Why Dads Matter.
Update: The commenters in this post as well as previous ones seem to enjoy conversing with our prolific commenter on this blog, Greg Kuperberg. Greg now has his own blog where you can comment directly to him at The Quantum Group blog.
Update: The commenters in this post as well as previous ones seem to enjoy conversing with our prolific commenter on this blog, Greg Kuperberg. Greg now has his own blog where you can comment directly to him at The Quantum Group blog.
posted by Helen at 7:49 AM
31 Comments:
This opinion piece buys into a specific mischaracterization of chlid development studies that reaches far and wide among a variety of conservative factions. The column says that failed childhoods are largely caused by "fatherlessness", but what the studies actually show is that single parents have trouble raising children. They aren't the same thing, even though it is true that the single most likely single parent is the mother.
It might have been understandable to equate "no father" with "single parent" 50 years ago. Back then, few married women with children worked, the divorce rate was lower, and it was unthinkable to trust gays with children. These days it is an increasingly obstinate, politicized conflation. Everyone understands that most single-parent households have a serious, detrimental labor shortage. There isn't enough time in the day to work, clean the house, and keep track of children.
That does not mean that children with lesbian parents do badly, or for that matter children raised by a mother and a grandparent, or an aunt and an uncle, or children raised in various other pairs of parental guardians. Nor does it prove that life is better if the single parent is a father than if it is a mother.
I agree, though, that all parents matter. All parents, except for the most severely disappointing few, should be appreciated for their hard work in raising children.
Greg, do you know of any objective study results to back up what you are saying? I am unaware of any and I'd be surprised if it were possible to say one way or the other that the problem is down to fatherlessness or to single motherhood. Most of the time, these amount to the same thing and as long as there is a patriphobic bias against fathers in society, we will probably not know.
Greg, do you know of any objective study results to back up what you are saying?
I know, objectively, that conservatives point to single-parent households and say, see, fatherlessness is bad. In 2006, that is a blatant mischaracterization, because it is used for questions that have nothing to do with one parent versus two parents. For example, it can be invoked in custody disputes where both the mother and the father are single parents.
I know that there are studies that conclude that children do just fine with two lesbian parents. I'm not in a position to promise that they are "objective", or concede that they are not "objective". All I will say is that these households exist and that they certainly could be studied, if you care about the distinction between "fatherlessness" and single parenthood. There is no need to just grandly conclude that they amount to the same thing.
For that matter, it's not as is father-only households don't exist. There are millions of them, plenty enough to study, even if they are less common than mother-only households. A guy on my street is in that situation. I would not be surprised if some of the single-parent studies actually cover both cases, so that the broken homes with a father and no mother count towards the indictment against "fatherlessness".
Greg,
There have been studies showing that boys tend to be better off living with stepfathers rather than single mothers and "some support was found for the hypothesis that children have a higher level of well-being in father-custody families than mother-custody families (Amato and Bruce, 1991). Of course, each individual case is different and the ability of the parent to parent is ultimately the thing that matters--despite the gender.
Greg, given that the vast majority of single parents are mothers, then it seems entirely reasonable to me to approximate single parenthood as single motherhood, also known as fatherlessness.
You may be right that single parenthood is the problem, via labor shortage, but personally, I doubt that single fatherhood is as likely to be as problematic as single motherhood simply because it is so much harder to become a single father that those who manage it will be inclined to take it much more seriously, perhaps reflected in the article Helen cites. Given a society which has reified divorce in terms of its granting of "freedom" to unhappy wives/mothers to a level that now some 70% of divorces are instigated by women, and that the vast majority of the time the children go with mom (who is thus also protected financially in her choice), it seems to me that we have set up for a situation where the most probable outcome is that the children end up with self-indulgent, "me-first" people with attendant consequences...
(I know that many people reading this will think "conservative", but it is simply a line of reasoning, open to study & debate. To label it "conservative" causes the ideological conflation with a number of ideas which have no place in the argument.)
There have been studies showing that boys tend to be better off living with stepfathers rather than single mothers...
If there is a stepfather, that suggests a two-parent household that consists of a mother and a stepfather. That's yet another comparison of one parent to two parents. It doesn't compare fatherless and fatherful families with the same number of parents.
"some support was found for the hypothesis that children have a higher level of well-being in father-custody families than mother-custody families (Amato and Bruce, 1991)."
There is a study by Paul Amato and Bruce Keith entitled "Parental Divorce and Adult Well-Being: A Meta-Analysis" and published in 1991, wihch can be downloaded from JSTOR. I assume that that is the citation that you have in mind, even though it is Amato and Keith rather than Amato and Bruce. Most of this paper is about single-parent households, not father-custody versus mother-custody. It is possible that it has your quote, but I'm not finding it because PDF from JSTOR does not have word indexing. In any case it is a meta-analysis with the usual disclaimer that they can't fully vouch for the studies that they bundle together. It's hard to say what the data was in the other studies, or what light they really shed on these side conclusions.
Certainly the meta-analysis shows a clear association between a two-parent upbringing and adult well-being. That part could be beyond dispute.
John Doe: Greg, given that the vast majority of single parents are mothers, then it seems entirely reasonable to me to approximate single parenthood as single motherhood, also known as fatherlessness.
Yes, it's entirely reasonable unless and until you employ the evidence for a goal that defeats the approximation. It is entirely reasonable to approximate "racing stripes" with "sports car", unless you buy a minivan with racing stripes.
Was single parenthood all that McCormick and Sacks had in mind in their argument that dad's matter? They could at least claim that they did, until they wrote the phrase "and lesbian families". Aha! Armed with a wealth of data that one parent is not enough, they don't want two women to raise children either. Their main concern is apparently custody after divorce, but they don't mind a side casualty of their position.
I have to wonder what they would say about two gay men raising children. After all, if having a father is so important, wouldn't it be even better to have two of them?
Greg, your attack on McCormick and Sacks is unfair and misguided. Their only reference to "lesbian" families was in this wider context:
"Through her interviews with single mother and lesbian families Drexler concludes there’s no need to fear fatherlessness, because fatherless boys play sports and scrape their knees like other boys, and don’t turn out to be effeminate or gay. On that she’s probably correct."
Now M&S argue in the article as a whole that a strong correlation of certain problems with fatherlessness implies a direct causal relationship between the two. This is entirely reasonable, on statistical average. They also imply, and this is where you appear to have a problem, that not having a father around is, on average, detrimental to a child, even if there is no shortage of child-rearing labor. Compared to their opposition, this is downright restrained of them. It does not make them anti-lesbian nor homophobic. In fact, to any reasonable society, it ought to be screamingly obvious. Everyone is born of a man and a woman. Everyone lives in a society populated by men and women. Men and women are not the same. In order for a child to develop as a fully functioning individual they require the example of all kinds of human behavior along with appropriate moral guidance. Growing up in a home with fully half of the human race unrepresented is, on average, going to cause problems.
This is hugely general, of course. I have no doubt that there are lesbian & gay parents out there who are better than many heterosexual parents. This does not in any way affect the position that fatherlessness is a potential liability.
Greg, your attack on McCormick and Sacks is unfair and misguided.
I'm not doing any more than disputing their interpretations. I won't say that they are unpatriotic or incompetent or frauds or anything like that. All I am saying is that their argument is more politics than science. Okay, I'm also saying that it's not my politics.
I agree with you that the lesbian part is tangential to their particular column; I already said that. Evidently it isn't tangential to your own thinking, since you describe mistrust of gay and lesbian parents as "screamingly obvious" -- everyone is born of a man and a woman and all that. The truth is that a lot of things that are "screamingly obvious" are prior assumptions that are not borne out by science. It's "screamingly obvious" that cough medicine relieves coughs; but according to a study mentioned in the Wall Street Journal, it doesn't happen to be true.
Anyway, I agree that that side of it is more you than McCormick and Sacks. But on reflection, not much of what McCormick and Sacks argue has to do with one parent versus two. Their main point is about child custody after divorce, which is more about alternating between two households than having a mother and a father in the same household. Are there studies that show that children do better if they commute between two single parents? Maybe it is a good idea, but these studies that compare one-parent homes to two-parent homes don't address the question. Lumping it all together as "fatherlessness" is indeed a mischaracterization.
Compared to their opposition, this is downright restrained of them.
When it comes time to make real decisions and see the real truth, it doesn't matter how badly the other side has been argued; you still have to check whether your own reasoning holds water.
Huh. If more politicians believed that, it'd be a better world.
Woah, Greg, next thing you'll be calling me a homophobe, and your arguments are getting more and more bizarre (you do seem to enjoy wild extrapolation a lot more than you appreciate a more short range variety in M&S). In your universe, it seems that one had better defend, er, untraditional families before you defend traditional ones whereas both need some level of defense against any form of unthinking prejudice. That prejudice can come from either side and it would be a dire mistake to build legislation on top of it. And yet, this is exactly what has happened when it comes to the legal disenfranchisement of fathers. The assignment of full custody to the primary caregiver is a direct result of a line of reasoning in which it is assumed that the child will end up without any adequate parental figure if it isn't. That is, the fundamental premise that has resulted in fatherlessness of an unprecedented scale, is an untested assumption.
Which do you think will turn out to be more like cough medicine? That fatherhood is bad or that fatherlessness is bad?
During my divorce, I wanted, and eventually won, shared physical custody. The process included two custody evaluations by different evaluators and different organizations.
The one thing they had in common was a strong belief in the value of a father in a child's life. They cited facts and figures similar to those in Mr. Sacks article. All recommended joint physical custody.
After some tumultuous times, my ex and I are getting along well. We've been able to work out disciplinary agreements, etc. The children pretty much get to see each parent as much as they wish. They excel in almost every area of their lives, academically, socially, athletically, spiritually, etc. I believe this is due to having the love, affection and guidance of both parents.
I know other parents with joint physical custody with similar results. I choose to believe my own experiences and observations along with the expert opinions of social workers and psychologists that work in the field than the highly biased "objective" opinion of Greg.
And yet, this is exactly what has happened when it comes to the legal disenfranchisement of fathers.
I completely sympathize with divorced fathers who sincerely want a bigger stake in raising their children. But arguments about "fatherlessness" are not the way to do it. "Fatherlessness" is a one-size-fits-all slogan that is equally convenient for opponents of gay marriage, opponents of divorce, and various other sorts of traditionalists.
Tradition, for that matter, is a two-edged sword for divorced fathers. A really traditionalist judge might well blame the father for the divorce from the beginning, and moreover argue that however traditional both mothers and fathers are, mothers are more traditional and more essential. He might also look past all of the women in the case and conclude that the mother's second husband never ran away from a family and is therefore the more trustworthy man.
Which do you think will turn out to be more like cough medicine? That fatherhood is bad or that fatherlessness is bad?
I'm a father too and I have no argument against fatherhood. I think it's great; I don't think it's bad at all.
But just because I enjoy being a father, that does not give me any intention of interfering with two women or two men who want to raise children. Or with other parents who adopt children. I see the statistics that one parent is often not enough. I haven't seen the problem with two parents who might not be the biological mother and father.
I'm also happy for dadvocate that he worked out joint custody with his ex-wife. I have nothing against that solution in response to divorce.
two parents are better than one, sure. we need a study to tell us this?
the problem is men themselves don't put much stock in fatherhood. THAT is why fathers are marginalized. the vast majority (i'd say over 75%) of people i know have highly unsatisfactory relationships with their fathers. these are men who not only weren't involved when their children were young, but who continue to be uninvolved, who continue to be unable to make an emotional investment in their children.
i'm so hopeful that this is getting better with the latest generation of fathers. that fathers will be equally involved in their children's day to day activities, able to have serious and regular conversations with their children, and will be a source of strength and guidance to their children.
but the blame for the fact that this hasn't been the case lays at the feet of the fathers themselves. it's not some "left-wing conspiracy". if you think that, you're just as big a wingnut as those you denounce.
Greg, I agree with your assessment of "fatherlessness" being "not the way to do it" insofar as it is not the only way to do it. It is all about power, which makes it all about politics. There is a war going on. Like all wars, it is not the right way to do things, but faced with it, you have to choose a side or stay out of it. One side (guess which) has the advantage. It is such a strong advantage that the disadvantaged side can look like the bad guy just for pointing out its disadvantage. Gloria Steinmen herself once said that mothers were no better nurturers than fathers. But when it comes down to battles for equal custody rights, the loudest voices are those of the likes of N.O.W. One-size-fits-all are the meat and potatoes of public arguments of this ilk. Generalizations abound, and individuals suffer. Collateral damage of the war.
I'm glad that you think joint custody is good if it can be worked out between the parents. But that isn't a problem as the courts will generally stay out of mutual agreements. Where it is a major problem is when the parents cannot agree. Dad starts out with his feet tied together and Mom has a head start that puts her at the finish line before Dad even makes his first hop.
Anonymous (3.52) also has a point, but it is also based in an assumption which may not be correct. Dad may have been distant from his kids because the world he grew up in expected him to work his ass off to keep them fed, sheltered and educated. In fact, to blame the dads for their situation may be akin to blaming the depressed housewife of the 50s for her situation. I'd even go further and suggest that cultural constraints on men have been more restrictive than those on women for some considerable time, maybe, effectively, always. To finish it off, I invite anonymous to try being a committed father who has been kicked out of his own house and disenfranchised from his own kids by his wife with the full and enthusiastic support of an often implicitly, sometimes explicitly biased legal system. Dadvocate got lucky. I envy him. Oh, and I don't think you need any conspiracy theories either, just a few bad laws and "well meaning people" working on bad assumptions.
Anon. 3:52,
You are too quick to single out fathers for blame. For decades (centuries really) boys have been taught that their primary role as a father/husband is to bring home the bacon. In more agrarian societies, this was usually done in the vicinity of the home but not now.
Additionally, men frequently lose the ability to have a close relationship with their children at the whim of a woman and the judicial system. For many men it may be hard to make a deep emotional investment in something that so easily can be taken away.
I'm a strong believer that joint physical custody works for the best in many circumstances but not necessarily all. A funny thing though, when I search the web concerning joint physical custody all the sites I find supporting it are male based. All the ones against are female based. If these women think joint physical custody is so bad why, for the sake of their kids, don't they give full custody to the father?
Greg,
Thanks for the thought. But I must say, in my Southern colloquialism, you're on of the most "contrary" people I've ever come across.
John Doe - there was some luck involved, good judge, etc. But I fought like hell for 5-6 years too.
"the problem is men themselves don't put much stock in fatherhood. THAT is why fathers are marginalized. the vast majority (i'd say over 75%) of people i know have highly unsatisfactory relationships with their fathers. "
Backwards logic. Fathers are marginalized and that is why they put so little stock in fatherhood. Except that that is false too, because it is bigoted generalization to say that men don't put much stock in fatherhood. And where on earth do you get your second generalization?
Hi everyone,
For all those who enjoy conversing with Mr. Kuperberg--he now has a blog where you can post directly to him at:
http://quantumgroup.blogspot.com/
Ah, yes. Dr. Kuperberg has moved from mathematician to foreign policy expert and now sociologist and family practice psychology.
It was irritating until I remembered the television show "Cheers." Every bar-room has its "Cliff Clavin" type.
Dr. Kuperberg is currently vying for that "Clavin Crown" on this (and several other) blogs.
I raise my metaphorical beer glass to his health.
Dr. Kuperberg has a right to his own opinion, of course. But they are not facts---they are opinions. And every else's opinions are just as valuble.
Don't let him get your goat, friends.
Just raise a metaphorical beer glass to him.
it wouldn't matter how "marginalized" i felt. i wouldn't give up on my kids. i'm not sure a court order could do it, but anything less than that certainly wouldn't it. the women in your life and society make you feel useless? boo hoo, nice excuse, you fucking babies.
and i'm talking about people raised between 1950 and 1990. this was not an agrarian period. you can say the dads were just too doggone tired to go to little Johnny's games, but that also means he couldn't have a god-damned heart-to-heart when necessary? and the fact is, these same men, who are now retired, continue to be relatively uninvolved in the lives of their grandchildren. oh, and another thing, the vast majority of these people also had working moms. you know, she was probably pretty fucking tired at the end of the day, too.
Anonymous 12:42:
Seriously, get some manners before you take your passive aggressive tendencies out here on my blog. There are better ways to make your point than by calling men "fucking babies." I doubt that you would ever call women that.
I think there are two basic problems I have with the arguments in favor of same sex parents. I don't out and out reject the situation since it is of course better for a child to be raised by two committed gay partners who love them than by a foster home or institution.
That said there's two things going on:
First, why not try to establish some sort of right of biological involved fathers to be members of their own families BEFORE we begin to set up rights for gay people to VOLUNTARILY establish family with another adult.
Second, this is much more about LESBIAN parents than about GAY MALE parents. There's one thing that nearly all gay male parents will have in common: they'll be quite wealthy!
Today it's extremely difficult for a man to adopt a child and internationally, the Ukraine is the only country that allows a man to adopt a child.
Women will always have a much easier time adopting or getting inseminated.
As long as feminists and mothers' advocates continue to paint men as either dangerous, inferior parents this immense roadblock will always exist for both straight and gay men.
It's a feminist paradox, really. They repeatedly paint men as morally inferior and then clamor to get family rights for gays.
My problem with Greg's argument is that it seems to be reducing parenting down to the physical labor of feeding, clothing, and cleaning. Presumably, as long as sufficient labor capability exists in the house, the problem is solved. By that mesure, children raised entirely by robots should be as well-adjusted as any others. I'm finding that a bit far-fetched.
I would argue that single motherhood and single fatherhood are not compaable under the present circumstances, for a variety of reasons. Of course, the largest one is that in our current culture, there is no social stigma associated with not having a father or not knowing who one's father is. Compare that to the case for adopted children, who do not know who either of their biological parents are. And there is no stigma associated with a household which has no father in it.
I am a big believer that, in order to be well-adjusted in regards to how they relate to the oppsite sex, children need to have role models of both sexes. Now, there are different ways of accomplishing that goal, but that's beside the point I want to make. I don't have the stats in front of me night now, but a significant number of single mothers were themselves raised in single-mother households. Being that the welfare state has been in place for about 60 years now, this can extend back through three or four generations. A boy may find himself being raised in a family that is otherwise single-sex. This is very unlikely to happen in a father-only household. I would guess that the number of single-parent fathers who were themselves raised in a motherless household is minscule, probably not enough to study.
Futher, the child of a single father still has plenty of exposure to female role models. They have female relatives. Some fathers hire caretakers, who are nearly all female. School teachers are mostly female. Compare this with the opposite situation. It's quite possible that a child in a single-mother household will never meet an adult male realtive, due to the multi-generational chain of single mothering. In public schools, the child is unlikely to have a male teacher. Welfare and child-protective employees are mostly women too. It's entirely possible that the child's only "male role models" will be in the form of street gangs.
So no, I don't think that there is any such thing as gender-neutral "single parenting". And I don't think that studying father-only households will tell you anything about single-mother households. The two are simply not comparable.
"and i'm talking about people raised between 1950 and 1990. this was not an agrarian period."
That spans far too wide a range to be of any value as a sample. That means that your comment
"oh, and another thing, the vast majority of these people also had working moms. you know, she was probably pretty fucking tired at the end of the day,"
is meaningless, because it is untrue for the 60's and 50's. The first thrust of the women's movement in that era was women moving into the workforce.
"the women in your life and society make you feel useless? boo hoo, nice excuse, you fucking babies."
To use your terminology, you fucking hypocrite. Besides, that's a cheap little strawman. The comments are discussing legal impediments to fathers parenting their children, not the worthless attitude of some breeder - rigged custody laws, interference with visitation without any penalty, extortionate and unaccountable "child support" - things that would make a coward like you who is too timid even to use her name just curl up and cry. If you want to impugn someone else's courage and determination, grow a set of balls yourself first.
helen:
uh, yeah, i most certainly would call women "fucking babies" and worse if i thought it fit. some examples would be: "fucking mental case", "fucking out-of-your-league poser", or "fucking desperately in need of male approval".
and passive aggressive? i may be aggressive, but i'm certainly not passive aggressive.
and jim:
i don't know what you mean by the time range is too wide to be valuable. certainly, there were more stay at home moms in the 50's and 60's than in the next two decades. that's why i used the phrase "vast majority"--the term implying to those of reason that i do not suggest ALL.
and jim, i can read. i see damn well what the comments are discussing. i think they're off target, hence my post. are you saying if i can't go with the party line here, i should keep my little trap shut? nice try.
as for your insipid comments on balls-- the generic male answer and insult for every occassion--i may be too lazy to login, but figurative "balls" are not something i'm short of. if it makes you happy though, in the future i will at least sign my name at the end.
andrea
Cousin Dave wrote: "It's quite possible that a child in a single-mother household will never meet an adult male realtive, due to the multi-generational chain of single mothering. In public schools, the child is unlikely to have a male teacher. Welfare and child-protective employees are mostly women too. It's entirely possible that the child's only "male role models" will be in the form of street gangs."
Ain't that the truth?!?! I am a man in a female dominated profession, a clinical psychologist who works with adults AND children. I often find that I am either the only adult male in the child's life, or the only one that does not try to hurt the child. That sucks for them. I had Sunday School teachers, coaches, teachers (I went to an all boys school after grade school) my father, uncles, dads from the neighborhood, etc. My sons daughters have me, their uncles, and their pastor. I do not think that we are up to the job by ourselves.
Trey
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