On the one hand, this seems lovely. On the other hand, it feels like we are all pressured into being one particular emotional kind of person, encouraged to use meds or 12 step programs or whatever else it takes to fit a certain turn of the 21st century idealized American model of relationality.
And yet, relationality is good, connection is good, science has helped us understand some things about how to connect with one another despite cultural and biochemical limitations. And that is good, too.
Father School has been helping Korean men like Rhim become more emotionally aware since 1995, when it started at the Duranno Bible College in Seoul. The mission, drawn up at the height of the Asian financial crisis, was to end what the Father School guidebook calls “the growing national epidemic of abusive, ineffective and absentee fathers.”
“Traditionally, in the Korean family, the father is very authoritarian,” Joon Cho, a program volunteer, told me a few weeks before this session of Father School began. “They’re not emotionally linked with their children or their wife. They’re either workaholics, or they’re busy enjoying their own hobbies or social activities. Family always comes last.”
In 2000, Father School spread from Korea to the United States, and the program — part 12-step recovery, part Christian ministry — was tailored to meet the needs of Korean immigrant fathers dealing with Americanized kids who wondered why their fathers weren’t more like the touchy-feely dads they watched on TV…
Categories: Fatherhood
