Mister Seahorse Celebrates Father's Day
The natural craving of a Father's love and all its complexities
I always loved reading “Mister Seahorse” the story by Eric Carle to my kids growing up not only because of the rainbow of colors and transparent pages but because the father plays a prominent role in caregiving and the birth of their babies. The female seahorse lays her eggs into a pouch on Mr. Seahorse’s belly and he takes care of them. A proud papa-to-be, he comes across lots of friends on his journey in the sea and when he comes to meet Mr. Tilapia we learn he also takes care of the eggs given to him by Mrs. Tilapia. Mr. Seahorse introduces us to Mr. Kurtus, Mr. Pipe, and Mr. Bullhead, all male fishes who carry the mother’s eggs before they are born. The parent who cares for and births the babies is the father.
Amazing! Nature is so progressive and has no gender boundaries!
We all are here because of two people, whatever their pronouns are we come into this life because of them. Whether your father was/is in your life or not, it’s natural to crave his love whatever emotions you may have around it, happy, grateful, resentful or silent wounds that permeated into your being.
Life was very different in American fatherhood growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, as its portrayal on television showing fathers beginning to make the leap in communicating differently like in “Growing Pains,” or “Family Ties” or “Full House.” These shows were steps for fathers who began to try to express their emotional intelligence and have more involvement in the family. However, home life wasn’t television and there were still many traditional homes of women at home to run the house and care for the children and men working to provide.
Realizing that the way our fathers treated us had nothing to do with who we were growing up and everything to do with how they felt about themselves. Our fathers’ experiences of their own growing up, the messages of what a “man” is supposed to be as a provider and stoic superhero was reflected in their own parenting. Imagine your father as a boy, seeking their own father’s love and approval potentially even if it came with pain, rejection or abuse. These embedded feelings get passed down, embedded in patterns of personality reflecting the father’s own feelings of insecurities and self worth.
I was thinking about how my maternal Grandfather was the strong silent type who didn’t speak much but had a roar when he had been pushed too far. The stories of his unhealed childhood being the youngest sibling, and treated unkindly by his parents. “His mother did a number on him,” was how the story went. Naturally, walls were built up for protection and his lack of outward emotion manifested as anger at times. I knew him to be loving, kind with a sweet sense of humor. He had a playful collection of mini wind up toys arranged on his dresser for his grandkids to play with. He was a writer for the local paper and covered sports at Amherst College. One of my favorite pictures I have of my childhood is sitting on his lap at his kitchen table typing on his typewriter. Did I truly know him? No, not really, he was my Grandfather and that was the only role I knew him to play.
While we generally may other fathers from his generation call their behavior as “toxic masculinity” perhaps it’s really trauma from their own stoic, and/or drunk fathers who were trying to forget the horrors of the Depression, the World Wars and more. Men of only two generations ago were leading lives from a day when roles were traditional and the words “emotional availability” was not a thing.
The body grows but the mind doesn’t. We are dealing with the same thoughts from childhood. We don’t grow up. Bodies do but we don’t grow up. We just become more subtle in how we react when we believe those thoughts. —Byron Katie
Today, is so different where men and fathers are nurturing their children in such different ways. When there are two parents working full-time, not living near families to help, women have had to speak up to demand help for the caregiving. I think there are a lot of fathers who have more awareness to their own healing and don’t want to repeat the same things that happened to them.
I’m grateful to the father of my children and my own father who have not been afraid to find ways to express their emotions so others can feel safe to do the same. Witnessing my husband who continues to heal from his own father’s wounding and found his inherent kind, sensitive nature to make our children feel safe.
Parenting can be a waking up as an inner healing and seeing our children as our teachers or sovereign beings is the crux of the reframing. However, we can only do this if our culture realize that men don’t have to be stoic superheroes to be strong. That they are more than providers, need their own inner healing and the space to feel safe to be vulnerable for their own healing and that also defines strength.
Inherent in all of us is profound wisdom, which gets lost in the shuffle of socialization. The question is, are you an instrument of socialization as a parent, or are you somebody that respects the inner beauty of that person, that lets the child’s intuitive understanding of things lead, rather than leading out of “ought” or “should” or “must” or so on? A person learns a skill much faster when they want to then when somebody else wants them to. To that extent, you and your child are collaborative beings.
—Ram Dass
Imagine if all parents tapped into their own wisdom of the purest place within to guide but also to allow their children to see their own inner wisdom so they may trust themselves early on. For putting up a strict framework of heavy expectations only leads to a parent’s disappointment and then runs the risk of “not good enoughness” perpetuating the cycle.
So here’s to all the fathers of all genders, dads, father-figures, he, him, his, theys: Thank you for doing you inner work to plant the seeds of healing, emotional availability for the true strength of humanity - vulnerability. You are helping to break down the patriarchy and we need you.
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