s Press, 2008
Dispatches from the Edge, Anderson Cooper, Harper Collins, 2006
WIth the Boys: Field Notes on Being a Guy, Jake MacDonald, Greystone Books, 2005
Fatherloss: How Sons of All Ages Come to Terms with the Deaths of Their Dads, Neil Chethik, Hyperion, 2001
In the Shadow of a Saint, Ken Wiwa, Vintage Canada, 2001
Summer Gone, David McFarlane, VIntage Canada, 2000
The Closer We Are to Dying, Joe Fiorito, McClelland & Stewart, 1999
Motion Sickness, David Layton, McFarlane Walter & Ross, 1999
Fathers & Sons, Alberto Manguel, Raincoast Books, 1998
Understanding Men’s Passages, Gail Sheehy, Random House, 1998
I Don’t Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Legacy of Male Depression, Terrence Real, Simon & Schuster, 1997
The Prodigal Father: Reuniting Fathers with Their Children, Mark Bryan, 1997
The Loss That is Forever: The Lifelong Impact of the Early Death of a Mother or Father, Maxine Harris, Ph.D, Dutton, 1995
Father-Son Healing: An Adult Son’s Guide, Joseph Ilardo, Ph.D, New Harbinger Publications Inc., 1993
Iron John: A Book About Men, Robert Bly, Vintage, 1992
Nobody’s Father
TorchWood Editions, ed. by Lynne Van Luven and Bruce Gillespie
Nobody’s Father: Life without Kids is a new anthology of stories by men who, for one reason or another, don’t have children. It’s a sequel of sorts to a 2006 collection of stories by childless women (sometimes called non-mothers).
The Toronto Star Living section is publishing a story from the anthology every day this week.
Nobody’s Mother was an interesting and I think, necessary piece of literature dealing with a taboo topic in our married-with-kids culture. As a middle-aged woman with no children of my own, I found some stories relatable and some others a little disappointing in their stereotypical-ness. I get annoyed by the protesting-too-much quality of accounts of those of us outside the mainstream. I guess because we didn’t mean to be here and are stll trying to work out for ourselves how just living our own course of life turned out to be alternative, and not all that supported by a culture that, despite its diversity, still only fully acknowleges one way to live.
I rarely get asked why I don’t have children, but that doesn’t stop people from assuming things like, I didn’t want kids, or worse, I don’t like kids, or I can’t have them. Even if I couldn’t, it would be nice to be able to say this outloud once in awhile.
Somehow I guess it’s more acceptable for men to be without children. Our culture doesn’t fully accept yet that men can father. And so many fathers are separated from their kids, some by choice, others by circumstance, or restricted visitation.
Since we rarely ask men how they feel or what they think, it’s very nice to see that two editors have asked and a publishing company thought it was a good question.
I recommend picking this book up. Today’s excerpted story is by Bruce Gillespie, the anthology’s co-editor. Not surprisingly, it’s on the topic of father-absence.
Lonely Boy / sons without fathers 