Chapter Three: Gender and Relationships
The Making of a Father
When he lived with them, he had been a visiting father. The sort who has his children brought in on a tray at cocktail hour and collected before dinner is served. The sort who prefers his children to come shiny-clean, cheerful, and in small doses.
He had sniffed at them as if they were corks from a new wine bottle. At the smallest sign of crankiness or illness, they had been promptly
sent back to the kitchen, and to the mother who had been held more or less responsible for such a lapse in the quality of the wine cellar.
It's true. He'd always wanted them perfect, 98.6 degrees2 and in full repair.
''Good! Now we can go back to watching television."
But things were different now. He was no longer a live-in visiting father. He had signed on the dotted line of a very formal agreement, full of clauses and sub clauses, one of which read: "The father shall have reasonable visitation rights."
But now that he was officially, legally, the visiting (or visited) father, something remarkable happened. He had made his first full connections with the small people in his life. In a peculiar way he knew this
was his first Father's Day.
In the last ten months he had become a father, not just a name on a birth certificate. He discovered that this transition wasn't unique
with him, but he wasn't entirely sure why it happened to so many divorced fathers.
When first apart, he thought he would be a "swinging"3 bachelor, with a high-rise studio apartment and a mirror over his bed. But somehow he'd felt rather silly.
So instead, at thirty-five years of age, he chose paternity. Ten years earlier he had been more or less drafted. This time he really chose it. Out of loneliness and guilt at first, and out of pleasure at last, the visited father finally established a rapport with his children. He spent more time with them in ten months than he had in ten years.
They were with him through Wednesdays, weekends, and vacations, through the flu and sunburn and carsickness and various attempts at fratricide.
Alone with his children, he took intensive on-the-job training. The mother who had been designated the expert by all of them wasn't
around for consultations. He had to cram. Indeed, the father
developed a repertory of attitudes on subjects like these: Should his daughter have dessert if she refused to eat the vegetables? What was the appropriate punishment for a ten-year-old boy who spread honey all over the cat?
He became the kind of parent who knew how to braid hair and limit junk food and tuck in tired bodies—and yell. He learned what his children liked to eat, what they hated to wash, and where they were likely to have left the other tennis shoe. He learned that even when they'd seen each other at their worst, they liked each other.
interesting. That was an odd word to use, but there it was: interesting.
It was his son who explained to him quite clearly why there was no such thing as nothing, "because then nothing has to be something."
It was his daughter who pointed out the absurdity of the sign on the corner that read: Go Children Slow. "That doesn't make sense. It should read: 'Go Slow, Children.'"
The visiting father who had never had time for his children made time. Period. He met both teachers. He had seen one child play
basketball and the other play hockey.
Sometimes he was jealous. Of men who had custody of their children. Of live-in fathers. He wondered why he had waited so long.
But at least he had learned. When he couldn't take them for granted,4 he discovered that you can't take them for granted. What he had with his children was what they created. They had made him, at last, a father.
Ellen Goodman
Questions:
Finding the Sequence of Events:
(Before and After)
There is a contrast throughout the essay between the father's situation before and after his divorce. Write before in front of sentences that describe the man's relationship with his children before his divorce and after in front of sentences that describe his relationship after his divorce.
1. He talked with them a lot and learned interesting things from them. (………..)
2. He never spent much time with them. (………..) 3. He took them for granted. (………..)
4. He went to watch them participate in sports. (………..)
5. He sent them to their mother when they were ill or cranky. (………..)
6. He fed them and put them to bed. (………..)
7. He lived all the time in the same house with them. (………..)
8. He yelled at them. (………..)
9. He established a rapport with them. (………..)
Finding Synonymous Vocabulary:
Find the words from the story that are close in meaning to
the italicized and bolded words. The words are given in order of their appearance.
1. At the smallest sign of irritability or illness . . .
2. . . . they had been immediately sent back to the kitchen . . .
3. . . . and to the mother who had been held more or less responsible for such a fault.
4. At thirty-five years of age, he chose fatherhood.
5. The father finally established a relationship with his children.
6. He took thorough on-the-job training.
7. The mother had been named the expert by all of them.
8. Now she wasn't around for advice.
9. He had to study intensively.
10. Indeed, the father developed a collection of attitudes on certain subjects.
General Questions:
Q1. What are the three steps to find the general idea of a reading selection quickly? What is this strategy called?
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Q2. Why do you think that children in Saudi Arabia are living with people who are not their parents? Make a list of as many reasons as you can think of?
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Q.3 Is divorce common in your culture?
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Q4. Is divorce harmful for the children involved or Is it beneficial for them?
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The United States and Canada are lands of immigrants, except for the Indians, who are the only true natives. Many people have
a "family tree" like the one in the illustration, which they construct with the help of elderly relatives and old documents to show who their ancestors were and where they came from.
How well do you know the names for relatives and family members in English?
Check your knowledge by answering the following questions about Mary Smith's family, using the illustrations as a guide.
1. How many nieces does Mary have? How many nephews?
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2. Does she have more uncles or aunts?
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3. What is the name of her maternal grandmother?
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4. What is her brother-in-law's name? Her paternal grandfather's name?
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5. How many first cousins does her son have? Are they male or female? What is their relationship to Mary?
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6. What nationalities would you say that Mary has in her background?
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