This morning my father showed up in my dream! Of course in my dream, because he has been dead for 42 years. In my dream, he was coughing and looked sick. I asked him whether he was hurting. He answered an emphatic “No”. I reminded him that he spent a lot of money helping me become a doctor and that I was confident he needed a doctor. He did not budge. He never listened to me. I had to insert my sister in order to get things done.
Despite a lot of mutual respect and love, my father and I never agreed and fought at the dinner table on a variety of subjects such as Reagan vs. Carter and Steelers vs. Cowboys. First, my Mom and then my sister had to intervene to unlock the horns, which they did with clever use of food which was, of course, the weak point of us both.
When I go back more than forty years and reminisce, I realize we were not exceptions. Throughout history, fathers and sons were always antagonists. Fraud hypothesized that this was because they competed for the love of the same woman. I do not agree. The Mughal Emperors of India often jailed or killed their fathers. The mothers were not even in the picture. Lincoln’s son was not exactly fond of his illustrious father nor was Sambhaji, the son of King Shivaji of the Marathas of India.
They say a small tree does not grow in the shade of a big tree. Sons of great fathers like Lincoln or Shivaji could never match the greatness of their fathers. Is it purely coincidental? Is that the reason sons hate their fathers especially if the fathers are overachievers?
I have a theory about it. It may sound exotic, comic or even ridiculous, but it is mine. Fathers and sons, both being males, carry Y chromosomes which carries a positive electric charge. Like poles repel as per the laws of physics, hence the antagonism. This theory is further strengthened by the observation that after the death of the father this antipathy usually ends, and the sons intensely miss their dads. You know, dead bodies have no electrical charge!
Mothers and fathers have different emotions toward a son as soon as he is born. Mothers love their sons purely for the sake of love… Maybe they secretly wish the little baby will grow up to fulfill her secret material aspirations. Maybe Fraud was right. It is the Oedipus complex! Fathers look upon the little creature as a flag bearer of the clan. Carrier of their genetic material! They also want their sons to accomplish what they themselves could not, a sort of alter ego. They do not get excited when the sons find a beautiful wife, unlike their wives. They rather see the sons get admission to Princeton or be the CEO of Walmart.
One of my favorite observations is that the son usually has an opposite personality. More crooked the father, more pious is the son. Stronger the type A the father is stronger the type B the son turns out. I wonder why…
My dear friends and readers, do you think I make sense, or I am just a theoretician who is turning anecdotes into theories? Let me know in the comments below. And explore a complex father/son relationship in my novel, The Defender of the Faith.
