ABSTRACT
The word father evokes equally strong associations in our minds as the word mother. However, the mental images of father are clearly different from those of mother. The images of father are related to our well-being more distantly and in a broader sense. Father is the symbol and ideal of security and protection. The father of the child is always on the mother's mind as well, as good or bad, desired or detested, but always there on her mind when she takes care of her child. Fatherhood is culturally bound and the status and significance of fatherhood vary from one culture and age to the other. In Western culture, in particular, the functions of the mother and the father have approached each other and the father, too, has become associated with care giving and nurturing. A man's fatherhood does not have the same gradually strengthening bodily basis as a woman's motherhood does. Fatherhood begins more suddenly than motherhood.
