The Conscious Father?

So as I mentioned I've been reading this book called "The Conscious Parent." I'm halfway done now and liking it very much.  Every time I open it I learn something new. But it occurred to me today while reading it that somehow, although her language is very inclusive that Tsabary seems to speak about things which are more, how do I put it...inclined to make sense to women than men. 

My husband and I went to see "Boyhood" this weekend and while observing the lack of stable male role models in the young boy's life it occurred to me while reading today that there aren't many books that I know that speak to a father's relationship and bonding process with his children during infancy.  I guess it's just natural to expect that a mother be the closest to her baby during the first few months to a year.  So far in TCP I've read only one case study example that uses a single father's difficulty raising a son as a way to illustrate the importance of not projecting  ones own issues on your child. Perhaps there are more to come. It's just becoming more obvious to me why men are scared to have children in ways that differ a lot from the fear women have.  And I think that letting yourself be vulnerable, while we all have issues with it is an area which just comes much easier to women. We open to let love in all the time. We open to let men in. We are conditioned to give in ways that leave us open to vulnerability and we can cry openly and shamelessly if we wish. Men have so many conditioned walls to break down before they can allow themselves to feel in ways that females are allowed to express from infancy.  But when they can, I just think it's makes them more whole and more attractive.

I remember in "Best Man Holiday" my favorite scene ever was seeing big, beautiful Morris Chestnut with a tiny newborn baby in his arms and holding it expertly with tears in his eyes and with a nurturing energy that completely transformed what stereotypical manhood looks like. He was no less strong, no less physically formidable, no less a man. But he was more. He was vulnerable and let himself be so without fighting it. It was sooooo hot. LOL!!

But I suspect that the whole act of spending nine months or more hosting a baby in your body, even if you'e not a woman who's into that kind of thing, will make anybody vulnerable weather you welcome it or not. For men the vulnerability comes from a different place inside. It's something I never thought about and which I am only learning about now, reading this book, taking in all of the activity of babies, kids and children with parents and parental guardians in New York City and listening to my husband talk.