Sorry Hugh Hefner, but Women Shouldn’t Create Fatherless Kids–and You Shouldn’t Either

2008-01-21
By

Background: The issue of Single Motherhood by Choice has been getting a good deal of press lately. For some examples, see There’s no shame in going solo, says mum (Guardian Unlimited, UK, 11/4/07) and Knocking Yourself Up–The ongoing debate over going it alone (Newsweek, 11/5/07). To watch me debate Single Motherhood by Choice on Fox’s nationally-syndicated Morning Show with Mike and Juliet, click here. To learn more about Single Motherhood by Choice, click here.

To learn more about what research says about the importance of fathers, see my co-authored columns Why Dads Matter (Houston Chronicle, 6/18/06) and Tyler Perry’s Daddy’s Little Girls Tells an Important Truth About African-American Fathers (Los Angeles Watts Times, 6/14/07).

Hugh Hefner, 81, apparently is going to selfishly crank out a soon-to-be-fatherless child with Playmate Holly Madison, one of his girlfriends. According to the World Entertainment News Network:

“Playboy boss Hugh Hefner is apparently finally willing to grant girlfriend Holly Madison’s wish of becoming a mother by agreeing to seek fertility treatment.

“Madison has regularly expressed her desire to become a mother on the hit reality TV show The Girls Next Door.

“And it seems the magazine mogul has agreed to become a father for the fifth time.

“According to Hollywood gossip columnist Janet Charlton, the 81-year-old and Madison were spotted visiting a Beverly Hills gynaecologist who specializes in vitro fertilization.”

I’m sure Hugh and Holly will assure us that all will be well because the child will be well-provided for financially. In reality, research shows that children in single mother families suffer from not having a father, regardless of income.

Research amply demonstrates that, even when adjusted for income, the rates of juvenile crime, school dropouts, youth drug abuse and teen pregnancy are tightly correlated with fatherlessness. Male parenting is different from female parenting, and is equally important for children.

Men on the Defensive–A Blog by Family Law/Criminal Defense Attorney Douglas R. Slain
Family Law/Criminal Defense Attorney Douglas R. Slain’s blog Men on the Defensive discusses the cultural bias against men as well as the key family law and criminal law issues facing men and fathers today.  http://www.menonthedefensive.com/
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  • Roger60601

    I believe Hugh Hefner has done a great deal of good in making the girl next door an unabtainable princess and has done nothing for the average working guy. He could have been such an advocate for men, but he became an advocate of nothing.

  • PolishKnight

    I had a theme but I liked Roger’s better: It’s really difficult to figure out what Hef believes in. He bankrolls feminist causes but at the same time disagrees with feminist pruditry. He wants to pretend to be a careless “playboy” but has gotten remarried and converted the mansion into a family estate and then back to a party scene, and now looking to go back again.

    My wife and I regularly view his Girls Next Door show (hate to admit that) but it stands out that his two children from the last marriage are never shown at the parties or get-together nights even as one girlfriend Bridget regularly has her younger sister visit. Where’s his daughter that runs the magazine? She’s also notably absent.

    He’s a charming, likable, and fun person but totally shallow and his girlfriends reflect this: They’re empty headed bimbos and not even particularly attractive. One of them, Kendra, is especially unlikable and irritating.

    And now even the fun side is wearing off. He looks more and more like, as Dr. Evil put it, “an aging hipster.” He has a difficult time keeping up (literally) with his girlfriends and they travel without him while he stays home and takes geritol. Even the notion of in-vitro fertilization exposes him as being too old to conceive a child without medical assistance which begs the question whether he really has an active sex life. Holly’s sense of urgency may be founded on the fear that he doesn’t have much time left on this Earth. When he rarely ventures outside the mansion, he is white and pasty and even ghostly in mannerisms.

    Ironically, he serves an apt symbol of dying 60′s ideology of so-called free love and consequence free sex. Don’t worry Glenn, nobody is going to use Hef’s example as a role model. He broke the mold and now it’s getting time to put it to rest.

    I wonder: Will Playboy have a future after Hef is gone?

  • lieweary

    I have no problem with this, so long as it’s his choice. And the kid may indeed have a father– it just won’t be him.

    All men should have the choices that Hef has; Hef shouldn’t have fewer.






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