鐵漢心中有柔情——中年父親敘說自身的父愛

Abstract

父親們都有著自己向子女表達關愛的方式，但卻不清楚父親們為什麼會這樣表達父愛、表達的方式又為何會有所轉變，其中，受教育年數較少的父親在愛子女的方式上更不若其他父親來得顯而易見，因此本研究以敘說的方式呈現了四名受教育年數較少父親的父愛故事，期盼能以父親的觀點來一探父愛的面貌。在故事中發現，父愛的表現方式有以照顧、陪伴子女為主的「育兒勞務」、「與子女玩樂」、「替子女設想」未來以及「父愛藏在心裡」等四種方式呈現，其中又以父愛藏在心裡的尊重子女為最常見的父愛表現方式。在父愛表現時，若子女們能快樂或有所回饋，父親們也會跟著開心，反之則只能默默的接受。而父愛的成長主要是跟隨著子女成長階段而有不同的表現：

1.為人父之前：原生家庭的教養方式與自身生活經歷影響父親對自己為人父的期待； 2.子女年幼時：父親不擅長育兒勞務，因此多以陪伴或玩樂的方式向子女表達父愛，此時，父親的工作與個性影響父愛表達的情形； 3.子女求學時：父愛轉以替子女設想將來以及尊重子女想法的方式呈現，這時候受到妻子教養態度的影響最甚； 4.子女成年後：父親與子女的互動變得頻繁，父愛也較能自在的表現出來，在此階段，受到子女特質影響最深。

故事中也發現，父親可以從旁人的言語或電視中學習到愛子女的觀念，並貫徹在生活之中，因此若能讓父親們多接觸親職教育相關的資訊，或許能提升父親與子女的關係。

Fathers have their own ways to express paternal love to their children, but a thorough explication of the reason fathers use these ways to express paternal love and why these ways have changed has not yet been proposed. Among different educational levels of fathers, the ways undereducated fathers appeal to, in comparison with other kind of fathers, are of low visibility. The primary concern of this thesis, thus, is to make a survey of the ways undereducated fathers express their love by demonstrating four narratives about undereducated fathers’ paternal love. It can be observed in the samples that there are four main ways of expressing paternal love, including ‘providing daily care’, ‘playing with children’, ‘making future plans for children’, and ‘hiding the paternal love in their heart’, in which the last one is most common. When fathers express their love to children, they would be happy if children are made happy or give further feedback to fathers. Otherwise, fathers choose to accept the result silently. It can also be noticed that paternal love co-varies with the development of children: 1. Before parenthood: Fathers’ expectation of themselves is primarily influenced by his original family and life experience. 2. Before child’s schooling:: Fathers are not good at caring and tends to express paternal love by means of accompanying or playing with children. In this stage, fathers’ work and characters influenced the ways how they express love. 3. Fathers with school-age children: Ways fathers express their love have changed. They begin to consider children’s future and pay more respect to their children. In this stage, their wives’ teaching attitude is highly influential. 4. Fathers with mature children: Fathers and children frequently communicate with each other, which makes expressing paternal love easier. In this stage, the way fathers show parental love is mainly influenced by children’s character. The stories also show that fathers could learn the concept of expressing love to children from other people or TV programs. If we can make it easier for fathers to contact with more information of fathering, perhaps the father-children relationship can be improved.