Discussion»Statements»Rosie's Corner» Authoritarian fathers are feared and obeyed. Are they loved or respected? Do they care? What normal person would LOVE such a person? Why?
Authoritarian fathers are feared and obeyed. Are they loved or respected? Do they care? What normal person would LOVE such a person? Why?
Actually my mom was more of an authoritarian than my dad. Maybe that's often true in other families. He was the one we'd go to for comfort and he'd always make us feel better. Authoritarians NEVER make you feel anything but afraid of them.
Of course you can love authoritarian fathers. If you are OK with their authority and you can see the reasons for it and accept those and not get into a thing where all you do is react against it. Most authoritarian, even tyrranical people, are really pretty much soft and sentimental at their core. I think it gets down to a matter of how much of your authoritarian ways are directed at helping and teaching and being a good example for your kids as opposed to how much is directed just at controlling them and making you feel more powerful. Which would go for the way authoritarian people act in any walk of life. Not all authoritarians are feared. And certainly you can both love and fear someone. Don't you really think everyone wants to be both loved and respected?
My own father was not authoritarian although he, as well as my mother sometimes, would lay down the law about how we were to behave. But alcohol really weakened his character, as downers did my mom's. And I was an unhappy teenager not seeing how I could ever fit successfully into the world as it was presented to me. So I rebelled against what little authority they put out. I became a terrible disappointment to my mother and really almost a repudiation of everything she believed in. While my Dad loved me almost whatever I would do which was like the other extreme. I think kids do need some authority or the chances are greater they will go wrong.
In my own experience observing my own family members the authoritarian parent can make the kid obey them but once the kid grows up the kid and the parent are never going to have a good relationship with each other.
My uncle is a hardcore Christian and he was a very authoritarian parent and his kids who are now 28 and 26 really don't want anything to do with him. His daughter basically rejected just about everything he believes in and his son resents him and blames him for just about everything. Yeah, they still show up for holiday dinners, although one showed up drunk for Christmas dinner and got in a fight with my uncle.
My husband grew up with an authoritarian grandmother and they never got along. She totally freaked out about things that probably no normal person in the world would even care about so my husband grew up to absolutely love doing some of the stuff she got bent out of shape about other people doing, lol.
I also have a cousin who was an authoritarian parent. She has two sons. One of them moved to another country when he was 18. He went to visit some of our other cousins in Argentina but while he was there he got a permanent resident visa and never came back. Her other son is 40, chronically depressed, really overweight and lives in her basement.
This post was edited by Livvie at February 11, 2018 6:41 AM MST
I have never read a more eloquent true-life example of what Authoritarian is. Thank you for a very thoughtful and helpful example of TRUTH, not opinion and Happy Sunday to you Liv. So the authoritarians got exactly what they deserved after having cast their bread upon the waters so to speak. So ye plant so shall ye also reap. Justice served! :)
Livvie 