Is There Anything Good About Fathers?
It’s not easy being a father nowadays, as you can tell from the question in the heading.
Canadian researchers and authors Paul Nathanson and Katherine K. Young have written about the persistant anti-male bias in the media, in their two books Spreading Misandry and Legalizing Misandry (you can read a short summary of their work on Wikipedia). Fathers are an important subgroup of men that are under attack in the media. Directly or indirectly, they are portrayed as:
- Wife beaters
- Child abusers
- Child molesters
Furthermore, we hear a lot about deadbeat dads in the media (i.e. dads who are avoiding paying child support), but hardly anything about all the men who desperately want to see their children but who have been denied any kind of custody.
Something we almost never hear about are the specific benefits that fathers can bring to their children, even though fathers keep young men away from crimes and a range of other psychosocial problems.
Can this really be true, that fathers have a vital protective effect on their children that their mother cannot replace on her own?
In the book The Case for Marriage, the authors review the available evidence about single parent households (i.e. fatherless families) and conclude that these children are more likely:
- To be poor
- To have health problems
- To have psychological disorders
- To commit crimes
- To exhibit conduct disorders (other than crime)
- To have poorer relationships with their family and peers
- To get fewer years of education
This list holds true even when controlling for parents’ race, income and socioeconomic status.
Other research (Harper and McLanahan, 1998) has shown that boys living without their biological fathers are twice as likely to have spent time in jail. These results also hold up after controlling for race, income and parents’ education. Having a stepfather, however, does not decrease incarceration rates – the protective effect comes from a biological dad alone (though one can suspect that a committed father of an adopted son will have the same positive effect).
In his book Fatherless America, sociologist David Blankenhorn states that:
“Despite the difficulty of proving causation in social sciences, the wealth of evidence increasingly supports the conclusion that fatherlessness is a primary generator of violence among young men.”
Swedish studies (Weitoft, Hjern, et al, 2002) have found that children of single parents are twice as likely to develop a psychiatric disease, to attempt suicide or to have an alcohol-related disease.
The conclusion of all these books and studies can only be one: the status of fatherhood needs to be upgraded immediately. The available research clearly demonstrates that growing up without your father puts a child at a real disadvantage in a host of ways.
Courts who routinely award sole custody to the mother “in the best interest” of the child, are out of touch with reality and have likely been influenced by the political ideology of feminism rather than the available evidence on the benefits of growing up with a father. Shared custody needs to become the default ruling in all custody cases that go to court, unless one parent is obviously unfit to raise a child (eg. drug addicts, convicted sex criminals, proven abusers, etc).
Furthermore, parents need to start cooperating after a divorce, instead of using the children as a bargaining tool. Children are not a way to extort more money from your spouse after a divorce, nor are they a tool to feel good about yourself. All parents owe it to themselves and to their children to live close to each other after a divorce, so that shared custody can be practically implemented and so that the children can stay close to both parents.
| More from Pelle Billing
Stumble It!
September 27th, 2009 at 6:53 am
In regards to: “The Case for Marriage”
I believe we should fix the gash on the side of the Titanic before we start encouraging people to get on board. A strong stable marriage is no doubt good for society and especially children. However, we need to repair the climate and laws that lead to a 50% divorce rate and a dismal happiness rate before pointing more people that way.
When it comes to raising a family, marriage is better than illegitimacy, but a family broken by the family court system and divorce industry (yes, it has become an industry) is not a good goal for society.
September 27th, 2009 at 8:31 am
It is sad that anyone should have to ask if there is anything good about fathers. It is worse that we must conduct study after study just to prove the need and usefulness of fathers. What is shocking is that despite studies demonstrating the positive effect fathers have in their children’s lives, family courts and a great deal of the literature about families either wholly exclude fathers, vilify them or claim they are unnecessary. It is difficult to imagine that the same response would occur in the reverse.
That said, part of this problem has a lot to do with how society values fathers and fatherhood. There are very few positive portrayal of fathers. We hear and read more about abusive fathers or “dead beat” fathers than we do about men who support their children. This occurs even on Father’s Day, which seems more like at day to attack the men we are supposed to be acknowledging.
Addressing that aspect, the cultural and social norms that regard fathers as useless, would likely have a much greater impact on changing biased court policies.
September 27th, 2009 at 8:49 am
try being a step dad! in the uk where single mums are practically encouraged by the welfare state we are overrun in our cities by boys with little education and respect, and the youngest teen pregnancy rate in the world. this is a direct result of the campaign to lie about the roles men and women have in society and the family.
September 27th, 2009 at 9:15 am
The answer to this problem is simple-Do Not Marry.
As we all know (and have all discussed ad nauseum) is that father’s have few if any rights, and that father’s and men generally have been greatly marginalized. The feminists were the ones to ruthlessly attack men and fathers. Then the feminists formed powerful lobbying groups such as N.O.W. to spread their hatred into legislation for 40 years. Average women went along with this. Men sat by for 40 years. It’s as if NOBODY spoke an opposing view all this time. Not the women. Not the men.
So here we are today.
If women think marriage matters and that having men as father matters then THEY can fix all the injustices.
Let me put my answer to this problem with a question:
Since women went along with the feminists and threw men under (and the men also went along with throwing future generations of men under the bus), and this resulted in wrecking marriage to the point where the women are now suffering, poor children are now suffering, and society generally is declining, there are those who expect me (and others like me) who is a member of the targeted group to now start giving a damn and sacrifice in any way (much less lift a finger), to try and save this institution?
Yea right.
September 27th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Before feminists took control of the “facts” about fathers, a man gained no greater respect than being viewed as a “family man” — someone who took reponsibility for others, and not just himself. “Please, mister! I’ve got a wife and kids!” could save a man’s life — not for his own benefit, but for the benefit of the wife and kids.
And now, even after 40 years of vicious defamation and relentless attack, active fatherhood remains the most important thing that can happen to a family — and to society in general.
We must regain control of the discussion. We must actively reject disparagement of fathers. We must publicize the truth — that fathers are essential, and that fatherhood — embraced with love and responsibility — entitles a man to the deepest respect.
We’re just too damn busy and too damn tired to get active. Fatherhood takes a lot of time, and a lot of effort. But we are going to have to get up off of our asses and at least ask the collective question, “Hey! Just what in the HELL is going on here?”
Folks interested in destroying the family have busily been destroying the concept of fatherhood. They won’t just give us back the respect we deserve. We are going to have to take it back.
BTW, marriage is a KEY component of responsible fatherhood, and we should not be encouraging single fatherhood or single motherhood. Man or woman, if you are going to be a parent, do it right.
September 27th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
The statistics don’t mean anything. That’s the problem.
They say that broken homes create more trouble than non broken homes but forget to mention that is why most homes are broken in the first place.
Dysfunction existed prior to many homes breaking up. In some cases the breaking up is less damaging than keeping the family together. It is a no win-win using these statistics.
………
I’d say the greatest thing about fathers is that fathers teach boys to be males and girls how to be around males. He is the masculine and the masculine is 50% of the population. Being around a mother is the same. Teaches girls how to be female and boys how to be around females. Gosh, I could give a long list of things that affect males that mother don’t know about and vice versa.
……..
But in saying that, I do have an issue with some fathers going to court. I don’t know how others who work with these cases consider this but I sometimes have to ask fathers what it is they really want as an outcome.
Some or many (depending on your work) don’t want to take the children off the mother but just want a say in the raising of the children. It is hard because it is almost looks like the father wants to tell the mother how to raise them.
And then when it gets to court, the father has to prove the mother incapable of making the right decision so that the fathers decision is final but the father doesn’t realise that once he proves the mother untrustworthy on her decision, she can’t be trusted to raise the child and welfare will step in and possibly take the child/ren off her.
I know fathers are in most times more logical than the mother. It is just that there are other factors going on. Mothers do feel inadequate when daddies logic is better than her work, they really do feel threatened when the family breaks up. Gosh, men see the big picture while women see their immediate surroundings and with their emotions which are positive too BTW.
Probably shows too why men haven’t got their movement off the ground. They see the overall and trip over the little pieces while women dot every “I” and cross every “T” and before you know it the “I’s” and “T’s” have become one great big massive mess. They were just doing the little things over and over again.
I suppose then fathers think of the long term for children. They see ahead while women are just in the day. But both are good.
PS. I am generalising here. Not all men and women are like this. And this is an opinion only so be nice.
September 28th, 2009 at 12:49 am
I am always pleasantly surprised by julie’s depth & level understanding the human core wreckage we commonly call, the “gender wars”. With the help of many men, women became liberated,and with the help of many women, one day, some males may live to see legal respect and emotional liberation and equality and see our hateful government bondages broken away as well. Not probable in my life time but maybe someday…She gives me pause for our hope. Something said, to her, thats deservedly, nice…
September 28th, 2009 at 1:56 am
In addition to pro-government anti-family political forces, a key problem to restoring fatherhood is that there are about a million people, lawyers, judges, politicians, “human services” bureaucrats, social workers, shrinks, custody evaluators, and others, who, although they know nothing about you or your children, make a good living by pretending they know what is best.
If we suddenly stop destroying children and families by faulting fathers, what will all of these people do?
September 28th, 2009 at 2:03 am
Q. What does every child custody case have in common?
A. Everybody involved is there to get money except the father.
September 28th, 2009 at 6:26 am
Men should avoid marriage at all costs. Enjoy the fruits of feminism, and go out there and sleep with as many women as you can (post-vasectomy).
Game on!
September 28th, 2009 at 10:08 am
To allen tucker #7,
Thank-you for your kind words.
October 20th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
@Julie
- The simple argument that you are making is mostly correct, although a bit slightly flawed. Men would not be in the court trying to prove a mother’s incompetence if it wasn’t such a cut-throat business to try and fight for their rights to their children. The GOVERNMENT, and the LEGAL SYSTEM set those rules, not fathers. And they did it at the behest of women, with the complicity of a lot of either deluded, selfish, or otherwise destructive men. The government and legal system are the ones primarily responsible, along with selfish men who were ready to sacrifice their fellow men, and greedy women who were eager to take the proverbial carrots being dangled in front of them.
Don’t believe it? Please, I ask you, go sit in a family court for a few hours a day, for a week or so. I have, and believe me, it was a very sobering experience. It is rarely logical, or fair. It’s damn near warfare. And oftentimes, in the cases I witnessed, no matter how cogent or relevant an argument the father was making, it was summarily dismissed with no regard.
Also considering that ’statistics’ don’t matter….I love how you overlook the fact that it is women who initiate 70% of the divorces. And are also the prime beneficiaries in the large majority of cases. Incentive? Hmm.
I also take issue with your tone about women dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s. I don’t believe many women gave it that much effort in pure frankness. They saw the glitter and grabbed for it in the large majority of cases. It was a rare few women who had an agenda (the early feminist leaders) who were all (or almost all) misogynistic deluded and arguably socio/psychopathic. And it was a lot of clever men who realized they could profit by dividing men and women in the sanctity of their most powerful fortress: their solid and loving relationship and marriage. The large majority of the feminist movement was comprised of either those who willingly followed the doctrines, or were silently complicit and sat back to benefit from those changes while doing nothing to stop them.
Divide and conquer, and that is exactly what has happened here. Men and women have been pitted against each other and countless atrocities to both sides have been taken. And worse, the children who are coming up in this type of environment.
The simple, gory truth is that men of power and means sacrificed their brothers, and utilized the natural greed of women who didn’t have the foresight (and mostly still don’t realize) the severe damage they were going to inflict by accepting this deal.
I don’t recall where I read the study but there was a very well-done study that supports Pelle’s claim of the living conditions of many single mother homes. Summed up, boys are 400% more likely to become violent criminals, and young girls are 250% more likely to become promiscuous and teenage pregnant. All of this lines up with many studies that are out there.
So…who’s to blame? We all are. Men and women both. And it has hurt the both of us in so many ways that may be incredibly difficult to repair.
@ Allen
- I wouldn’t hold my breath, mate.