ANGER towards their mothers, a likelihood of becoming criminals, committing murder/suicide, failing to go to university and even bleaching to attract older working women — these are some of the consequences for Jamaican males when fathers relegate their roles as nurturers of their children.

Chairman of Fathers Incorporated Dr Herbert Gayle — in a paper entitled Father Nurturing and the Future of Jamaica, presented at the 2007 MenEngage International Conference in Austria — said a father's role extends beyond provision and protection.

"Stereotypically, men are seen as, and raised to be hunters: powerful, tough, decisive, and competitive. Consequently, fathers are expected to carry out the two Ps — provision and protection.

"Nonetheless, there is a critical third dimension to fathering — nurturing. In order for a father to nurture, he has to be active in the lives of his children, and be informed about parenting since it is mostly social or learnt," writes Gayle, who is also an anthropologist of social violence.

Unfortunately, he said, many Jamaican development policies and family support systems embrace monotropy, which says children and their mothers have evolved a biological need to be together almost to the exclusion of the father.

"Some research findings seem to suggest that a good father is only complementary to a mother; and a bad father's place is outside the home," Gayle said, pointing to research showing some Jamaican women kick men out of the home once they can't provide financially.

"It is not by accident that there was never a public Fathers' Day in Jamaica before Fathers Incorporated started the Model Fathers Award in 1997. In the 1990s, during the UNICEF-sponsored Gender Socialisation Project, we found women who confessed that they pushed men out of the home because 'after him lose him job, him turn half a man and start to block the way of a full man from coming to me'," the anthropologist said.

Even their children rate their fathers based on how well they provide financially, Gayle said.

"In a study done in 2004 (The Adolescents of Urban St Catherine: A Study of their Reproductive Health and Survivability), children gave higher scores — nine out of 10 — to fathers who lived abroad and sent money home regularly, than to fathers who were present and involved, but struggled to provide for the children — four out of 10.

"The message is clear, especially among the poor who are preoccupied with survival: a man is good for providing — and protecting in settings of extreme violence. Yet according to research done by Janet Brown and others, most fathers nurture and want to nurture," he added.

Some men, Gayle said, hide their nurturing side — whether it be changing their baby's diaper, bathing the baby/children, going to parent-teacher association meetings, washing, cooking and/or ironing for their children as well as sharing downtime with them.

"They do not feel our culture values such behaviour as masculine..." Gayle said.

"Some men also reluctantly speak about their involvement in reproductive health matters as they are not clear if it is right for a man to be an equal partner in such matters."

Dr Pearnel Bell, a psychologist, said Jamaican society has not been helpful in enabling men to develop into nurturers.

"One of the things that I usually ask women when I am doing a parenting workshop is 'would you give your son a doll to play with?' The answer is always a resounding 'no'. When I ask the next question, 'would you like your son to be a nurturing father -- to take care of the baby?' It is a resounding 'yes'," she told the Sunday Observer.

"So right away if you are a boy child who plays with a doll, you are a 'mama man', but you are expected to be a nurturing father. So the gender roles are so marked in the society that boys do not nurture. (Their behaviour) is reinforced when they act macho and angry... If they start to cry, the parent says 'stop the crying', and 'be a man'.

"Therefore, when they come to be fathers, the role of nurturer wasn't taught to them," she added.

It is little wonder then, Gayle said, that society should now be paying the costs of failing to encourage fatherly nurturing.

"We are finding many young men who hate their mothers. In a project (Male Awareness Now) conducted by the Children First agency, some young men had to be taught to refer to their female parent as 'mother'. Almost all the hustling juvenile males we have studied... describe their mothers as 'parasites' or 'burden' or express some sort of extreme anger towards them," he said.

"Clearly, young males are not happy to be the family's sacrifice. I always remember how in the fieldwork for my master's paper a boy cried as he gave all the money he had hustled for the day to his mother... Today, as I try to trace the 20 persons I studied in 1997, I have found three of the 10 males dead. The little boy is one of the dead. (At age 17, he was) shot for stealing and I want to guess that he probably was doing it for his mother, directly or indirectly. If these boys had a responsible father, their stories would very likely be different," the researcher added.

Another consequence has been fewer males, relative to females, enrolled in university.

"There is a 20 per cent male intake at the UWI (University of the West Indies). It is a fact that when father is absent, boys are more likely to be pulled from school to hustle to support the family," he said. "This is not merely an economic issue. Boys become 'child fathers' in their fathers' absence and some even feel compelled to sacrifice their education to ensure their sisters attend school. This is a painful mark of manhood in this fractured environment. The evidence is clear that even broke fathers try to keep their sons in school, but they must be present to do so."

The country's high crime rate, he said, is, at least in part, due to a lack of fatherly nurturing.

"Since 2000, Jamaica has had the highest average murder rate in the world — 51 per 100,000, followed by El Salvador with 47."

His thesis provides some answers in profiling killers or 'shottas' and show that fathers are important.

"They (shottas) are most likely between ages 15 and 24; they did not complete secondary school; and they have no father or constant male supervision."

There is also a link between male suicide and murder of family, he adds.

"Four years ago, I decided to check on four cases of men who had killed their families and then themselves. I was so depressed by my findings that I refused to examine more cases. They had the same 'script': male shut out of family; made to think he is not a man because his earning power was affected by some incident; woman moves to find another man with earning power in order to survive; and disadvantaged man explodes," he said.

Even the issue of male bleaching is linked to the absence of a father's nurturing.

"One of our most recent findings at Mona — a master's student by the name of Angella Harris is to be credited — is that inner-city youth -- mostly those without father supervision — are bleaching to attract older employed females," he said.

"Whilst this might be seen as a joke to many, it is an indicator of the level of desperation of male youth in this male-hostile environment. It is a sign of males giving up. We are certain that young men are less likely to show signs of giving up when father is active in their lives.

"Boys with good fathers are very likely to see their fathers as heroes and this means it is likely that they will become good fathers too. Remember, only boys whose fathers are absent, or have failed, copy their mothers," Gayle added.

Psychologist Dr Ishtar Govia agreed on the importance of fathers nurturing their children.

"Research has shown that a father or father-figure's active and regular engagement is related to a reduction in behavioural and psychological problems and an increase in cognitive functioning in both boys and girls," she said.

Still, Govia noted that children thrive when they have an active parent — whether mother or father.

"Children thrive when they have an involved parent, whether father or mother. It is active, engaged, involved parenting; parenting that offers positive role-modeling that is most strongly related to positive outcomes, as we see from the many examples of children in Jamaica who excel even in fatherless or father-absent contexts," said the psychologist and UWI lecturer.

Gayle said it is past time for Jamaica to realise that the basic family unit is not comprised of a mother and child or children.

"Despite the reality that the single female parent household is popular in Kingston, the more stable family forms that exist in the rest of the country must be treated as the ideal we wish to generalise," he said.

"Men nurture, not just provide money and protection. This nurture is very different from that of a woman and provides a balance in a child's life. Policymakers and corporate Jamaica should pay more attention to promoting men as fathers and give greater support to groups that try to help fathers. This has not been the case in Jamaica, but it needs to change," Gayle added.

Govia agreed that in many Jamaican households, some jobs are the mother's and others, the father's and there is a need to balance both.

She, however, added that it does not mean that fathers are not currently doing what they can to see to their children's positive development.

"It is worth keeping in mind that nurturing may take different shapes and forms. Every country may cultivate its own expectations about what an involved father does, how he behaves within the family unit, and what his responsibilities are. And even within countries, these expectations may be different for people from various economic, religious, and social backgrounds. One person may understand nurturing in one way and another may believe that nurturing comprises very different practices and activities," she said.

Bell, for her part, said Jamaica's socialisation process needs to be more inclusive so that males and females can actually have the same roles.

"If we want nurturing boys, then we have to begin to socialise them from the outset and place them in roles that allow them to also show emotions," she added.

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