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Fathering is not something perfect men do, but something that perfects the man.

Frank Pittman

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Frank Pittman
Age: 77 †
Born: 1935
Born: January 1
Died: 2012
Died: November 24
Psychiatrist
Psychotherapist
the United States of America
Fathering
Parent
Perfect
Something
Men
Perfects

More quotes by Frank Pittman

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Parents have subtle ways of humbling you, of reminding you of your origins, perhaps by showing up at the moment of your greatest glory and reminding you where you came from and demonstrating that you still have some of it between your toes.
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Our father has an even more important function than modeling manhood for us. He is also the authority to let us relax the requirements of the masculine model: if our father accepts us, then that declares us masculine enough to join the company of men. We, in effect, have our diploma in masculinity and can go on to develop other skills.
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Fathering makes a man, whatever his standing in the eyes of the world, feel strong and good and important, just as he makes his child feel loved and valued.
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Becoming Father the Nurturer rather than just Father the Provider enables a man to fully feel and express his humanity and his masculinity. Fathering is the most masculine thing a man can do.
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No one, however powerful and successful, can function as an adult if his parents are not satisfied with him.
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The end product of child raising is not the child but the parent.
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For most people, a life lived alone, with passing strangers or passing lovers, is incoherent and ultimately unbearable. Someone must be there to know what we have done for those we love.
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Infidelity flows from a belief that women have the power to make you feel like a man if you only find a woman that thinks you're perfect if you can only find a woman that you haven't hurt or disappointed yet.
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Love is not something people feel, but something people try to express no matter how they feel.
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Parents have to get over the idea that their children belong just to them children are a family affair.
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The secret to having a good marriage is to understand that marriage must be total, it must be permanent, and it must be equal.
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Parents can make us distrust ourselves. To them, we seem always to be works-in-progress.
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When the masculine mystique is pulling boys and men out into the world to growl manly noises at one another, the only power with astronger pull on the male psyche is maternally induced guilt. The guilt is quite necessary for our moral development, but it is often uncomfortable.
Frank Pittman
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Every boy was supposed to come into the world equipped with a father whose prime function was to be our father and show us how tobe men. He can escape us, but we can never escape him. Present or absent, dead or alive, real or imagined, our father is the main man in our masculinity.
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Each generation's job is to question what parents accept on faith, to explore possibilities, and adapt the last generation's system of values for a new age.
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Fidelity is the single most important element in solidly enduring marriages.
Frank Pittman
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. . . in the end, there is nothing a man can do that a woman can't, except be a father.
Frank Pittman
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Character, not passion keeps marriages together long enough to do their work of raising children into mature, responsible, productive citizens.
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To insult a friend implies that you respect his masculinity enough to know he can take it without acting like a crybaby. The swapping of insults, like the fighting between brothers, becomes the seal of the male bonding.
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Men who have been raised violently have every reason to believe it is appropriate for them to control others through violence they feel no compunction over being violent to women, children, and one another.
Frank Pittman