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OPINION
Tuesday, June 19, 1984

Page 6

The Michigan Daily

Ehe Et wan Badg
Vol. XCIV, No. 19-S
94 Years of Editorial Freedom
Managed and Edited by Students at
The University of Michigan
Editorials represent a majority opinion of the
Daily Editorial Board


Don't cry for me,
Raul Alfonsin?
PRESIDENT REAGAN says his admin-
istration is committed to encouraging
democracy in Latin America. In light. of an
announcement last week by the U.S. Treasury
Department, Argentina's President Raul
Alfonsin could tell a different story.
On Friday, the Treasury Department
refused to give Argentina any more time to
negotiate for a $300 million loan from the
United States government. This breakdown in
negotiations means that Argentina may well
have to accept the harsh terms sought by the
International Monetary Fund for the
repayment of Argentina's enormous foreign
debt.
It was only last year that Alfonsin won an
election which returned Argentina to civilian
rule for the first time in eight years. Although
Alfonsin is a popular president, the new
Argentine concensus for a return to
democracy is percarious. One of the greatest
threats to the new government is the huge
amount of money-much of it borrowed by the
now-defunct Argentine military junta-owed
to the IMF and to American banks. But the
cutbacks in Argentine government spending
sought by the IMF could so reduce the stan-
dard of living and increase the dissension of
interest groups in Argentina that the fragile
concensus could evaporate.
It is only natural, after President Reagan's
considerable rhetoric on the virtues of Latin
American democracy, that Argentina would
turn to the United States for assistance in a
moment of need.' Yet what the Argentines
have found is an American government far
more concerned with the interests of
American banks and domestic budget deficits
than with encouraging the continuation of a
popularly elected government.
The Reagan administration, the IMF, and
the American banks are desperately trying to
avoid an outright Argentine default on the
loans, which could have disasterous con-
sequences for the international banking com-
munity. In working toward this goal, however,
the administration is ignoring the real and
substantial American interest in the success
of the Alfonsin government. Allowing a debtor
nation wide latitude in setting its own
repayment schedule might set a bad
precedent, but forcing the current Argentine
government to its knees would be far worse. It
would be better to err on the side of democracy.

Wasserman
NE SUMME COUQT I66Iewn -DTHE RULES A WELL-FOUNDEDF £AQ OF ? sE cUTION
o (bLi TICAL E&GEC-S WH OWANT To TAY IN VOR COUNTRY IS NOT GNOUGH-
N~THE U.S,
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HAT kVMD OP EVIPNCE A NO 1TG oN
WCOULD BE eNOv& a O WaDyCTATOD ad
You 'ye comea long way, Dad

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I.

By William Beeman
American fathers could just be
the most exotic in the world,
compared with their counterpar-
ts in other countries.
It may be difficult to think of
the likes of Dagwood Bumstead,
Willie Loman and Ward Cleaver
as exotic. But compared with
fathering roles in other societies,
even these stereotyped fathers
from American culture carry out
enormously difficult, complex
sets of tasks in their family
relations.
THE EXOTICISM of Americar
fatherhood stems from the man3
different roles which fathers
must play. In other societies,
fathers' roles in the family are
unidimensional, clear-cut and
predefined. The American father
in the 1980s, by contrast, must
largely define his own role within
the family, and he is unlikely to
get help from any quarter in
working out how he must behave.
To compound this dilemma, he
must fulfill more than one role for
his wife and children-a problem
not faced by his Japanese, Latin-
American or European counter-
parts.
In some matrilineal societies,
such as the Navajo Indians and
many South Pacific peoples, the
father is primarily a benign
friend to his children, not a
disciplinarian. First-line advice
and control is exercised by the
mother's brother.
AMONG NATIVE Amazonian
tribal peoples, the father takes on
primary child care at an early
age and fills many of the roles
Americans think of as motherly.
" In France, a man may
acknowledge the children he has
fathered by a woman to whom he
is not married without
regularizing his relationship with
that mother, thus making his
children aware that they are just

the result of a sexual liasion.
In some areas of Tibet and
Nepal, children may have
multiple fathers-mothers may
marry more than one man at on-
ce.
ALL OF THESE varieties of
fatherhood may seem exotic to
Americans until we realize that'
American fathers must in-
creasingly fulfill all of the above
roles in family life in order to be
successful.
It was after World War II that
matters changed drastcally.
Immigration, new social models,
multiple wage- earners in the
family and increased mobility for
women and children were all new
forces working to thrust fathers
into utterly new and difficult pat-
terns of expected behavior.
Suddenly, as in matrilineal
societies, fathers found them-
selves having to be friends with
their children. Psychologists told
them that withour warm sup-
pportive relationships, they
would damage their children's
mental health.
LIKE AMAZONIAN fathers,
many found that with working
wives they had to take on many of
the tasks of child care. In the last
decade, the house husband. has
emerged as a recognizable, if not
always entirely welcome,
category of father.
Fathers also are having to
come to terms with their sexual
and emotional identities in
marriage. With divorce rates
now equaling marriage rates in
many parts of the U.S., there of-
ten is no other way to explain to
children why a marriage is
breaking up except that adults
have sexual and emotional
feelings which sometimes
change.
Finally, like Tibetian fathers,
American men may have to
share their children with one or

more other men-husbands or
boyfriends of their divorced
wives.
IN ADDITION, American
fathers no longer are allowed to
be remote and private. Modern
men are expected to share their
work problems, infirmities,
financial woes and irrational
fears with their families in a
modern openness that would
have made their grandfathers'
blood curdle.
Becoming an American father
can be particularly wrenching for
persons coming from societies
where fathers' roles were more
clear-cut.
"My father was boss," claims
an American college ad-
ministrator who was born in
Cuba. "Life was simple for him.
He told us what todo, and we did
it. Now my son is 15, and he is
earning his own money. He is
becoming independent, and I
don't have any clear sense of how
to relate to him."
The result is an infinitely in-
teresting challenge for some
modern fathers, but for others
enormous strain and confusion.
Nevertheless, American
society still is in formation.
Most new fathering roles are
viewed as change in a positive
direction, despite the confusion
they may produce.
Immigration, social, and
technological change-the forces
affecting the institution of
fatherhood today-are continuing
unabated.
Whatever fathers are today, we
can be assured that their roles
will become even more complex
and interesting as we move into
the 21st century.
Beeman wrote this story for
the Pacific News Service. He is
an anthropologist who teaches
it Brown University.

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