After Jesper Juul, I would like to present the perspective of another male psychologist and psychotherapist on the crisis of the masculine role in the family—James Hillman, as expressed in his book The Soul’s Code.
According to Hillman, the problem of absent fathers lies in the fact that the pendulum has swung to the opposite extreme. In place of the emotionally distant and inaccessible father, we now have the weak and ridiculous father, who has become the main character of television comedies. As Hillman notes, “behind the comedy films on television there is a scarcely perceptible subplot that has its roots in reality.” And he asks: “Perhaps the father’s true task is not to know about coffee, bleach, gargling solutions, or how to solve teenage dating problems. Perhaps his clumsiness shows that this is not really his world.”
In other words, the world of the family may be too narrow for him, and when he tries to move within it, he awkwardly bumps into the walls of a space that is too confined for the needs of his soul.
It becomes clear why I want to include Hillman in the discussion of fatherhood in the contemporary world—he goes even deeper. He reaches the level of the soul and the specific role of the man in caring for it:
“Instead of blaming fathers for their absence and for the unjust burden this places on mothers, mentors, schools, the police, and taxpayers, we should ask where the father is when he is ‘not at home.’ Where is he present when he is absent? What calls him away?”
Rainer Maria Rilke gives an answer:
“Sometimes a man rises after supper,
goes out, and walks and walks,
because of a church that stands somewhere in the East.
And his children bless him as he leaves,
as though he were dead.
And another remains at home,
and dies there among plates and glasses,
and his children must go out into the world
toward the same church he has forgotten.”
When a father chooses to be present in his family but does so in a way that sacrifices his relationship with the spirit (which Hillman calls “one’s own angel”), this opens a hole in his soul. This is why, if it is not done in the right way, presence in the family can turn out to be even worse than absence. We are speaking of those fathers who at some point become angry destroyers of the very family to which they had initially devoted themselves with such dedication.
“Rilke explains the father’s absence. But what about his presence—about the anger, the hatred? Why does the father become such a rough and cruel destroyer of the family? What is this rage?
I became convinced that the very delusion about parenting has pinned the father’s spirit to a false image, and his divine spirit turns into a demon struggling to escape the prescribed track. He is imprisoned by the concept of the American father, by the moral obligation to play the role of the nice guy who likes Disneyland, children’s sweets and trinkets, opinions and jokes. This sugary model is a betrayal of his angel, of the image he carries in his heart…
The man who has lost his angel becomes a demon, and absence, anger, and helplessness on the psychoanalyst’s couch are all symptoms of a soul searching for its lost calling toward something other and beyond. The father’s oscillation between anger and apathy, just like the allergies and behavioral problems of his children or the depressions and bitterness of his wife, are part of a pattern common to all of them—not of the ‘family,’ but of a predatory economy that promotes universal meaninglessness by replacing ‘the beyond’ with ‘more.”
James Hillman, The Soul’s Code, p. 109
Here the discussion moves not only deeper, but also higher—to a position from which we can see the larger picture of the spirit of our time, a time in which we are constantly bombarded with messages equating having with happiness, as well as with role models according to which the alternative to the patriarchal father is the good-natured father who stays close to his children.
But the sentimentally devoted family man is not a solution either. The pendulum swinging to the opposite extreme does not mean that the reverse of what came before is correct. If it were, men would feel well. Instead, what we often see is:
“more work, more money, more drinking, more weight, more possessions, more television, and an almost fanatical dedication of his mature masculine life to his children, so that they may grow up and climb the consumer ladder in pursuit of their own happiness.” Hillman, The Soul’s Code, p. 110
And worse than the weight gain, the drinking, and the immature sentimentality is the gaping hole of emptiness and meaninglessness in his soul.
“If the burden of caring for the parent’s soul is shifted onto caring for the child’s soul, then the parent neglects the task set by his own acorn. The child takes the place of the acorn. You feel your child is very important and make caring for the child your vocation, seeking to realize the acorn through the child. Then your divine spirit protests because you are fleeing from it, and the child protests because it has been turned into a projection of your own calling.” p. 110
I believe that this applies with equal force to mothers, not only to fathers. Both parents can project their own “acorn” onto the child and burden it with the unrealized projections of their own soul’s development. Once again, we discover that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and that we cannot give our children a fulfilled life if we ourselves do not have one.
Moreover, it is not our task to give it to them. Happiness, fulfillment, and meaning are personal achievements; they cannot be given. The only thing that can be given is personal example. When we, as parents, follow the call of our own acorn, we free our child to follow the call of theirs.
“From many years of working with patients in various institutions, and from the voice of caution, I learned that if your child takes the place of the divine spirit, resentment toward the child will accumulate in you—you may even come to hate it, despite good will and morality… When children become the meaning of your life, you have abandoned the invisible reason for which you yourself came into this world.
And what is the reason you are here—as adults, as citizens, as parents? To make the world receptive to the divine spirit. To repair civilization so that the child can grow downward into it and the divine spirit may live. This is the task of the parent.
To support the divine spirit of your child, you must first acknowledge your own.” Hillman, p. 112
The irony is that contemporary culture is so preoccupied with teaching us how to create a good family that we fail to notice how the family-centered model distances us from our inner center. The happy family as a life goal belongs to the same category of “spiritual materialism” as healthy eating and physical exercise. Cleanliness of the body does not lead to purity of the spirit, and when it turns from a means into a goal, the relationship with the spirit becomes deeply distorted. Family, partner, and children are not the goal; they are merely the soil for the growth of the acorn of all those involved.
This is why James Hillman’s intention with his acorn theory is to help return the pendulum to the center.
“Instead of learning from the child, who is living testimony to the invisible things in everyone’s life, the father capitulates before it and prevents its downward growth into civilization by creating a world of toys. What is the result? A fatherless culture ruled by children—confused children with enormous power. Like the vampires that so fascinate them, children in our culture, sentimentally cherished for their innocence and neglected for the difficulties they create, suck the blood of the adults.” p. 112
I like Hillman’s provocative and categorical way of writing. There is emotion, passion, and spirit in it. There is a force that is equally necessary for men and for women. And this force is neither masculine nor feminine. It is the strength to meet the challenges along one’s path, knowing that personal example is the only thing one can leave to one’s children. Because personal example is precisely the “lived life.”
Kameliya Hadzhiyska
∗All quoted passages from James Hillman are adapted translations from Bulgarian and may differ slightly from the original English wording.
