My oldest was born almost 20 years ago. I’ve had a few Father’s Days. Of course, I have a father – a great one, as it happens. I’m a lucky guy.
As Bob Collins notes over at News Cut, not everyone – fathers or kids – is so lucky:
I think being a father is way harder than anything else in the world, but all I take away from that is a new appreciation for my father, who passed away some years ago, shortly after I wrote him a letter telling him so (I’m still waiting for my letter, kids).
The survey presented some interesting data, but shied away from the deeper questions about the role of fathers. If 1 in 10 fathers lived apart from the family in 1960, and now it’s 1 in 4, is that a failure of fatherhood? Is that why fathers think it was easier to be a father way back when?
It’s certainly a part of it.
Margaret Meade once wrote that “Motherhood is a biological necessity, and fatherhood is a social accident”. And for the past couple of decades, society has been putting its money where Mead’s mouth was. I couple of years ago, I wrote about my own ambivalence about Father’s Day:
24 million Americans are growing up without fathers. Some of it is due to cultural shifts; big swathes of our society are being born into “fatherless” families; “Urban” culture in this country exalts skipping out on ones’ kids; it sounds tragic, and it is, but it’s a natural offshoot of the devaluation of men, and fathers, left over from slavery and the matriarchal nature of most African societies (which was, in return, reinforced by the rootlessness and destruction of families under slavery). Marriage is an otion rather than the expectation for many in our society – in some quarters, most of our society.
Madison Avenue doesn’t help. The standard archetype of the father in American advertising is the bumbling, inept,. schlubby oaf who’s lucky to be saved by his gorgeous, competent wife (and children – usually girls, of course, since the boys are going to grow up to be fathers one day, too – right?). And if the schlub and Mrs. Fix-It break up? The nation’s family courts systematically undercut the rights and value of fathers in divorce and custody settlements nationwide.
So while raising kids is probably no harder now than it was then, I think it’s fair to say that legally, culturally and socially being a father is a lot more fraught than it used to be.
Anyway – here’s hoping everyone has a fantastic Father’s Day this year. Beer, baseball and brats for the house!
This is one reason why, to me, SSM isn’t worthy of government endorsement. Can a woman replace you, Dad? Can a man replace you, Mom? I just don’t think so.
As someone who has witnessed you changing diapers nearly 20 years ago, you do fatherhood well Mitch. You’ve been there, through all the hard stuff; you didn’t bail. That’s character, my friend.
We may disagree about politics, but that is only one facet of who we are; and you-as-a-dad is one of my favorite facets of the complexity that is you.
Happy Father’s Day Mitch!
Happy Father’s Day to the rest of the Dads among the Mitchketeers too.
Troy, no one person replaces another person.
There are many successful families with single parents, for whatever reason. There are successful blended families, where more than one person fills the role of mom or dad, as step parents, or adoptive parents, and biological parents, and foster parents. There are many successful same sex parented families as well.
I particularly commend those same sex parents who have chosen to raise those kids that no one else was willing to parent.
The stats support the premise that gay parents are more willing to parent children with disabilities, for example – here is just one of those statistics:
“Gay and lesbian foster parents are more likely to raise children with disabilities-32% of all foster children with disabilities reside with gay and lesbian parents.”
http://www.education.com/reference/article/Ref_LGBT_Parenting/
Your definition of a family Troy, especially of parents, is too narrow.
Dog Gone said:
“Troy, no one person replaces another person.”
Fewer “statements of the obvious” may reduce the number of “tl;dr”s you get.
“There are many successful families with single parents”
And yet single parent families are not endorsed by government. Why is that?
“The stats support the premise that gay parents are more willing to parent children with disabilities”
You must, therefore, be a big fan of Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann if you think so highly of these gay parents. You want government to endorse their relationship as equal to marriage based on “how nice they are to do these things”, right?
“Your definition of a family Troy, especially of parents, is too narrow.”
Your opinion is noted, Dog Gone, but held in the lowest regard.
Ah, Troy?
Bachmann’s rearing of foster children is under attack by Michelle Goldberg in the Beast, and the attack is uncritically repeated by the usual suspect, “unbiased” mainstream reporter Brian Montopoli, who basically just repeats the claims made by the highly partisan Goldberg while adding no new content: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20072121-503544.html
The one person sourced is “Kris Harvieux”, who claims to be a one-time senior social worker in “Bachmann’s County” and who never, in the course of the interview, claims to have any knowledge of Bachmann’s history of raising foster children.
Yes, Terry. Nothing but the hatred for Palin and Bachmann, but lets pretend men and women are absolutely interchangeable because gay people are nice people. The gay people I know are really nice, but that fact doesn’t make me want to show logic and reason the door.