I relate, therefore I had a father
As human beings, we are not drifting, wandering freely across the earth, independent of each other. We are relational beings. Our whole life is marked by relationships, by ties that are formed in encounters and half encounters (frustrated expectations of encounters). We participate in countless networks and relationships all the time, every day. We do not function alone, we function in relation to another, or rather, we function for another. Have you ever stopped to reflect that without “an other” your life would not make sense?
We designate ourselves using relational terms: mother, father, brother, sister, grandparents, colleague, neighbor, wife, friend, partner, enemy, friend. It is through relationships that our personality is formed and it is in these relationships that we live our lives. Always. We only live in the relationship. We live in family, in society, in tribes. We are all the time relating to each other. We are always responding to whom we relate, dealing with the expectations, wishes, denials, acceptances, interdictions and frustrations of the people we allow to be part of our lives, with or without our consent (ideally, always with our consent, but it does not work that well).
But where did it all begin? Since when do we relate?
Our first and most important relationship is with our mother and our father. This first relationship has enormous potential in shaping our structure, and the father’s role is paramount so that our story on earth as a subject begins properly .
In a simplified way, in our first years of life we were in an emotional fusion with our mother. We did not perceive ourselves as a separate being. The father appears to mark his place, to show that the child is not the mother, that the child can exist as subject. This is the first moment the father makes his mark, he acts, separating the child from the mother.
Exercising the paternal function presumes much more than the mere male presence in relation to the child. For the child to exist as an individual, it is necessary to have a strong and secure father who breaks the mother-son symbiosis, establishing a relationship to three. The child’s exit from this almost exclusive relationship with the mother occurs at the same time with the entrance of a symbolically respected and valued father. Until then, only the mother and the son existed. The father forbids, says no and creates the law. Does this remind you of something? Society!
It is relating to the father that the child learns to relate.
When the child begins to recognize a third (the father), it becomes possible to establish its social bond in the culture. In this way, the father is teaching the child to exist in society. Fathers put children into the adult world.
What responsibility! Can you imagine what might happen if this fails?
In today’s society, marked by lack of time, exercising the paternal function is not easy. The father spends a lot of time away from the child, trying to maximize his role as a material provider. It is a kind of return to the primitive society, in which the father assumes the quality of hunter, however, his object of hunting now is the money. His performance in “parental function” is confused with accounting for his material success.
There is here something we should reflect on. At some point we lost ourselves in the overvaluation of the father as provider of material goods, ignoring the responsibility of the father in structuring the subject that relates. The presence of the father, through speech, is the essence for the formation of our first relationships. Thus fulfilling this paternal function is to contribute not only to the future of your own child but also to exercise your most noble social act.
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