Finding Our Fathers: The Unfinished Business of Manhood

by Samuel Osherson

Looks at how mens' behavior and sense of identity is influenced by their fathers, explains how fatherhood has changed, and describes the problems men must overcome in order to come to terms with their new role as father.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0029236908
• ISBN13: 9780029236901
• Release Date: January 1986
• Publisher: Free Press
• Length: 217 Pages
• Weight: 1.22 lbs.

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From Dust Jacket

Millions of men today have a work and family life radically different from that of their fathers'--a life embracing a two-career marriage, closer ties with children, and a greater emotional awareness. Yet as Harvard psychologist Samuel Osherson demonstrates, the most important decisions these men make about career and family are shaped--consciously and unconsciously--by "unfinished business' with their fathers. For, unable to separate themselves from distorted childhood images of their fathers, and of all men, as silent, stoic breadwinners, these men are frequently left with a conflicted sense of their own masculinity and personal destiny. In this groundbreaking and often moving book, Osherson draws on extensive original research, in-depth interviews and his own personal experiences to present a realistic, touching portrayal of this contemporary male dilemma. Finding Our Fathers explores how men's early and ongoing ties with their fathers affect their own identities and their subsequent relationships with wives, children, friends, and bosses, and shows how current situations on the job and at home rekindle feelings of loss and separation left unresolved in growing up. Osherson vividly displays how men recreate or redefine the father-son relationship with mentors or bosses; how experiences with infertility and pregnancy reflect and shape men's views of their wives and their power or powerlessness--in creating new life; how working, autonomous wives and mid-life changes when the children leave home expose men's hidden dependence on the traditional family structure; and how men come to terms with being a "father" themselves. Penetrating the shroud of silence which often prevents men from discerning their deepest desires and fears, Finding Our Fathers reveals that this inner conflict can be healed when men reconcile both the heroism and failure in their fathers' lives. Only by recognizing both their father's sense of loss and need--and their own--can men truly discover their own new masculine identity.