Identity in Fatherhood and in the Writings of Paul Auster
With emphases on impending empty-nest status and two of his books
Life hits like an Acme anvil at times, and it’s often a losing race trying to outrun the who you are that’s formed in your early years. The core remains, smiling with you or chuckling at you, but big or small changes trigger evolution in identity. Along the way, it can be disrupted. You might need to renegotiate. Or, worst-case scenario, you face an outright loss.
Having a child, or plural, impacts identity. Obviously. The demands of caregiving and the shifting of priorities alone tax parents to the brink. Lump in the diminishing returns on your personal time, and it requires a lot just to make it through the day. But the experience? A wonder a minute, this tour de force in discovery even if the reputable publication Parents reports that 49% of mothers and fathers feel a loss in identity after kids arrive on the scene.
Over the last two decades, I’ve read hundreds of articles about being a dad, covering the various stages of childhood development and the appropriate actions and education for us adults during each of those times. What I’ve come to understand, however, is that research on the comingling of fathers and identity isn’t as expansive as it should perhaps be. Rather, related to identity loss, it pertains more to the beginning of the journey, with isolation setting in. Still, data from the Pew Research Center shows that 85% of dads view fatherhood with kids under 18 as one of the central components of their identity.
If anything, I thought it’d be higher.
I turn to the songs and the stories from my favorite bands and authors at moments when I seek some form of direction. The exercise grounds me—plus, you’d be surprised by how well the lyrics to an Overkill mosh-pit anthem translate to any part of having children. But with identity, the late Paul Auster is the man. Looking at two specific works of his creates a juxtaposition in perspectives through his postmodern detective fiction.
Published in 1992 and winner of the Prix Médicis étranger the following year, Leviathan is peak Auster. Peter Aaron, the narrator, attempts to reconstruct the life of Benjamin Sachs, an eccentric writer who’s disappeared. I’m not here to give away the details, but the concept of biographer as witness helps Aaron apply order to the chaos surrounding his friend. To frame Sachs’s identity, Aaron derives any meaning retroactively, not in the moment. The novel also speaks about coincidence and truth, recurring Austerian themes, but narrative structure birthing structure to a vanished self is my kind of build. A people-based literary pot boiler rife with moral reckoning.
Ghosts, published in 1986, is the second part of The New York Trilogy. In this gem, characters are colors, and that’s just the start of the identity crisis. Blue—trained by Brown, working for White—watches Black. From his apartment, Black might be watching Blue. Observation is the action until Blue has no choice but to do something. Identity on Orange Street is focused on the mundane, a task seemingly devoid of purpose, though at least the learning happens in real time. And instead of managing a disappearance over an entire book, the disappearance at the end of this novella represents a revised identity with renewed purpose.
Research on the relationship between identity and dads approaching empty-nest status and then moving through it is mostly qualitative. The trends fueling this round of change include the altered daily rhythm, worrying over your children’s well-being when not living together, and questioning your own existence. That last point has a direct link to identity, and for fathers, I appreciate the simplicity and the importance of our role as protector, provider, and guide.
There’s an ebb and flow to them. Sometimes it’s natural, at other times…a struggle, possibly after a preventable accident by your oldest that forces you to ratchet one of the three up. I fall short of the mark on all accounts far too often. Maybe I should’ve read twice as many parenting articles or been more proactive, as with my friends Peter Aaron, Benjamin Sachs, and Blue.
You age. Kids transform and become less dependent on you. Protecting and providing and guiding don’t fall by the wayside, they never do, but this whole empty-nest deal is an emotional transition. I’m feeling good about it, though. I’ve found direction in who I am as I near the edge of a building? cliff? diving board? No clue, nor does it matter: Even with developing clarity, the view from each is still foggy. “Doc” Gooden curveballs are coming, I sense it, and I know the same of adjustment and recalibration to not only a daily structure but an identity as well. And more lies beyond that.
Because like in a Paul Auster story, solving the case of yourself can be elusive.
Further Reading