Lancini: Fathers, work and technology. The crisis of the adult function

More than a crisis of the father, it is a crisis of the adult function, in a society that asks children to adapt quickly, but struggles to recognise their needs and offer a perspective for the future. "We have been talking about the crisis of paternal authority since the early 1960s," observes Matteo Lancini, psychologist, psychotherapist and president of the Minotauro Foundation, recalling the decline of institutions that performed a recognised paternal function, from the State to the Church, from the school to the traditional family. But today, he argues, the point is another: 'it is true that the change of roles has implied a transformation, with the reorganisation of relationships in the family. But the problem is that while everyone was looking for the father, there was a lack of recognition of children and adolescents' basic needs and basic emotions: fear, sadness, anger'. Adults say they listen more to their children than previous generations, but this is often 'a pact betrayed', an intermittent listening within a society where 'there have never been adults so focused on their own affairs'. Children are asked for early autonomy, separation skills, rapid adaptation, because mothers and fathers must return to productivity immediately. In this context, the paternal function has also become confused. 'We tried for a long time to understand what it meant to perform it today, but no really convincing definition ever emerged,' Lancini points out.

The question broadens to birth rate and couple building. According to Lancini, young people are moving in a radically changed horizon, in which 'the decrease in the birth rate is for the first time a choice and not the effect of wars or famines'. We are facing the greatest transformation in recent years, and even work is no longer enough to ground identity, stability and planning, and the historical paternal function of leaving a legacy is weakening. "We struggle to recognise what should be a function of supporting the growth of boys and girls".

As for technology, 'it is not an object but the environment in which children grow up, an onlife society, where there is no distinction between real and virtual life'. This is why the issue for fathers and mothers is not to educate on the digital, but to question the control exercised by adults and the 'seizure of the body of their children', who are increasingly monitored and less and less free to have a real experience. The real problem, the psychotherapist emphasises, is 'why fathers today do not help their boys to reoccupy the streets. Then we complain if they use the Internet too much. It is a dissociation of adults'.

The challenge, then, is to get back into the relationship and offer concrete alternatives. "Today, one function, if we want to call it paternal, would be to hand the children's body back to society," says Lancini. "Go out and hopefully come back," we should think, greeting our children on the doorstep.