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In the psychoanalytic perspective, the term “father” refers entirely to his roles and functions. While the father's role in the biological ontogenesis of an individual may be significantly less compared to the mother's, his role in the subject's ontogenesis has progressively increased throughout our psychological evolution.
Discussing who the father is becomes clearer when compared with the mother. Motherhood is a position; that is, it is localized; fatherhood, however, is a status, meaning that its position is dependent on the familial and societal context.
In psychoanalytic theory, the status of fatherhood is generally addressed in terms of the functions the father fulfills on behalf of the child. It does not focus on what being a father means for a man, how it changes him, and to what extent. If we compare this to the detailed theoretical examination of the internal processes of a mother, the internal experience of a fathering man has scarcely been addressed. How does becoming a father affect a man? What changes does it induce in him? First and foremost, do men desire to become fathers? Is there a similar desire for fatherhood as there is for motherhood, that is, the desire to have children?