Father figures are expected to—with affection—set conditions and goals for sons. Furthermore, they are supposed to teach their sons how to achieve those goals and to provide affirmation and love when their sons achieve their goals. This way they are teaching their sons to work hard and delay gratification for end results. This also teaches them the need for and the practice of patience and self-discipline, which ultimately lead to wisdom.

Inadequately fathered boys often rebel against the patriarchal system, and that can go to such extremes as drug abuse, sex work, and juvenile delinquency. Boys who experienced father absence before age two were found to be less trusting, less industrious, and to have more feelings of inferiority than boys who experienced father absence between the ages of three and five. Both sets experienced setbacks by five.

Patrick’s father left him and his mother before Patrick was one year old. Eventually, there was a divorce settlement and Patrick got the occasional visit with his birth father years later. But Patrick’s mom was not single for long, and a succession of her boyfriends served as father figures for the rest of Patrick’s childhood. They would stay around for a couple of years and then leave. Patrick’s fathering was thus particularly unstable, as each boyfriend put his own stamp on the family life and his birth father would be silent for years. This kind of absence of fathering is so hit-and-miss that often sons will purposely not accept another father figure, since they have been disappointed so often before. It cemented Patrick’s belief that he should “do it all” without the help of anyone. Without a stable and consistent source of conditional love, Patrick was unable to bring any of his plans to fruition. He drifted to a life of drugs and petty crime.

Food was our first soothing mechanism—as babies at our mother’s breast—so no wonder we all have a “comfort food.” As adults who might be a bit overweight, we need to remind ourselves every now and then that just because a baby wants his candy, it does not mean you have to give it to him! What you do have to give him, however, is some kind of acknowledgment of his need and his suffering and some healthy soothing, the type that is both compassionate and responsible. In this case, it might be acknowledging his hunger and providing a nourishing snack rather than candy.

Your inner child can also bring you all kinds of good things. When you connect with your inner child, you can loosen up numbness, let go of years of self-imposed defenses, and begin to feel joy again. Your inner child can also point out specific tools of self-care that will work for you and you alone because they come from your oldest and deepest needs.

Identifying your inner child also helps you reconnect with childhood curiosity, with childhood joys and hobbies and passions, and this opens your senses to enjoying life again, too. If you are going to reparent yourself, and to do so with a gay father in mind, it is important that you also try to identify what brings (or brought) you joy in life, including any joyful experiences of inhabiting a male body. Your ideal gay father figure will want to support and encourage what makes your gay inner child happy.

You may also find that your inner child has elements that are not particularly likable. It is important to accept with self-compassion that you are a mix of all these things, and that you came into this world with much of that mix already way beyond your control. Recognize that you did the best you could at the time given what you were working with. We are not here to judge your inner child, only to recognize him and help him.

• notepaper/pen or electronic notepad
• game/sport accessories as revealed

1. Start with a 2-column grid. In the first column, list (in no particular order) the first games and sports and hobbies you liked to play as a very young child.
2. In the second column, list the things about that particular game/sport/hobby that you liked.
3. Add a few sentences at the bottom about what that says about your inner child.
4. Pick one of the games/sports/hobbies on your list and play it with a friend. As you play, ask yourself if you still enjoy now what you enjoyed then?

Unfortunately, many men in Western culture have difficulty being touched or sharing intimacies, especially with another man. Some teach their sons to be the same way. Seeing this attitude, the son infers that there is something shameful about the male body and the subject of sex. Body awareness may come later for these boys, when they start roughhousing with other boys, begin playing sports, or when they become teenagers, and the hormones start to flow and masturbation fantasies begin.

For a gay boy hiding in the closet just to stay safe, this silence and lack of touch can be doubly damaging to his relationship with his body and with sex in general. The lack of confirmation of his sexual attractiveness or the erotic physicality of his body can lead to chronic depression, self-hatred, eating disorders, sex or gym addiction, aversion to exercise, low self-esteem, sexual acting out, and so on. Body dysmorphia is rampant among gay men, unable to internalize the stamp of manhood no matter what shape the body is in.