Dads, Resist That Authoritarian Impulse
You don't have to be a household dictator if you don't want to be
As a child I knew when talk was over and I was to do what my dad told me to do: When his teeth clenched, when his jaw tightened, when his eyes narrowed.
It was a wordless direction: We're doing things my way and there's nothing you can do about it. Importantly, I understood there was no point in asking for justification or reasoning. Things were going to go a certain way and there was no point in asking why.
It's a model generations of boys and young men learned from their fathers. This is my house, my money, my rules, and you, dear son, are mine. You will do what you are told even if you don't understand why or how. A lot of us adjusted to this model – the authoritarian fist of parenting – and got along OK, glad we survived the My Way Or The Highway approach to parenting and moving on with the rest of our lives.
Denny Carter
Then many of us had children, and when things went sideways with those children, we used the only model we knew: Authoritarianism. We gritted our teeth like dad and flashed menacing looks like dad and maybe we yelled like dad – anything to achieve a sufficient level of fear in our children so they would not ask why we wanted things done in a certain way. The goal was unquestioned obedience and the means was intimidation and fear. We had become authoritarians like our dads and their dads and generations of men before them.
Maybe you'll read this and you'll scoff because that authoritarian parenting model worked just fine with you. It made you who you are today: Strong, successful, resilient, a man. I would be wary of that little narrative, as I wrote on BFT back in June 2023.
I grew up believing there was really something to this iron-fisted approach to parenting. After all, it had worked beautifully for me. I had grown up, done all the right things, had a nice little family, made good money, and lived in various suburban homes with all the trappings of middle class life in the US. Just like my dad. And his dad. So why not apply this parenting style to my children? It was a proven winner.
There are better ways to manage a family and raise kids. A few years ago on a short-lived podcast called The Dad Szn Show, I talked about one of those approaches, authoritative parenting, an alternative to the authoritarian model that doesn't let your kids off easy. There is a middle path, thankfully, mercifully.
On this Father's Day I would urge every dad to recognize the miniature authoritarian monster within them, the one created and molded by years of observing their fathers and grandfathers take on the role of household dictator. For a terminally online, think of recognizing and extinguishing these impulses as praxis, as working toward a better future, not just for your children, but for their kids and their kids. Maybe they can grow up without the terror of authoritarianism that makes us all a little bit soul-sick.
Follow Denny Carter on BlueSky at @dennycarter.bsky.social.
