The Status Of Fathers

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I guess, there's a two-fold reason behind this question for me.
Firstly, I'm from a single-parent home and grew up without a father figure of any sort so now that I have a son of my own (sure he's six but it's only in recent time that I've had a chance, even a slim one, to get to know him) I don't know how to be a father to him.
And secondly, the Australian Federal Government is about to launch a Federal Inquiry into the status of Fathers.

Personally I think that with the way I see society heading lately (WARNING - emotionally fuelled statements coming but not much of an "informed" basis) there IS no Status for Fathers except maybe for the initial input so to speak of sperm. With Cloning and IVF and similar technological advances being made then it seems that fathers are quick becoming highly disposable in the family unit.
Any thoughts?

 

Unfortunatly for some societies single parent families are becoming as common as two parent families. In a lot of cases it's the mother who ends up being the main caregiver of the child, sometimes its the father. The problem is that these societies are losing the value of having a child raised by two parents.
Fathers and mothers should both have equal (yet different) roles in the raising of a child. That way the child can grow up and reflect those same values of maintaining a relationship with a spouse and raising their own children with more than one viewpoint of the world.
It is interesting how my culture (Anglo Canadian) sometimes views other cultures as sexist etc. but when you delve a little deeper into them you begin to understand that the roles that men and women play form a strong foundation of family. The same cannot always be said for my culture.

 

All I can say is, I do not believe technological advancements are changing the roles of parents in families.
Society is moving forward (not meant to be always a positive thing) and relationships are changing. Specifically, we strive towards gender equality (meant to be a positive thing). Surely this is going to influence equilibria within families, as females (rightfully) want to have more freedom and no longer be housewifes by "default". Is this destabilizing ? Sure, and probably more so for males (just look at the title of this thread ). Is this bad ? I do not think so. Your role as a parent is not changing: to raise your children as best as you can. The context might be changing, but if your aims are set, you will find a way.

I believe being a good parent is the thoughest occupation on the planet. But the hard jobs are the ones that give the best satisfactions.

 

*sigh*

Me, I come from a single-parent home as well. My parents were never married... well, to each other anyway, and all my life my dad has just dropped by every now and then, taken me to places, *****ed about his other family and allowed me to bittch at him about everything via the phone.

And yet, we have a great relationship. I can talk with him about anything at all, be it sex, drugs, rock'n'roll or the sosioeconomic implications of WWII.

The problem is.... he has no legal rights over me. So He cannot do a damned thing about me being throwwn from one institution to other, about the social services throwing me around like a rag.... I do not bear his name, but the name of my mother's dead husband.

I am a sad example of what the rights of fathers are.

In my definition, though "Father" is divided.

First, there is the sire who does the biological part, and not nessecarily anything else.

Second, there is the father. The one who is there when one is growing up, eho guides, who protects, who is *there*

THird one... well, letsa just say that my third definiton has nothing to do with this conversation.

But What I was apparentyl trying to say thorough all this maudlin ranting, is that... bah. I don't know, really.

 

Society itself is divided on this issue. On one side there are the state agencies that have to threaten delinquent fathers with prison to get them to pay child support, let alone be involved in the child's life. On the other are the agencies - sometimes different branches of the enforcement agencies! - that are so busy "protecting" children from suspected abuse that they regulate willing fathers into non-existence.

Neither my son nor I would be happy without Velcro's involvement in parenting.

 

As you suggest in the opening post, I'll indeed treat it as a two-fold question, but I suppose it's better, for the purposes of my post at least, to address point one or point two as it comes up in my voice in this discussion... so let me use a different scheme.

So, paradoxically, it's the traditional roles in family that produced the current situation of mothers getting the custody automatically unless a particular mother is blatantly unsuitable in the eyes of the court.

However, I still believe firmly in family values, and yes - traditions. Not of ages of patriarchal domestic justice abuse (the word abuse is generally essential here), or of mothers' talents going to waste, or arranged marriages, but in the good old 'core' rules. A pair of two parents of different sex married and, if possible, loving. The basic teachers, role models, stern leaders and stalwart supporters alike, you get the idea. The father would still be responsible for the welfare of the family. It's deep within our culture, civilisation, beliefs... It simply *is* we. If the mother works and provide for material needs of the family, then, of course, the father shouldn't be the glorious bread-giver no matter what. As though the mother's contribution weren't equally as important. As though it *ever* weren't. But it works on both sides - the father is essential for the caring and loving and hugging and kissing part too, not only the mother. These roles can't be separated, and they're essentially mother and father roles - they aren't to be switched. It's proper that the father takes a day off to care of the child, or that he helps in the chores, or even takes over the cooking if he's sort of a pro', but there are some borders not to be crossed. Father is father, not a he-mum. Balance is key, balance... and order. It's wrong for a child to grow up in a father-dominated family where he's the total stud lord and master and she's a broken slave. It's wrong for him to have a whiney sissy father who wouldn't do a thing if the mother didn't tell him what and how and when to do and his wife is more of a man than he will ever be. But, no matter what feminists, tolerance activists and other 'progressive people' say, there's nothing wrong with the iconic image of a stern and forthright father being the strong arm of the family and mother being the balancing factor, calm and mild. So long as they aren't antagonistic, but just balancing, complementing each other.

Am I idealistic? Maybe. Ask me how I know? I don't know how I know. I've never seen such a family in my life.

Now, as we're done with complementing roles and the necessity, and an equal one of each, of both parents, we need to address situations where it's simply not possible to achieve. Life is just life, it's not a paradise and there's no point pretending it is.

So, as I said, neither parent is inherently more important to the child. Divorce, or split-up, is a tragedy and the problem of child custody is a difficult one. But because of this alone it can't be neglected, its importance diminished. There are no valid shortcuts like give it to the mother, cross out the one that took drugs in college or take the one with less sentences under his belt. Also, custody of a child is no right of the parent, nor a privilege. It's the child who is important. This is essentially the argument I use against adoption of children by homosexual pairs. It's to some degree the right of everyone to pass the gift of life, but it's not a generic civic right like freedom, life, ownership. To sum up this paragraph: if the father is more promising a parent, then be it the father. If the mother isn't responsible enough, be it the father that gets full custody and exclusive legal rights. It's not proper that a few bad words in a court supported by the woman's shopping-mates are enough to deprive a child of 'the' father if not a father at all. It's not true that 'a' father is as good as 'the' father. Can be, yes, but that's an exception. The same goes for mothers, of course, but here we're talking about fathers (mostly).

I, too, come from a single-parent family. When I was seven, my mother married her husband and they have two children, but he never was father, or daddy, or a father figure. And, no matter what some (many) people will say, I'm thankful for that. Perhaps if he were different, he could be sort of a father figure (in the last years, as he changed quite much, he gets between an uncle and that pal sort of dad of a grown man), but not in the circumstances that have been. Neither did he ever get any legal rights over me, and - reasons are perhaps obvious but I still don't want to talk about them - it's good and I've never thought otherwise for even a second. Despite the fact that I remember myself aged 7 and saying 'A daddy is a gentleman that comes to see one, isn't it?', that I used to see him once a week at best and even that only at the beginning, that I last saw him seven years ago, that I never could fully trust him (not that he would ever change his word once given, attitude and feelings being a different issue ), hardly admire him, hardly be truly proud of him, or that I even could justify his doings, or know that he did the right thing. That's a different thing. Father is father even though in some regards he was what I promise myself not to be, something like anti-role model, that it hurts when I hear him mentioned, that I would hardly like to see him now, that I wasn't calling him father or dad when it was avoidable. Father is one, I don't have another, I don't want one. He was, justice be unto him, telling me things and trying to tell me things he for obvious reasons could not have shown me how to do. He was a strong man even if he did screw up. I at least can respect him, even though there are deep scars on this respect that will not heal. For sure I would have refused to call anyone father had it ever been required from me. At the same time, mother was working and the grannie, even though over-caring in the sweet way grannies are, was not needlessly restrictive or repressive. And I made use of it all the time. Through problems with trusting people and their consequences, I sort of took over my own upbringing (well, was I truly a child?) - even though I did have family love, care etc. Lots of conflicts, unfair decisions and actions to behold (by haste, impatience, being short with other and just having enough of it, which has become a family trait, not by any generic injustice). This way, without exaggeration, I became my own father figure. Or the then-dormant myself that I am now or will be was a father figure to that smaller myself from the past, knowing what to do but screwing performance To the best of my knowledge, I am what I wanted to be from my very early years, hehe. Am I sissy or effeminate as they say that men growing without a father are? No! Perhaps only less anal By coincidence I'm not a fitness monger or a CON machine, but it's because of asthma I would have anyway and sincere dislike for PE lessons (against all eforts of my mother). But truth be said, my father didn't want a sissy son and saw to it that I can now hold more than gym freaks and other bullies, and can hold my own against them. For which thank you, Dad! So, isn't a father needed?

With your son, Aldazar, it's going to be different. He is going to have a step mother or none. Mother and mother figure being two different persons. It's not going to be easy for anyone, in fact it's going to be very hard. But he's not going to be crippled, his life is not going to be any worse than otherwise. Harder, but not worse. Of course, he will be different, but, if you do your best, no more than men from full families but with the father being the dominant figure (not necessarily in the negative way of domineering). He will have a father doing his best and that's what counts. Don't let feminists bring you (or him) down

To finish this off, I'll once again state it that fathers are no less important than mothers and I'll also add my voice against the practices that make fathers illusionally unimportant. Soon it may be considered normal that a woman dispenses with founding a family and will just get a child and bring him up, without her being 'tied up' to a husband and the child's having a normal father. Not as a sad necessity, but as a result of someone's decision. You know, the right to choose.

 

Just recently I went through a custody battle with my ex husband dealing with my twin daughters... And I was told that because I was the mother that I would have no problem getting custody. EVERYONE said it. And you know what? My ex ended up with primary custody of them. So here's my thoughts on the subject now... I don't think the roll of the father has been diminished in anything more than the minds of the men with children. Most men I know, if faced with a situation where their child can only live with one parent, will choose to allow the child to stay with its mother. And granted, there are also plenty of times that a father wants custody or something of the kind and isn't granted it because he's NOT the mother, but I think that mind-set has come about because we were taught to think that.
Though I will reserve my judgement of my ex and the current custody issue for those who know me better.

 

Much sympathy, DJ.

 

I think you are absolutely right about this. And I'm so sorry about your situation.

I don't know even one man who wanted custody of his kids following a divorce and didn't get it, and several who did succeed in taking the kids away from the mother who'd given up her career to stay home and raise them. One of my friends was left for a younger woman, and because her husband remarried immediately and had a brand new "stay at home wife" to be a stay at home mother, he got the kids too. And one of my old boyfriends had custody of his son, although I didn't know much about why the courts decided that. (He was a wonderful father). In France, divorce settlements always favour the male both in terms of property and child custody. I had a friend who was badly physically abused by her husband but was told by more than one lawyer that if she left him, he would keep the house (which was in his name) and the kids.

Where the couple has never been married, maybe the courts do favour the mother. I don't personally see anything wrong with that, partly because I'm old fashioned enough to think that a man should marry a woman before getting her pregnant.

 

You have my sympathy as well DJ.
Though I don't know the circumstances, and would not dream of prying, I know how hard it can be not having your child(ren), when you want to be able to be there for them, even though it can be different for mothers than it is for fathers.

Yes, it is quite widespread that many fathers don't seem to give a damn about their kids - I had one who didn't - but from my personal experience (maybe different in Australia) and my work with Dads In Distress, I meet dozens of fathers each and every Sunday night at our meetings who don't give a damn about anything BUT their kids. Most of them pay their child support and everything else that the government requires of them because that's what is right for their kids, and yet you have guys like myself who then turn up to pick up their kids for their court-deemed Access visits and are either given a flat-out no or are even told that they can only have their kids if they give the mother a cash payment of anything between 50 and 200 dollars! Occasionally they even get demands for appliances like Microwave Ovens or TVs or Stereo Systems.

The sad thing is that whilst ever the mother (or father, I'm not blinded to the fact the Residence Fathers can make the same demands though I only hear of it coming from the mothers) carries on like this and yells and screams at the father or denigrates him where the kids can hear, they don't seem to realise that the most damage is being done to the kids. Granted a lot of the time the father will leave the encounter feeling suicidal, or in rare cases as evidenced twice in Australia recently they leave homicidal, but in almost every case the kids end up scarred for life.

And as for the distinction some of you have made between fathers and father figures, the way I look at it is this: Fathers are indispensible because it's the Father who contributes to procreation, but Dads seem to be becoming all too dispensible - Dads are the one who help RAISE the kids. For me, mum was my Dad. She raised me, my brother and my sister from the ages of about 5, 7 and 2 respectively.
Mine is a case of dead-beat dad who only cares about his own life and I think that in situations like those the child can be better off without their biological father.
It's a shame though when you think about situations like this that very few societies today view child rearing in the same light as many tribal societies do (or once did) where at certain points in a young man's life each of the Tribal Elders assisted in raising the boy by teaching him certain things that maybe other Elders didn't know. But then I guess that if society in general had these views we wouldn't have the problems we have with these situations hey?
Anyway, I could ramble forever about this but I'll leave it at that for now

 

Aldazar, I forgot to say in my post that I do have deepest sympathy for you in your situation. It is great that you want to be more involved in your son's life and I think that his mother is very unwise not to include you more.

I don't know if this helps you - I hope so - but I would also say that the quantity of time you manage to spend with your son is really not the most important factor in how much of an impact you can have on his life. My father was never around when I was a kid - he travelled a lot and would be gone for months and months at a stretch, and even when he was in the same country as the family, he worked 14 hour days (still does) five or six days a week and spent his day off in the home office writing. I think he only managed to be there for one or two of my birthdays. I know all of this when I think about it rationally. But you know what? My memories of my childhood are full of him, I felt like he was there every minute teaching me something or playing with me, because there was so much love and closeness when he was there that it seemed to spread out to my whole life. And I grew up to be exactly like him despite the tiny amount of time we actually spent together.

So I guess my point is that while the time you spend with your son might be limited by various factors, your actual "role" in his life can be much greater than you think it is, and if he knows how much you love him and want to be with him I'm sure he will grow up remembering you as always there.

 

This interested me because it is contrary to the popular conception. So, I did a search. Here are some stats I saw being discussed, taken from Maccoby and Mnookin's "Dividing the Child":

When a mother and father both ask for sole custody the mother wins it four times as often as the father. p 104;

When a mother asks for sole custody and a father asks for joint custody the mother wins it 67% of the time and the father wins joint custody 30% of the time. 104;

Even when the mother and father agree to joint custody prior to going to court, and you might expect a rubber stamp, the court still gives sole custody to the mother 31% of the time and the father 8% of the time. p 103.

Now, I haven't read the book. Those are some stats I saw reported about it. I saw some saying the final conclusions are ambiguous. For example, it finds closer to a 50-50 split in appellate decisions but I'd note appellate decisions are an exceedingly small subset of the total number of court decisions. It is from Harvard press and looks fairly prestigious. Here it is:

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/MACDIV.html

So, at first glance, it appears to me that there may be gender bias in favor of the mother in the US. Don't have a clue about other nations.

Also, I'd add 'bias' has gained a sour taste but it may be that it shouldn't have that in all cases.

Edit - also of course, these are the broader statistics and there is plenty of room for someone's personal experiences not to match the norm.

 

Of course there is a gender bias in custody cases. That is probably the main reason that DJ lost her case. The state she went to trial in had decided to do something about the bias to shift the numbers to a more equal position. Thus giving fathers the kids just because there are so many other fathers who have been short changed, no matter the actual case.

 

Well, I don't have a clue about the specific cases here and no one does other than those who experienced them. Those cases are also, understandably, emotionally charged. I do know from my experience in North Carolina, knowing people who work in the family law field (lawyers and social workers - the Triad area) the anecdotal evidence didn't seem to support a gender bias in favor of fathers in N.C. - quite the opposite.

It's quite the leap to go from - "the statistical evidence demonstrates there MAY be a bias in favor of mothers. So, in this case state X must be intentionally biased in the opposite direction." There is no support for your claim as far as I can see.

There are lots of reasons a custody battle might be lost - many of them unfair. Many of them are unrelated to gender bias. However, the stats seem to indicate that system wide if there is a gender bias it probably isn't in favor of the fathers.

Family law is a mess. It takes a certain type to practice it imo. It takes a special type to practice it well.

 

@Sprite - thanks, it does help. I keep telling myself that it's Quality that's the key. not quantity so I tried to keep everything we did when we had time together in the area of special stuff. I just tried to make sure that he had a ball whatever we did and that he knew how happy I was to just be there with him.

And yeah, it's an absolute minefield out there in family law, probably one of the worst areas of law to specialise in because there's so many grey areas for people to try to navigate, particularly when one party is so antagonistic and hard-headed.
Just yesterday actually, I got a letter from my solicitor telling me that my ex was refusing to participate in a Telephone Conference as an attempt to settle things reasonably. So now it looks like we're headed back to court. At least from the last time we went and it took 16 months I am now better prepared to deal with the whole process and after having seen how her and her mother became hysterical on the stand I'm actually looking forward to it. Though I DO wish it could have been avoided...

 

Laches--ah, but you see, as Joa knows, my case was not held in NC courts. The NC courts actually attempted to give me custody, and that was overturned by the state that my kids were born in. So it's a little bit more complicated than just that.

 

Ah, well therein may be the difficulty. One of the dirty little 'secrets' with family law, particularly custody cases, is that when multiple states are involved in a dispute, the state that takes jurisdiction will commonly favor its own citizens. This type of protectionism is unrelated to gender bias of course. This type of home state bias exists primarily in state courst but does also exist in a more limited fashion in the federal courts as well. I'd favor making all judges have longer terms at the very least to help judges avoid these type of pressures.

I hope things work out.

 

I actually meant to add this question to my original post but forgot, as I am very apt to, but what in your experience makes a good dad?
Dad as opposed to father that is, dad being the guy who helped raise you if indeed you did have a father-figure, and father being technically the guy who was part of the procreation resulting in you.

 

Well, my sire hated me. Yep, he hated me. And so my mother took me away and got custody for me.

I know the bastard is married and may even have other kids.

Like I care.

My dad or father has well, kind of raised me, but only to whine and lecture when I did anything wrong. My brother is biologically his son and it's very easy to tell, whom he loves more.

So, I wouldn't particularly care if my child had a father or not. But if he wanted my kid, he would have it. I have no desire to be a slave for a kid, whom I didn't even want.

*hopes that it would never happen*

 

It is definitely quality over quantity time-wise when it comes to how fathers affect their children. For example, I saw my Dad a lot less when I was little because he'd be at work or on business trips or whatever else. But it was how he affected me when I was younger that really made the person I am now. My best memories are filled with talks we had on Saturday and Sunday mornings and it also taught me a countless number of things. Yet now, I see my Dad constantly (I'm doing my classes online so I don't school) but it isn't any better than when I was younger because we don't even make an effort to talk to each other and half of the time when he does start up a conversation I'm a little too busy doing whatever and wrapped up in my own world. So be loving and influencial. And whatever you do, don't just lecture your kid if they do something wrong -- prevent it from happening by instilling morals and values ahead of time.

5 days ago one of my best friend's (and incidentally my first boyfriends) Dad's died and because his family is one of those families quite active in the community (boy scouts, marching, band, theater. . . you name it they were in it) our entire town has been trying to help them out emotionally and otherwise. So this has been on my mind all week. Especially since my worst nightmare is that my Dad would die. I mean I realize that at some point in my life he's probably going to die as he is 23 years older than me -- but I don't want him to die for a very very long time yet and I always used to get terrible nightmares that he'd died and that as the oldest child I'd have to help my Mom take care of my younger siblings. Now as a small explanation, my Mom is a bit scatterbrained and I really doubt she could handle my siblings on her own. Also I have the habit of sometimes taking on bits of parenting myself because I am the oldest and I do sometimes feel responsible for my sibs.

And you know what? I don't ever want to be a father. I might not mind being a Mom (though I'm not really sure but as I intend to wait I'll hopefully make up my mind by then) but I don't ever want to be a father. That's because the parenting roles of mothers and fathers are very real and often quite necessary. I'm not even going to try to explain that I think the seperate roles are because every time I try I get a bit wishy-washy about it. But in general they complement one another and I think it can be necessary to have two parents just as cops have partners and probably for the same reasons at that. For instance, my Mom cannot get along with my sister and vice versa. At all. My Mom has no control over my sister and my sister has no respect for my Mom. All too often my Dad has to talk to both of them and explain where each of them is doing something wrong. But at the same time there are just some things my sis would rather get from my Mom. And another thing, my Mom can be way overprotective so my Dad has to keep her in check and prevent her from going overboard as she is prone to do. Good cop, bad cop. There has to be balance at all times and if one parent *isn't* being balanced then the other parent can inform them thusly.

Now I know some people who can make excellent single parents. This is because they can maintain perfect equillibrium. This is a rare and wonderful gift and these people can do their job well. They can enforce rules without going overboard, be lenient when necessary/deserved, teach morals, values, and life lessons and yet not swing out of balance or at least correct their mistakes if they do. They know when to be protective and when to let their kid fight their own battles. And they know when to let their kid play dominoes inside with a close friend instead of baseball outside with a bunch of near strangers. As I said, this is rare gift but for those who have it they can make good parents and don't even need another person to complement them or do all the other things a father or mother would do.

So I think fathers are important. But to actually define the role or status they take, I think it depends on the individual. Nevertheless, fathers definitely have a very real standing in society -- as was clear evidence by my town's mourning this week.