ABSTRACT
Because in these times more and more young families are coming apart, fathers are often choosing to take more daily care of their children. Many feel a normal uneasiness about their new functions, which historically and culturally have been relegated to females. Some may still be able to carry out their tasks with enough satisfaction to balance the difficulties that naturally occur. Others are apt, however, to be hampered from experiencing satisfaction by vague anxiety, from which they may have been protected in the past by traditional patterns of child care. Clinical experience shows that the anxiety about involvement with the daily demands of children derives in part from hidden conflicts about accepting what may appear to be a feminine identification. Such anxiety may interfere seriously with a father’s competence and pleasure with his children, and may arouse a variety of defense maneuvers. For this reason I wish to draw attention to the ways certain unconscious conflicts that have a source in unconscious beating fantasies may be observed in the behavior and attitudes of fathers (Brody, 1956, 1970; Brody and Axelrad, 1978).
