...the problem with Obama's effort to turn Father's Day into an annual conversation about the tragedy of failed fathers is that it's rooted in one of the greatest--and most consequential--lies the Christian right has sold the country: That "traditional" family structures are best equipped to produce healthy kids. The notion that biological fathers are essential to childhood development wasn't true when Dan Quayle asserted it in 1992, and it won't become true no matter how eloquently Barack Obama restates it."The hole a man leaves when he abandons his responsibility to his children is one that no government can fill," Obama wrote in a beautifully crafted Parade magazine essay last week. "We can do everything possible to provide good jobs and good schools and safe streets for our kids, but it will never be enough to fully make up the difference."
This is a terribly moving refrain that echoes through all of the president's rhetoric on fathers--and it's entirely beside the point. Nobody sane would argue that government can give a child love. That truism, however, does not mean only a gendered dyad of parents are adequately equipped to do so.
Later:
Quayle's infamous tirade against Murphy Brown's proud moment as a single mom was first mocked. But over the next couple of years, a small, vocal chorus of conservative sociologists repeated the notion that kids suffer outside of nuclear families often enough that it sounded true. Warren's group and others began using their studies to advocate against poverty programs. And by 1996, Bill Clinton had co-opted their rhetoric to support welfare "reform" that stripped away all manner of support for poor families.On Friday, Obama restated as facts the terrible fates to which fatherless children are purportedly damned: prison, drug abuse, dropping out. But while the absence of a father may correlate with these tragedies, so do a whole lot of other bad things.
I think Kai is conflating two things that may seem similar, but are in fact quite different. One is the Quayle-ism which asserts that a household with a married mother and a father is always superior to every other kind of household. The second is the idea that, given that most people in this country (for the foreseeable future) will have fathers, it's best that those fathers be involved.
It helps to clarify Dan Quayle's attack on Murphy Brown. The problem with Quayle wasn't that he attacked absentee fatherhood (as Obama does) but that he attacked career women willingly entering into single-motherhood. One can easily slip into the other--but they aren't the same.
I've yet to see Obama delivering an attack on women who either choose to be single mothers, or end up as single mothers. Indeed the words Kai quotes contain the specific phrase "When a man leaves his child" as opposed, to say, "When a woman decides to have a baby by herself" or "When two women decide to have a baby."
Allow me to lay my cards on the table. This thing is in my blood, more than I actually have the freedom to say, publicly. But let me offer this: I'm the son of two people who were raised by single mothers, after the fathers essentially walked. It's something to attend the funeral of a grandfather who wanted nothing to do with you or your mother. I have a very close relative, who at this very moment, is raising a son whose father has, essentially, walked. I would say that the majority of the kids in my old neighborhood in Baltimore had extremely limited contact with their fathers. I was the only one, out of my crew, with a Dad in the house.
There may be great stats out there that show that a father walking out on his blood, has zero impact on a kids life. But with my history, it's very hard for me to come down on a guy whose own father walked out on him, for saying something as imminently sane as, Be a father to your child.
Here's something else--I've heard a chorus of complaints about Obama's rhetoric on fathers from black male writers. But I've yet to hear from one complaint from any single mothers. I've yet to hear a peep from a woman who was raised in that situation. I think that that's telling.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
He's trying too hard. There are several things that you could criticize about the President, but this just seems ridiculous.
Sorry, I can't be annoyed with Obama on this one. He's obviously speaking from experience deeply personal, and with all of my shortcomings as a male, I happen to agree with him.
You wanna bitch about bombing people? You wanna gripe about transparency? You still shrieking angry about torture? Are you freaking out on health care reform? I am there, with a +10 Vorpal Blade. On this, a quiet fadeout.
I agree about the conflation. To have a parent who walks on you, who was there but just doesn't care enough to be a dependable presence in your life, is hard. It has an effect. And that is totally different from being the result of, say, a single woman adopting a baby from Korea, or going with a sperm donor.
I knew a single dad who had adopted two kids from South America. They didn't have a mom. That situation is totally different, from the child's point of view, from dad's former wife or lover losing interest and cutting all contact with them.
I think Obama has hit the right note here--I've heard a lot from the right that is like Quayle, a condemnation of any family that isn't married male and female. (And thus if my husband died I would become a bad parent.) But it's good for kids to have people who care about them, and if there's someone who should care (parent, grandparent, former step parent) who doesn't, that's going to affect your image of yourself.
I think that's exactly it - Kai Wright misses the sense of betrayal. My father died when I was a baby, and I missed him in my coming up -- I am not as round a person, as whole a person, as I might have been had he been here -- but I never doubted that he loved me and very much wanted me in his life. Kids who were left? Who know that their parent looked at them one day and said "Nope. I'm out"? That's a whole different ball of wax.
just another example of obama pandering to the right.
i'm all for accountability, but as someone who worked with both mothers and fathers in situations where parenting was difficult and often the state had to step in to monitor and assist, i know that matteers are often more complicated than a male simply stepping up to declare that i will be a father.
much more complex than that.
obama glosses over that complexity in order to burnish his image as a moderate.
and, typically, he throws someone under the bus in order to accomplish that goal
not really, dude. i grew in chicago on the west side and most of the other kids in my hood had no contact with their father. none whatsoever. being a father can be just something so simple as having regular contact with your children. that matters. but a lot these kids had never even met their dads. or just knew him for a while until he split. obama is talking to those fools. if that's pandering, then i'm all about throwing deadbeats under the bus.
As a fellow West Side Chicagoan (though by residence and marriage not birth). I second. Whole heartedly. There's nothing incongruent about criticizing deadbeats and supporting social programing to assist poor families. That Dan Quayle and the right should co-opt our ability to call out the obvious is the real shame. One Kai completely misses.
Yeah. If anything my complaint is that this is too often seen as a black father problem, which isn't the case at all. There are plenty of white dads who walk out, don't look back, and fuck their kids up emotionally and/or financially (try filling out financial aid forms when Dad can't be bothered to even fill out a piece of paper saying he's not supporting you).
*isn't solely the case at all.
My grandfather walked out on his wife and three sons, which led to his mother (my great-grandmother) kicking her ex-DIL and OWN GRANDCHILDREN (one of whom was learning-disabled) out of the house she owned.
These were white folks. In Britain. In 1931.
All the tough-love my dad put me through growing up, he did to ensure I would be able to take care of myself if a man walked out on me.
I can't imagine being 7 years old, in the middle of the Depression, and having your father just disappear. My grandfather spent WWII in Canada. He never wrote home to see if his sons -- all draft age -- were in service, POWs, alive, MIA, or dead.
The issue ain't "black." It ain't even "new."
No its not. You have to have the determination to be in your child's life no matter what. Ive eaten my own share of shining bowls of caca, to allude to The Wire as I love to do, and even in my case I know MANY guys who have it far worse. Having said that, Ive advised more than a couple to maintain a binder of copies of letters sent to their children if thats what it took, put a family law attorney on the mom if thats what it took, have sympathetic intermediaries take a stab at it if that's what it took, whatever it took to let the child or children know they were loved and valued and that you were fighting to be in their life, do it.
I cant see not putting my life on the line for my child if need be, much less reorganizing my life to be in hers if need be. People make it more complicated than it has to be--do whatever you need to do to be in your child's life in a positive way, period. Simple as that.
But then the deepest truths in life are often simple ones.
awfully noble that you have eaten your share of caca and endured and overcome it.
my point is that in instances where men don't have the superhuman ability to tolerate such abuse, the complexity of the situation has to be acknowledged.
again, while it is commendable and noble of you, not everyone is so christ-like. they are merely human and just might get extraordinarily discouraged, and act in that fashion, if they find themselves in an extremely tough situation not entirely of their making.
my point is a simple one: everyone has to acknowledge that this is a societal problem that men, women and yes, whites and people of color all have to confront and deal with.
the entire, men/dad, bad; woman/mother good formulation flies in the face of reality.
i'm lucky. i come from a two-parent home and don't have any kids. by choice. so i am strictly an observer on this issue, but i have lots of actual experience in this area. i have worked with mothers and dads and children - represented them in court - and they all understand that problems associated with this issue are complex and not open to simple slogans and solutions.
my view is that women too often downgrade the importance of that father/male-type figure in the life of a child, especially a male child - and then may discover that mistake too late - while absent dads, of course, may shirk their responsibilities without fully understanding the impact of their decisions.
often, not always of course, either or both of these comes into play.
but what is always striking about these types of discussions is the view that somehow this is solely a matter that is always determined by a father's unilateral decision to walk.
in other words, it is entirely a father's decision and a result of his set of choices that has caused the problems.
nothing could be further from the truth.
You say "it's complicated" a lot here, and bring up complicated boundary cases.
Of course, not all cases of a Dad-not-being-there are cases of abandonment or shirking. But enough are to make it important to call out. And refrains of "it's complicated" are signs of an unwillingness to look at a situation head-on: instead, there's hand-waving, mumbles of "well, it's nuanced..." and an implicit expectation that the subject will change.
I'm listening to you since you seem to have direct experience professionally, but I gotta say, it still seems to mostly come back to men ... mostly (not always). If the women in these situations discount the importance of a father in their kids' lives, I wonder how often it's because their own father was absent? Ditto for the men not understanding their responsibilities. What is so complex about understanding the responsibility you have to a child that your actions have brought into the world? Too often it seems to me that men excuse themselves from the responsibility because it's "too hard" - the mother is unpleasant to them, the mother demands money from them, the child is not easy to be with when very young (or a teenager), etc. The father of my child, who saw his daughter maybe a couple of times a month, often canceled because he had been working so hard and just needed some "time to himself." I just don't think men feel the same societal pressure to be there for their children, the kind of pressure or expectation that means you do what you gotta do no matter what to take care of those kids. I think that what Obama is trying to do is to exert some of that societal pressure, which I think is just fine.
i went into court hundreds of times to represent both mothers and fathers and kids involved in tough, unpleasant real circumstances.
nothing was simple. everything was unfortunately complex.
there was never a party - at least among the adults - who was an angel and there was never a party who was entirely evil.
to reiterate, the problem with these types of discussions is that men are portrayed as universally evil and irresponsible while women are painted as innocent victims who have no role in producing what is often a toxic environment that ultimately affects children.
what both mothers and fathers have to understand is that BOTH have to work hard at making certain that a father has continued contact with his kid.
and yes, that means that a father might have to put up with BS every once in a while in order to see his kids.
but it also means that a mother might have to maybe wait an extra hour at the mcdonalds, in order to wait for a father who may have had a problem or who may have just been late, as usual.
after all, her kids' relationship with the father is important, not her resentment and anger at the father's personal failings.
his anger at her for what he sees as unfairness has to take a back seat to his kids.
attempting to simplify complex issues of this sort solves nothing and may sound good and it may feel good, but it simply doesn't work in the real world. it only perpetuates difficult situations.
Wow. Im not sure where you took my comment to mean I considered myself Christlike and sneered at your clients, far from the truth. I've been in the Father's Rights meetings. I've fought for the access and agreements with mediators and attorneys involved. So I know a lot of times dads who want to be in their kids' lives get a raw deal.
My point wasnt self-aggrandizement, in fact I took great pains to point out many men have had it far worse. My point was that the decision to stay involved no matter what is a simple one, even if the execution can be very difficult and complex.
I agree, and at no point in my post can you find otherwise. Maybe you shouldnt fly off the handle so quickly.
Well I on the other hand suffered through two divorces in my childhood, had one dad lost in the system for most of it and a stepdad bail in my teenage years. So I know the pain the child feels at not having their father around. And I know the pain the father feels at not having their child around. So you're strictly an observer on this issue, absolutely. And experience in court wont compensate for it.
It takes an extraordinary love and support system to deal with the kind of extraordinarily discouraging stuff you are referencing, but that extraordinary love can and does come from the love a good parent has for their children--the stories of parents enduring unimaginable grief for their kids' sakes are legion, so I'll spare you. But I share this personal info with you out of respect for your passion.
Absolutely but as you'll note, all my comments referenced what the father can do to communicate to the child 'you are loved, needed and valued even if your mother and I cannot get along at all.' Therefore, the mother's ability to run interference is duly noted, but ultimately not an omnipotent force. Where there is a will, there is certainly a way to let that child or those kids know they have a father who loves them and eagerly seeks a relationship with them, and in time that kind of commitment WILL pay off in most cases.
Now your argument isnt with me, in spite of your angry tone with me, so I wish you'd aim your venom elsewhere, thanks.
juba,
you make my point for me. you illustrate it perfectly.
attempting to simplify these complex matters is insufficient and does no one justice.
in your recent response you acknowledge and speak of the complexity i say is necessary to any discussion of the issue.
your earlier post, in which you attempt to state that the matter is just oh so simple and uncomplicated is shown to be false, by your own later words.
again, you make my point for me.
as i said, i have no dog in this fight. i approach it strictly as an observer and as someone who represented both men and women when these issues were discussed and joined and resolved in court. i never said that experience was a substitute for being a parent. i have no anger, or real emotion, actually, around this issue. i am about as dispassionate as could be.
what does concern me are attempts to make the matter of dads and kids something that can be answered by bumper sticker slogans.
of course, any decision to take individual action is always a simple decision.
the manner in which that decision is made real and the issues and matters that might flow from that decision are almost always extremely complex. if they weren't complex then a mother and father would not even be joined in a controversy of this sort.
"just another example of obama pandering to the right."
How on earth is this pandering to the right? Come to my office full of African American women and every last one of them (and quite a few of the men) would agree with him. I don't see why this is an issue of Right Vs. Left. Yeah, it's complicated and everyone's situation is different, but there are plenty of men out there for whom there situation isn't complicated at all. They're just jerks who would rather not take any responsibility for their kids.
I am one of those women whose father was not present. I cannot take issue with the President discussing the importance of Father's in the lives of their children. The loss has always and will always be there. I've been a long time reader and this is my 1st comment because this is a tremendously personal issue for me.
Thanks for your continued depth of thought TNC.
I get ever so slightly irked sometimes hearing all of this father talk sometimes because I'm gay and my children won't have a father in their lives. I agree w/ TNC though--it's not meant as an attack on nontraditional families, but rather on deadbeat dads, which is a huge problem that needs to be addressed.
Just out of curiosity, have you thought about how you would answer if your children ask you who their father is? One of my girlfriend's former bosses is gay, and when a lesbian friend of his decided to have children with her partner, they asked him to donate the sperm. I'm not sure what they'll do when their kids are old enough to ask, but in their case, I guess they could tell their children that their biological father was a man their mother(s) respected and knew, which is true.
My parents raised me separated, my dad came out shortly after their divorce. I still can't understate the importance of having a father figure. Even if you only see him on Sundays and Wednesdays, even if his lifestyle is nontraditional.
I have trouble reconciling my firm belief that anyone should be able to marry and have children, regardless of sexuality, with my firm belief that boys need dads.
I'm certain that my father was able to "handle" me differently than my mother was particularly in my wilder years. So there's the "guidance and structure" thing. But there are also intangible things about growing up, knowing your father, admiring him, and seeing yourself in him that are important for young boys.
No right answer here, just my .02.
Dave: Not sure if I want to get the sperm from a friend or an anon donor. I'd tell them the truth in an age appropiate manner either way. If it were from a friend, I'd like him to play some role in my child's life (like an uncle or godfather)--in that case I figure it would be best for my wife and I to explain to our kid early, rather than them being shocked finding out later.
Jonathan: My dad is gay too (parents divorced when I was 2 and I found out around 10), though he never played a major role in my life and I think I turned out pretty well. I too sometimes worry that my kids, especially a boy, might be missing out on something growing up without a dad. I'm able to get over that recognizing through my own upbringing (as well as seeing other nontraditional families succeed, and many many traditional ones fail miserably) that there are many more important things that go into raising a child. The worry still lingers though, which is probably why I get a little irked when I hear Obama go on about fathers.
In the not so hypothetical world: My chosen child, adopted by her two moms, is reading independently now.
So for the first time, last weekend, I was confronted: "Mama, I read on the calendar that tomorrow is Fathers' Day. It's not Mamas' Day at all. And here in May, it says 'Mothers' Day'. So you two have been getting TWO holidays of pancakes in bed when you're s'posed to be sharing ONE!'
I inquired about any feelings this might raise about not having a father.
Her thoughtful, delayed riposte: "Well, you know that I know how boys and girls are different. But you're still a father, even though you're a girl. Because the important ways that boys and girls are different is the part covered by your bathing suit, and other than that, you're just like a father."
I surmise a couple of things from this.
First, to TNC's point: I'm delighted to have the President stepping up and setting an expectation that it's okay for kids whose parents abandoned them to name it and shame it. It's got nothing to do with my family, and the overall positive effects of calling out your OWN dad, and saying, I'm choosing to do better, what's your excuse? might be huge.
Might be nothing, but who knows? We've never had a person in that role who has chosen to work this theme in a direct and public fashion. (Talk to Bill Clinton's therapist about his daddy issues, but they were not brought out into the open.)
As to the 'father absence' that is planned into my family, and hundreds of thousands of other families, I think it's important to not take 'Yes on responsibility' to a place of 'No to other chosen forms of family'. And in my opinion, Obama has done that nicely. Dan Quayle OTOH is a contemptible fool.
Elizabeth,
Do either you or your wife have a brother? If one of you carries the baby, and the brother of the other one donates the sperm, then you'd both of you would have some of your genes in your baby. I wonder if many lesbian couples do that.
My take on it is
1. Its not so much about not having a dad in the mix as it is not having one because he ran out on you. To a certain extent its also about the struggle of raising a child without a mate, but that isnt an issue here yes?
2. Hopefully in a situation like that, the women have healthy mutually respectful relationships with a few responsible and stable and decent men, even if its the womens' fathers or brothers or uncles or cousins, even if its gay men (who social conservatives might not accept as good role models), even if its just friends of said lesbian women.
It's definitely parents who ditch their kids, Elizabeth, not kids with two perfectly good parents who both happen to be women or both happen to be men. Anyone who steps up to take care of their kids is ok by me. Anyone who ditches is a self-centered jerk.
Not sure if you want my 2 cents Elizabeth, but especially for boys, a male role model "father figure" is important. That in no way means a single mom, or a female-female coulpe can't sucessfully raise a boy, only that that father figure type influence is still needed and would have to come from somewhere else. In many cases kids who don't have one, find one on their own, and not always positive ones. But from a parenting perspective it might be helpful to enlist uncles etc to be active in the kids life as well. But as I said, that's just my 2 cents.
Yeah I have to say I agree with this. What's under the bathing suit is certainly *not* the only difference between men and women. And that's not to say each difference does not have its own worth in either direction.
I also agree with other posters here, that who the parents are matters a LOT less to a jud than if either of them are willfully absent.
I believe that each child needs some one or ones committed to his/her care. And that someone needs lots of time, patience and resources, so it's usually better if there are multiple ones. Whether those people are the biological parents, extended relations, adoptive parents, doesn't matter. But it is the responsibility of those (biological mother and father) whose actions brought a child into the world to ensure that that child has that care, whether from themselves or surrogates. The problem is that many fathers contribute to the creation of children, but don't follow up to care for the children themselves or to ensure that the child has good care, through finding carers or providing resources or ensuring that the biological mother has the capacity and will to handle things independently. I believe that Obama is addressing this circumstance, not the circumstance in which it is responsibly decided that the biological mother has the wherewithal and desire to raise a child independently. In other words, t-nc, I believe I agree wiht you.
I've been a lurker for a while and am quite a fan. I particularly enjoyed the discussion of conservatism sparked by Sullivan's and Brook's comments on Sotomayor.
First off let me say I agree with TNC completely. It is often a mistatke for a coupel to stay together "for the sake of the kids" but even if splitting up is the right thing both parents need to be involved in the kids lives.
Now a slight tangent, but I hope it is related enough to not be thread jacking. One thing that always drove me nuts as a kid My mom drug me to church every week. On Mother's Day they would always have some sermon about how important Moms are, tell your mom you love her and so on, a total build mom up thing, ok fair enough, it's her day and all. But then on Father's day they would always have a lecture style sermon about Dad's responsibilities.
Sheesh Mom gets a love song about Moms and Dad gets "Cat's in the Cradle"
Chris Rock had a joke about this in the "Bigger and Blacker" HBO special.
There's lots of songs about Momma. Daddy's song is "Papa was a rollin' stone."
Oh, just find the clip on You Tube. It's funnier than it looks when I paraphrase it.
Chris Rock had another bit about how everyone thanks a stay-at-home Mom for cooking dinner, etc., but no one thanks the working Dad for paying the bills. Again, funnier in his words.
On the other side though, Rock's also slammed fathers who take care of their kids for expecting credit for doing so (e.g., "You're supposed to, you dumb motherf*cker").
And the NY Times celebrates Father's Day by publishing an essay by a soul who left his family 27 years ago and never saw or spoke to his son (who was 10 at the time) again until this past spring. It IS an odd phenomenon how Father's Day has become about bad dads. Is the father's role so inexact that the only way to celebrate it is in the negative ("well, at least I'm not that much a prick to my children.")? I mean, Mother's Day doesn't see the explosion of media talking about bad mothers.
Perhaps Chris Rock was wrong. Dad's SHOULD BE patted on the back for JUST "taking care the kids." I know it's something we're "supposed to do," but maybe that's enough. Sad if true.
This is where many liberals have a blind spot, I think, by being reflexively anti-traditional family values. Maybe a real-life Murphy Brown would raise a successful and happy child. She probably would. I'm sure many educated and affluent single women do. There are certainly non-traditional families and child-rearing situations that are successful. But what may work for educated and affluent single mothers -- or the occasional persistent and scrappy though less affluent single mother -- may not work for most single mothers. The point of traditional family values is that they can provide guidance and structure to most people, because most people need that guidance and structure.
I think very few liberals are against what you call traditional families. I'm sure just about everyone thinks it's fine if a man and a woman competently and caringly raise their children together. I think the objection that most liberals have is to the insistence that other arrangements are necessarily lacking. While, as you say, other arrangements can be as predictably successful as "traditional" families.
As an aside, two parents and their children, housed separately from the rest of the community, with one parent away all day and the other parent home alone with the children most of the day is very far from traditional, unless your traditions go back as far as Levittown.
If only the point of traditional family values was to promote guidance and structure--I only ever hear it as a catch phrase to bash gays. That's why I 'reflexively' cringe when I hear the family values language. Which is too bad, I agree. Though gay (but not necessarily liberal) I'm supportive of many of the values espoused by the "family values" sorts.
I'd be interested to see the stats on it, but I'd guess that the children of gay couples who raise them together probably do better, on average, than the children of single heterosexual parents. You're right that "traditional family values" is sometimes used as a code-word by opponents of gay marriage, but I think many of these people (legitimately or not) are motivated by a fear that allowing gays to marry will further weaken the traditional family structure. It may have the opposite effect (who knows?) but I suspect their fear is motivated less by homosexuality per se than the transgression often associated with homosexuality (and sometimes defended by homosexual advocates). Of course, there are plenty of gays who are as "traditional" in all other respects as anyone else.
Why, here they are!
http://www.asanet.org/galleries/default-file/Feb07ASRAdoption.pdf
The apples-to-apples study, which compares families with two adoptive parents (same-sex and opposite-sex) with families headed by two bio parents, says that the adopted kids are better off even when you back out the age and class demographics associated with the two methods of family formation.
That is, kids with otherwise similar parents being raised by two adoptive parents fare better by every measure than their cousins being raised by the parents who had them. Which is kind of astonishing and required a lot of review before release, it's so Not Possibly True because of what everyone knows.
As to the question, How does the married same-sex-parent household stack up against the married OS parent household? we don't have the data yet.
But it points toward marriage being correlated with increased family prosperity and stability between (especially) two dudes--even MORE than marriage between a dude and a lady seems to correlate.
Explanations for that correlation are likely forthcoming, but not from me.
"But what may work for educated and affluent single mothers -- or the occasional persistent and scrappy though less affluent single mother -- may not work for most single mothers."
Well, when we tried to help the less affluent single mothers, conservatives whined about welfare queens.
I think you're on about two different issues--feminism and poverty. Yes, feminists tend to be liberal, and, like you said, if a woman can have a successful career and raise a child on her own, then of course that's fine. However, as you also noted, many times there are women who aren't nearly as lucky. People are irresponsible. Life happens.
I guess this failure to recognize that encouraging certain values does not necessarily work in the real world is really what get's me about the Republican party. Let's say, as most high school students are, 2 teenagers are sexually active with each other. The family values argument is abstinence, but telling kids to be abstinent clearly isn't working, and in truth has never worked.
So then the girl gets pregnant. The guy doesn't wear a condom/it breaks/insert failure of birth control here. First of all, the family values argument says that we shouldn't spend money to provide birth control, so there's that problem. But once the girl is pregnant, again, according to FV, she can't have an abortion. At best she can give it up for adoption. The adoption system is nowhere near as good as FV people pretend it is, and it certainly doesn't help the FV people typically want to exclude gay couples from it. But let's say for the sake of argument, she keeps the kid.
Well, the father can't handle it. Maybe he gets addicted to drugs, maybe he can't stand the mother, maybe he just doesn't want to be around. The FV argument is that, well, he SHOULD be around. Cool. No one's disagreeing there. But he's NOT. And then conservative principles seem to imply that we basically can't do anything to help this young mother except maybe give her a tax break, which I'm sure she's really going to appreciate working a job that pays 14 dollars an hour in an absolutely rosy scenario, because she doesn't have a college degree, and its going to be damn hard to ever pay for one because shes gotta spend all her money on her kid and her rent.
And so this is the problem. No one's arguing that having two parents is normally a much better scenario than having one--especially in a situation where poverty is in play.
I know I would have liked to have had my father around, it probably would have been a whole lot easier than living off my mother's non-college degree salary. But it didn't happen. And instead, actually, the government tried to stick us with our father's delinquent taxes, and creditors came after us for his debt. It took years to sort out. I saw my mom cry far too many times from the stress of it. But here's the thing--no speech from any politician was ever going to make my father man up.
I don't mean to over-personalize this, and I'm not saying that conservative politics are responsible for the tough times I had growing up. But just emphasizing "family values" is not an answer.
We're spinning out of control here a bit. Let's try to keep with the topic. We've got an open thread going too.
(This isn't so much directed at you Dan, as it's directed to this whole discussion of "what's liberal" and "what's conservative." It's worth engaging the argument as its stated.)
Perhaps got a little over-zealous in the take down of family values, yes, anyway, I'm with Obama in general. I do think it's interesting that his words are going to be viewed through a certain racial context, because personally this is an issue that is more colorblind than many would like to think. I just hope the white dads take note too.
"Well, when we tried to help the less affluent single mothers, conservatives whined about welfare queens."
Not to take this too far off track, but the salient concern conservatives raised was about incentives, i.e., did welfare policies that allowed a single mother to support herself and her kids without working encourage more unemployed single women to have kids? That welfare reform was signed into law by a Democratic president in the 1990s, demonstrates that this wasn't just a concern of conservatives.
I don't have a problem with what the President said. I didn't even have a problem with the speech at Apostolic last Father's Day.
The truth is the truth.
The prisons in this country are overrun with Black men who have two common denominators:
Fatherlessness and Illiteracy
Above all else, these is what most of the Black Prison Population has in common.
I was raised in a home with my father, who was stepfather to my older two sisters - their fathers bounced.
I believe it makes a difference, not only two boys - which has been the focus, but now, folks are willing to admit the strong difference it has on girls.
A good father teaches his son how to be a man.
A good father teaches his daughter which men that she just walk by.
There's a whole lot that goes into those simple explanations, but that's the bottom line.
Obama knows what it's like to not have his father...why do people continue to overlook this? Yes, he had his grandfather, and a stepfather, and I think he's very grateful to both of those men. But, he met his father, what, twice in his LIFE before he died after he left. ...don't tell me that doesn't leave a mark.
And yes, as a Black woman, I do find it very interesting that the only folks seemingly upset with Obama are Black men.
Obama didn't offend me last year, because he wasn't talking about my fathers, uncles or grandfathers, because they took care of their business.
Get a room full of Black Single mothers, and let's see how many of them are complaining about what The President said.
Sorry, I get heated on this issue:
A good father teaches his daughter which men that she SHOULD just walk by and leave alone.
"The prisons in this country are overrun with Black men who have two common denominators:
Fatherlessness and Illiteracy"
Prisons throughout history everywhere have been populated by the third thing that our current prison population has in common: poverty. Fatherlessness and illiteracy are related corellaries.
indeed, the commonality of skin-color is another related corellary.
Single father myself, been raising my son since he was two days old. I was a teenage father and his mother and her parents were going to put him up for adoption. I sought my parent’s assistance and hired a lawyer and received custody of my son. He graduated from Cass Tech High School this summer and will be at U of Mich this fall and I’m full on defensive about this issue and will happily articulate my reasons.
Politically, this is low hanging fruit for Obama; we can be honest about that. Get a room full of men (black or white) who bust their ass to be good fathers but get rebuffed and rooked by women more interested in playing gotcha and presenting you as a villain to your child.
I mean, you don't know ANY men attempting to be good fathers after the dissolution of the relationship with the mother where this kind of emotional manipulation occurs?
This narrative that men are just bouncing with no concern or desire to participate in their children’s life, without factoring in the emotional complexities of the failed relationship with the mother is simplistic and removes the accountability from the women who place obstacles in front of the men who desire to be good fathers.
Let's talk about women being mature enough to not let their feelings of contempt and resentment towards the men in that failed relationship spill over to that man's relationship with his children. But it’s damn near verboten in our community to suggest that a woman’s disaffection with her former mate could be a factor in his relationship with his children.
I don’t know where you reside, but there are plenty of barbershops on the 8 Miles and Puritan Roads of Detroit where the brothers who slave at DCX, GM, and American Axle would fiercely challenge what’s been posted here.
I had to fight for it after my marriage broke up, but I didn't give up. When marriages/ relationships end, the kids almost always pay for the resentment on both parents' parts. So what else is new?
I did not find that any tougher than when one daughter burnt her leg from thigh to ankle against a wood burning stove or the other bounced down a flight of stairs in front of me hitting her head several times when they were small children, or one became pregnant before she was eighteen, or the other got really sick in her early 20s and needed my help for a few years. Those were, by comparison, real challenges.
Yeah, women get into turf battles over their kids with men, and that even occurs among couples who remain married. You stick with your kids cause you love them. From my genderist perspective: that's a man thing. Everything else: details to be worked out one way or another.
It was lovely to receive a card from one of my daughters Monday in which she thanked me for helping her become herself (values, choices).
Being a father is one of the great experiences of life. To some degree, simply being an elder passing on information to those younger, I want young men to get that idea. Used to be a part of being a man was being responsible to your children. Part of our pride. Of course, anyone who overlooks the issue of class when it comes to fathering is not paying attention to history or reality, but I've been among the working poor all my adult life, and I can testify that stepping up to the plate for your kids is not only good and important for them, but profoundly satisfying for you. Being a father is not about swallowing bad tasting medicine, though it's challenging; it's about giving meaning to your life, sometimes in ways that will live long after you've passed on.
I would be willing to bet that President Obama's view of being a father is not just about his experience of his own father, but the experience of his two children as well, perhaps in an even more meaningful way.
Well here's a woman who grew up without a father because said father walked out saying that the language does bother me.
Just because Barack Obama feels pain around not having a father present doesn't mean everyone else who grew up with a father that walked out feels pain around the issue.
I don't think that the President is suggesting that everyone who grew up with an absent father feels, or should feel, whatever pain he may or may not feel about his own childhood.
I think he's saying, from a bedrock of personal knowledge that is simply there, in the background, that fathers who walk are doing a disservice to their children. He's talking at a national, societal level, saying: Look, being a parent to your child is a duty. Children, and by extension all of society, are ill-served when parents choose not to do their duty.
Yep, and never underestimate the power of the bully pulpit.
Seeing a Black man as President, something most Black men never thought would ever happen, telling you "my brother, get your s**t together and get involved with your kids" is bound to change a few lives among the 20-30 million of us (or whatever the figure is now.) And if it only changes 20 or 30, it was worth it. Reminds me of a joke Katt Williams made about Obama and the effect on Black men (paraphrasing): "The world's changing, maybe yo' a** needs to change with it."
Related to this topic, I don't know if Ta-Nehisi has read it or commented on it before, but there was an interesting piece in the Atlantic (last year?) about a woman who chose to have a kid on her own and recommended that, based on her experiences, other women should settle for a man who can help them raise their kids. It got a lot of mail, as you might imagine. I think the author might have gotten a book deal or something based on the article, but I don't remember.
There was actually a piece in this month's Atlantic that was sorta similar. It basically argued that marriages should be partnerships to pay the bills, and that marriages should be open. I want to say the person who wrote it was named Sandra Loh, but I could be wrong on that name. The article was called "the case against marriage." The author herself was getting a divorce at the time.
I thought the whole thing was wrought with resentment toward her kids rather than her husband, and it was an incredibly unself-aware piece in general. But anyway, worth reading
Here it is. Sandra Tsing Loh.
I usually like her pieces in the Atlantic, but I didn't read all of that one. I just couldn't get past how a woman who cheated on her husband and is breaking up her family after 20 years saw fit to use that as material for a magazine article. It just seems shameless, for lack of a better word. Maybe I'll take another stab at it.
It just really bothered me that she was projecting her experience on to all marriages. And yes, it was shameless, and it seemed to be indicative of her selfishness. I don't know, maybe I'm just too much of a romantic.
Honestly, I don't think you missed much. News flash: marriages can be boring and don't always work out! Gee, I'm shocked!
Yes I usually love Tsing Loh, and I couldn't get past the first few paragraphs. Very self-centered and self-indulgent. Think about your kids, lady.
"Honestly, I don't think you missed much. News flash: marriages can be boring and don't always work out! Gee, I'm shocked!"
Ha, thanks for saving me the time. Here's that other article I mentioned, it was by Lori Gottlieb, "Marry Him! The case for settling for Mr. Good Enough".
more illogic on an emotional issue.
what about women who decide to have children on their own and then decide, 5 6, 7 years, a decade, down the line that they want their child to at least know their dad?
what happens then?
is the bio-dad at fault if he balks, or is the woman responsible, at least in some part, for the fact that there is a rift and a problem that cannot simply be mended over by the father stepping forward and saying, i want to be a dad, now.
i've met - and dealt professionally with - scores of women - and girls, actually - who scoffed at the notion that they needed a man to have and raise a child. in their eyes, the "father" was no more than a sperm donor who is simply technically involved in the process.
is the father - the bio-dad, as he's been referred to by women i know - responsible for the fact that a child born of this unilateral and conscious choice may not know their father?
i completely understand the fact that obama and others may be emotionally involved in this issue - i am not, as i am the product of an intact, two-parent household - but facts are facts.
not every instance of children not knowing their fathers in the african-american community is the result of men - and boys - simply walking away.
it is more complex than that.
Just fyi, a pretty balanced approach to this topic, which avoid's Kai's conflation, but acknowledges what the Quayle meme on the right has done to support for poor families is Melissa Harris-Lacewell's article, "Obama and the Black Daddy Dilemma," in The Nation online.
Link for those who are interested.
I don't have a problem with Obama's comments on their own , but I have a real problem with how Father's seems to have become let's bash the deadbeat dads/poor baby daddy's, celebrate single moms, etc day. I mean all that is fine, but pick some other time for it. Father's day ought to be about celebrating fathers, not bashing those that arent up to snuff, celebrating single moms who are both "mother and father" or any of that other stuff. I mean come on, can't fathers get a single day to shine?
Hey. To resuscitate the C Rock reference up-thread, at least you get the big piece of chicken.
Let's spin it off. I declare April 2 "Deadbeat Dads Day". A national day of humiliation and recrimination, pontification, restitution, and retribution. Think of the greeting card possibilities alone!
Now that's funny. And not a terrible idea. I'm kind of sympathetic to dads who just want a day to be celebrated and hang with their kids without being conflated with deadbeats etc.
Hooray, a post I am professionally equipped to comment intelligently on!
Research shows that, on the balance, kids with more than one adult figure in their life do better. This statistic, as with so much social science, is actually useless in evaluating any single person’s situation, as it can never account for all the other factors at work on any individual. However, what studies do show us is that kids need two types of parenting: discipline (traditionally a “father’s” role) and a nurturer (traditionally a “mother’s” role). Now, the truth is that these traits can come from either parent, or from one truly kickass parent. But it’s easier with two (or more). Or an aunt. Or an interested teacher. Research shows that just one consistently interested adult is the single most significant resilience factor for a child’s development. But the absence of those influences can have a deleterious effect on development and resilience. Who they come from is far less important than their presence.
Fathers also provide models to children on how they interact with males, just as mothers do for females. The species has two genders, and the bottom line is that a member of that gender should be in a child’s life to provide them with necessary exposure, modeling, and experiences.
That said, a single parent is going to have a hell of a time providing even one side of that coin, through no fault of their own: being a single-earner in this country and raising a kid (or more than one!) is a Herculean task. Single-parent households with children have more expenses than two-earner households, without the added income. Additionally, single parents, on average, have lower-earning jobs (the most common position for single mothers in California is retail sales). A single parent, no matter how awesome they are, simply has less time and energy to provide the emotional and psychological resources that are so important.
In my experience, kids want to love their parents, even the most fucked up ones. When I was working emergency children’s services, most those kids were devoted to their parents, and would go to the mat for them. Two parent households work better, provide more resources, and ultimately make it easier to produce solid outcomes (which is not to say that they are necessary; two different things). And if you’re straight, that means a mom and a dad, one of who’s the nurturer and one of who’s the discipliner. If a two-parent household is not possible, having a consistently involved father-figure is still empirically and morally far better than not.
It really is as simple as telling young (and sometimes old!) men the truth: you’re biologically a father, so you better damn well act like one. You gave up the choice not to be when you stuck your pee-pee in some lady’s special place. Deal.
"In my experience, kids want to love their parents, even the most fucked up ones. When I was working emergency children’s services, most those kids were devoted to their parents, and would go to the mat for them."
Heartbreaking.
Truly.
My father died before I was born. He was married, but not to my mother. I know virtually nothing about him, have never had contact with his loved ones, including any half-siblings. Most important, I've never heard his laugh, never seen whether he walks or crosses his arms like me ... nothing.
Kai Wright apparently has met his father. Sounds like he doesn't think it's that big a deal. He should consider the alternative.
Is there a meaningful difference between what the Prez has had to say on this issue and what Cosby and Dr. Toussaint wrote/spoke about?
So, I was all ready to be pissed at this guy because I am always (embarrassingly) first in line to defend Obama from criticism, and because - as the product of a single mother household, and now running one with a father who "opted out" - this is one of those subjects that is close to my heart, too. But I read it, and this is what I got out of it as the core:
I think this is a very important point. For those of us who choose (or have chosen for us) the "organic" model, as I have, by providing my daughter with multiple role model types and family connections, we trust in the fact that many happy and successful people come from families that were not traditional, and that their background is actually what drives and shapes them. Perhaps coming from a background that is not all Beaver Cleaver allows a person to have more "empathy" with the different types of people one meets throughout life. If anyone did a study about some of the most remarkable people in the world, would we really be surprised to find that many of them had great challenges to face in childhood, and did not grow up in the suburbs with Mom and Dad, a station wagon, dinner at the table every night, and a full set of encyclopedias?
On the other part of this subject, I know some of what Obama says about fatherhood is directly aimed at black fathers. But he also goes wider. The Parade essay is not at all directed at black fathers only - it is directed at fathers in general as I read it. And he doesn't just talk about deadbeat dads, he also talks about dads who are "there" but emotionally absent.
Also, the "poor dads, always getting beat up on" thing bothers me, much like the "poor white man, always getting discriminated against" thing does. Fact is, it is usually the dad who checks out. If it was usually the mom, then the conversation would be different.
I think another one of the problems here we're having is that we're confusing (yet again) two things. Not having a father (or father figure) in your life does not mean you are going to be a failure (ex: Obama, Burress, etc), what it does mean is that often there will be some emotional damage that can't be measured by accomplishments (Princeton, becoming president, whatever).
I think Obama is eloquent about this in his autobiography. Aptly titled, "Dreams from My Father." Ahem.
I know and I agree, which is why the studies cited by others above about "who does better" depending on the kind of parents they had always bother me. My point is that the emotional damage may be exactly what makes people more interesting, well-rounded, empathetic to others, creative, adventurous, adaptable, etc. I didn't mean to be only measuring success by accomplishments like money, title and possessions. When I say remarkable, I mean to include the guy down at the community center volunteering for after school kids, or people who dedicate their lives to their art, or anyone who is outside the "norm."
the other danger of these kinds of whose study trumps whose study is the political/rhetorical trap of arguing science with groups like Dobson's Focus on the Family who are anti- globalwarming and evolutionary sciences but suddenly believe in science when it comes to psychology, leaving aside the question here of whether social-science is an oxymoron, these folks are dressing up their religious faith commitments in pseudo-science not because they believe in Science but because they learned from the political fights in the American Pscyh Ass., and others, over whether or not homosexuality is or isn't a form of mental illness,so to argue the science with them just gives them the unfortunate appearance of their being reasonable/modern people and not the backwards looking hatemongers that they are.
Not having my dad around definitely pushed me to be a better person, but for every me there are easily 100 "other people" whose emotional lives were wrecked by that absence and landed in jail somewhere or dead.
My mom is 73 years old and white and she met her father once when she was about five -- her parents divorced when she was an infant. When I was a kid, she always proudly told me how her mom had told her only good things about her dad, and had stayed in touch with his family. My mom never said a word against him herself.
So when I was about twenty or so, we were visiting a great-aunt who told my then 50-ish mom that a man claiming to be her father had called and asked after my mom and her sister. My mom's aunt said that she told him, "You don't deserve to know," and hung up. And my mom said, to my complete shock, "That's right, he doesn't deserve to know." And that was end of that. She said that she had absolutely no desire to reconnect with him and didn't want him to know anything about her. And she sounded angrier than I had ever heard her in my life.
On the other hand...don't want to include TMI, but a close family member is in a situation where his ex-wife makes things so unpleasant -- stalking, falsely claiming not to have received child support, lying to the family court, making threats and harrassing calls to multiple family members, failing to report changes of address...(and though the legal system may sort through this eventually, there seems to be an underlying bias that men are cads and women tell truth)...that he seems like a hero for doing his damndest to stay involved with his kids over the last 14 years. His continued involvement may turn out to have been a blessing for them in the end -- I hope so -- but at the moment the easiest thing to see is the toll it's taking on their dad. I'd have left the country long ago. So it's not all on men.
I think it will turn out to be a blessing.
I would suggest he just hang on until the kids are old enough to know whats what, and maybe some of the older ones can advocate for him to the younger ones. Those kinds of situations suck, but he's probably still happier trying to make it work than he would have been had he stayed with the mom, in spite of her childish, selfish and immature attempts to punish him.
He is a hero. I'm sure they will really appreciate it when they are adults, what he did to stay in their lives. So many kids are not so lucky.
And, no it is not always on men. True.
@ Juba
Good point, and I am not discounting that. I do wonder about the 1:100 ratio though. I'm hopeful it is a better statistic than that, but I really have no idea.
Truth be told, I just threw it out there, I too hope its better.
I am a woman who was raised by a single mother. I have talked/seen my father only a handful of times during my past 27 years. I can't speak for everyone who was raised in similar circumstances, but the lack of presence, participation in my life has had a tremendous impact on my family and how I view relationships. I have no complaints about Obama's rhetoric. I don't think it's pandering; I think it's honest. I do wish he could go farther, though I realize he won't. The truth of the matter is, women need to be making better choices as well. Women need to take more responsibility for their choices; they need to have more discretion; they should consider, IMHO, very carefully who they choose to be intimate with (i.e. asking themselves "if I get pregnant, do I know enough about this dude to believe he would be a good father?"). That may be too much for some, but the casual way that both women and men treat their sexual relationships these days is disturbing.
finally, a little bit of sanity on the subject.
Id also like to add what I once heard from the late great Ossie Davis--a refocus on how economic issues can sustain fracture a Black family; frankly, many men shy away from any commitment if they dont think their pockets are right and they're struggling to support their own selves. To me personally thats no excuse, but I understand how frustrating and demoralizing it can be and I do sympathize.
One of the best things Obama can do, and what I hope he does at some point, is use his campaign discussions of "incentivizing" positive social and economic behavior among Americans via tax breaks--specifically offering some form of tax break for child support, if not support + regular visitation as well.
At the very least, the long-term effects of a documented pattern of consistent financial support from father to child will ensure that fathers with "skin in the game" so to speak get some direct economic benefit, and that both having "skin in the game" and a benefit will promote visitation and custody as well.
As it stands now, a non-custodial parent cannot claim their child if the custodial parent does; they get no credit either for any of the expenses they might incur that fall outside of child support but fall within being a good parent (traveling to see the child or with the child, buying educational tools like books or a computer, school clothes, etc.). The family laws are archaic and often constraining even when you have good faith all across the board---mom, dad, judge, lawyers, etc. and its time to take another look at them.
I am hopeful given Obama's work with Evan Bayh on this front, and given that its a bipartisan win-win (plenty of single dads in the D, R and I camps) votewise, that this could get a look in the next four years. I really hope it does, it would improve lives across the nation.
I love when people post actual solutions. Good ideas.
Given our persistent divorce rate and the increase of non-traditional families, I think its high time these issues get the sort of National Conversation that, say, race or the War on Drugs or immigration are getting--I'd put this issue right up there in fundamental, non-partisan, class-neutral importance.
The tax issue is really aggravating. I have amicable joint custody of one of my daughters, and there are a hundred hassles involved with figuring out which household claims her as a dependent and how the other household gets compensated for that. It took us ten years to settle on "you claim her this year, I'll claim her the next", which still isn't ideal. The tax laws need to change to allow for joint custody.
Here's something else--I've heard a chorus of complaints about Obama's rhetoric on fathers from black male writers. But I've yet to hear from one complaint from any single mothers. I've yet to hear a peep from a woman who was raised in that situation. I think that that's telling.
Preach, TNC. I have yet to hear a black woman say rearing her sons or daughters alone is wonderful, even if their child turned out as a Barack Obama. There are too many men and women out there with Daddy issues that demonstrate otherwise. I firmly believe that when a parent leaves you or is absent you are scarred in one way shape or form, especially a culture as ours centered on the nuclear family.
Highlighting the paucity of black men helping overburdened black women rearing children doesn't mean the right wing is correct in its economic policy, but it does mean there is something dysfunctional in the black family and the white family as well--more whites are being born out of wedlock and you'll see the crisis in 20 years.
There is a lot of research that shows that being raised by a single parent correlates HUGELY with lots and lots of very bad things compared to two parents. There's also quite a bit of research that shows that having two parents of opposite gender isn't very different from having two genders of the same sex. The Department of Health and Human Services did an extensive report when they noticed that they were adopting kids out to same-sex couples: they wanted to know if they were doing a bad thing.
The answer is a resounding no, as you can read for yourself. I put a copy at
http://webfoot.com/tmp/GLparents.pdf
This makes sense at a very visceral level to me: having two parents means occasional time off, potentially two incomes, two points of view, two sets of hugs.
The only caveat is that most of the single parents in the studies were women; most of the same-sex couples were lesbians. So this study shows that you don't have to have one of the parents be male; it says nothing about how kids do without a woman around.
(Note that kids needing adoption effectively have zero parents, so gay adoption should be a slam dunk.)
Why are we so afraid to just say that certain things are better for kids than others.
Growing up in a low income household with great parents is good but growing up in a house with the same great parents and unlimited wealth would probably be slightly better for the kid. That's no dis to the broke parents, that just fact.
Similarly, I am betting that kids from two parent homes with a mother and father probably do better than other kids all other things being equal (resources, quality of time spent, etc.)
It's not a put down to those who did not grow up, or are raising kids, in other situations, that's just fact.
The time for beating around the bush in the black community has passed. Pretending that these aren't the facts gets us nowhere.
Mark me down as one of those black male complainers.
Black folk, Black men specifically, spend 365 days a year hearing about our 'dysfunction'. Our 'irresponsibility'. Our 'criminal nature'. 365 days of historically getting our collective arses kicked physically, mentally, emotionally, psychologically, politically, AND financially in this country.
And yet, in this environment, we soldier on. Death-to-a-rebel swag with it. Trying to break down barriers and build better futures for ourselves, our families, our communities AND this country.
Father's Day was set aside to publically honor and embrace the men are 'doing the right thing'.
So is it really too much to ask that the brothas get one day to kick back, breathe freely, and bask in the love and appreciation of their loved ones? You don't think we realize the war starts right back up full blast on Monday?
The dead beats ain't going nowhere. If Obama feels as strongly as most of us do that they need to be addressed, there's not a dayum thing stopping him or anyone else from raising and acting on the issue on any of the other 364 days.
Stall the rest of us out for one DAYUM day.
Hell, even the drug dealers in Baltimore had a Sunday Morning truce.
it's not nice to feel stigmatized by the actions of others, as if the hard work you put in is unrecognized. If it helps, know that your reward will come in the form of your kids and family, successful and standing on their own thanks to your hard work.
Out of curiousity, what do men (black and otherwise) say to their buddies or male relatives if they are deadbeats, skipping out on the child support, or ignoring the kids. The only example I have is my husband, who has practically stopped speaking to a relative that he feels is lacking in the dad department. Do men ever say to eachother, yo, man up and do your duty? or is that not done?
That is absolutely done, but you cant make someone want to be in their kids' lives. Its the sort of thing where dragging someone kicking and screaming to the task sort of ruins the whole point altogether. Its like pushing someone to quit smoking--they have to have the want-to in them or its a wrap.
I hear you but national attention is focused on the issue on Fathers Day Weekend. Its the best time timing-wise to drag this issue out in the open. I do think that there should be some positive praise and messages for the "good" Black dads on that day to balance out the criticism, but I dont see why the "good" Black dads would think those criticisms affect them anyway. If we're on our job, the shoe doesnt fit and thus isnt cut and stitched for us, right?
Juba,
If we were talking about your local Red, Black and Green kufi wearing community activist who is trying to maximize attention for the issues he cares about, then I might buy the ‘best time timing-wise to drag this issue out in the open’ viewpoint.
But we’re not. We are talking about the POTUS, the most powerful frickin’ man on the planet and the leader of the ‘free world’. Obama could call a press conference TONIGHT, book all the network and cable news channels in primetime, and address any issue he feels is worth addressing with the American public.
Lastly, while ‘good dads’ are not the target of the criticism, the fact that the ONE day set aside for honoring them must now be co-opted to focus on the numbskulls DOES affect them.
Like I said, honor the Sunday Morning truce. The war can restart in the afternoon.
My problem with these studies is this: does anyone think that we are really going to revert in time to the (straight) traditional nuclear family? If not, then stigmatizing kids from these families does not make sense to me. I would prefer seeing the focus on research, programs and legislation, as mentioned by Juba above, that deal with the reality of the American family as it is today. Instead of constant research and published findings about how great a 2-parent household is for kids. Well, duh, but what are the divorce stats these days?
Aside from being a good argument for de-stigmatizing gay parenting, which is good, what purpose do these studies serve? Kids thrive not just from background and nurturing, but also in proportion to expectations.
This subject really gets under my skin ... obviously! It's annoying when my rich, two-parent family friends are so surprised that my daughter is doing well.
This post today has inspired me to try to find some positive statistics about single parent households for the next time this subject comes up!
Oh, that was supposed to be a reply to Kaitlin.
I was going to reply to Kaitlin, so I'll reply down here too.
I agree with her main point, that there shouldn't be anything wrong with reporting how things work. Bad Mojo tosses out that he(?) thinks growing up with a mother and a father is probably better, right below a study that shows that growing up with two parents in whatever form is the same. They have looked at gay parents, and the kids turn out exactly the same.
Similarly they have looked at family wealth, and once you have shelter, food, and healthcare, outcomes are the same. There's a lot of family stress if you don't meet that level, but above it, extra money goes to a nicer house and fancier car and pricier vacations. If something is really important to the kid, say an obsession with guitar, the family finds a way to pay for lessons. You don't get the round of extra lessons just because, but evidently only taking lessons in those things the kid has a passion for is what matters.
It turns out that "what everyone knows" about how families work is often different. So look at it. The worst is you find out that your ingrained feeling about something is wrong; nothing wrong with that. At best you figure out how to do better given the limits you're starting from, like deliberately having your sibling play a big role as a stable other adult in the kid's life. Not everyone can do that, but there's no reason not to know that more stable caring adults helps and to try to work with that, whether it's drawing in an aunt or admitting you don't have those people, but you're going to be careful about introducing any possible quasi-parents into the mix until you're certain they'll also be around when the kid is 10 years older. Knowledge is power and all that.
If you're going to raise a child, there's no reason to try not to know what helps. If you're going to be single, to site Loh's piece, know that it's the incoming and outgoing lovers and stepparent-for-two-years that are really disrupting: a child raised by a single mom will be pretty close to a child raised by two parents, while a child raised by a single mom and a succession of boyfriends, no idea how long each will stay involved with the child, is hoeing a tougher row.
If people would just be sensible, instead of acting like love-starved teenagers, they might make better decisions.
Having kids means putting them first 98.999999% of the time-- not every every single minute, but almost every minute. And that one percent when you put you first, better be with a damn good babysitter taking care of them.
having said that, I think having kids is a lot of fun-- I have three, and they are a lot of work, but they are all exciting and great to be with. I feel really sorry for parents who aren't having fun with their kids.
My mom chose to have me without marrying my father, so it wasn't quite that he walked out on me. So I never felt abandoned by my father, because he was "technically" supposed to be part of my life.
But - the world is full of men and women. I'm only now beginning to see how the lack of a male role model/paternal love affects my relationships with men, romantically and otherwise. I believe it's good for all children to have men and women in their lives, not necessarily as primary caregivers (I'm not a believer in the traditional family as a panacea), but at least an uncle or an aunt, so they can learn how to interact with both genders from a loving adult.
I take no issue with Obama on this one. Though my parents made choices, and I wasn't intentionally abandoned, he DID choose not to be a part of my life. And as my mother is a special person for choosing to have a kid on her own, my father is a special person for knowing he had a kid out there and being able of walking away.