Pagos a justificar

Among my study participants some told that they were strict to their children, some of them were very friendly, while others preferred to have a distance and be an authority. A few of them did child care and household labor, while most remained only as financial providers. All of them, however, had their reasons for being or doing so. It’s clear that they all were trying to be the best fathers they could be, but still, where did they learn how to be a parent? Do their values come from their own parents? Or maybe they wanted to be the fathers they lacked? Considering fathers’ accounts, it was clear that they were influenced by their parents’ behavior and approaches towards them. In the most cases, fathers talked about their fathers as a great support and hope. Those who talked in this manner tried to be the same point of reference for their children:

“My father was my friend and at the same time he was my hope. Father is always giving the hope to a child. I try to be as attentive as my father. I lacked my dad’s presence because he died at an early age. Now I try to give enough attention to my children“. (Elder father) Other interviewees also pointed to similarities between their parenting experience and their fathers’ parenting approach:

“My dad also paid attention to the same things while raising me as I do, but in a more strict way, so there is an influence.“ (Young father)

“Yes, I think he had an influence, my father is very friendly towards me, and I want to be in the same way with my son.“ (Young father)

Participants recognizing the good traits of their parents, also highlighted that they are not as good parents as their fathers. It also seems that interviewees, whose fathers were warm towards them, were remembered with greater warmth by them, than the ones who were strict and did not have close relationships with their children. For example, this young father, talks about how much he loves his dad, highlighting how caring he was:

“My children will never love me as I loved my father, because my father was very caring. Of course I am also warm towards my children; but with my dad I always had a feeling that he was there for me, even more than my mother and I have this feeling even today. My mother is

60

more like me; in extreme situations she is very active and of course she cares about me, she fed me and everything but after the birth of my sister I lacked attention from her. Also my mom was working and, therefore, was busy. That is why I have learned to cook for myself at an early age. Also I used to go out when I was five, while my children still don’t have this freedom. My father was more like what people demand from me. He always had desire to spend time with me“. (Young father)

As mentioned earlier, not all the participants remembered good sides of their parents. Moreover, in a several cases interviewees were expressing their sadness for lacking some things they thought to be important. For example, this elder father narrates:

“I had a difficult relationship with my father. He was a director of the school, and I was under constant fear not to have bad marks, which was stressful. When you study a lot and parents put pressure on you, you don’t really socialize with friends. I don’t want to make this mistake with my children. It’s very hard when you don’t have a childhood; there is an opposite sex, friends, where you can be happier than when receiving good grades. Of course, it’s important to succeed in life, but happiness does not lie in good marks”. (Elder father)

In fact, not only him, but several other participants expressed their fathers’ strict attitude towards the education and towards them too. Considering their experience and their parenting practices, the ones who had a strict father, chose to be friendlier and warmer parent. This point of view is expressed in the narratives of one of the younger fathers:

“My father is a very strict man, not only towards his children, but towards people in general. If my father doesn’t like something, he would say it straightforward. But if I don’t like something I would not say it directly. So my father is the opposite. He is also an introvert, while I am not like that. Maybe I am the anti version of my father in a way that, although my parents love each other, he is very strict towards my mother, but I am not so strict towards my wife at all. Maybe it’s a kind of compensation, that I was seeing that strict attitude and did not want to be the same with my wife. My father gives me remarks from time to time when he sees my approach towards my children, saying that I should be stricter. Sometimes even I think I am soft, as I see that my friends have more patriarchal relationships in their families. I see that the border that we had with my father, doesn’t exist between me and my daughter, and sometimes my wife also complains about it”. (Young father)

Another young father also highlights his father’s strictness and radical approaches, pointing that he doesn’t wish to raise his children in the same way:

61

“I will not raise my children the way my father raised us, he was way too radical, he wanted everything to be the way he wanted them”. (Young father)

As discussed in the theory chapter, social cognitive theory on identity development names “modeling” as the one way of learning gender identity. It highlights that people don’t simply resemble their models, but they observe and reflect on their behavior (Bussey 2011). From the narratives of my study participants about their fathers, the influence of their parents was always present in their parenting practices. Some of the fathers reported that they have a similar approach towards their children as their dads had towards them. Others, however, who lacked warmth and friendly relationship expressed the opposite; in the case of having strict fathers, they usually were warmer and friendlier dads towards their children. However, we saw from the accounts of several participants that they had very warm and caring fathers. Considering this, it can be argued that not all Georgian men are restricted by masculine ideas in terms of expressing the warmth. It appeared that there are fathers who display emotional commitment. These fathers in turn, were remembered and recalled with deep love and emotions by my interviewees.