‘In the park a guy was sitting on the ground. My son asked him if he was his daddy…it is heartbreaking’
"We were in the park the other day and there was a guy sitting on the ground. He walked right up and sat down by that man and asked him if he was his daddy...
"Men do not even have to be of the same race for him to ask if they are his daddy so he is not identifying with men who look like him. He is just identifying with men...This is a daily routine for us and it is heartbreaking."
Syndicated advice columnist Amy Alkon sent me this the other day. It's an email she received from a heroic single mother who adopted the child of two neglectful, drug and alcohol-abusing parents. The mother wrote:
I have a big family. I moved here 7 months ago so he [my adopted son] could be around my family. One of my brothers often takes him places with him and he is usually around my other brother when they go to those places. I was hoping my brothers would be all the male influence he would need or want for now because I totally trust them and they will always be there for me and him. However, he is understanding that they are not "daddy" and is asking for HIS daddy. He has started telling me that they are just his uncles, not his daddy.
We were in the park the other day and there was a guy sitting on the ground. He walked right up and sat down by that man and asked him if he was his daddy. I got there just in time to hear him ask and realized something needed to be done. He can't be going up to strangers because something could happen to him. Normally I keep him close to me but I was sitting on the bench and letting him play on the slides. It is weird because usually he hides behind my legs when a stranger tries to talk to him.
Men do not even have to be of the same race for him to ask if they are his daddy so he is not identifying with men who look like him. He is just identifying with men...This is a daily routine for us and it is heartbreaking and it is starting to be a little scary. I can't keep avoiding his questions and giving him quick fix answers about "daddy" forever.
Ouch. It reminds me of something written by Peggy Drexler, one of the gurus of the Single Motherhood by Choice movement. In my column Raising Boys Without Men: Lesbian Parents Good, Dads Bad (World Net Daily, 9/10/05) I wrote:
Drexler refuses to see obvious indications that the boys she interviews need fathers. When one of Brad’s two moms picks him up from the daycare center after work, every day she has to pry the six year-old off of the leg of an after-school worker named Ron to whom Brad is—pun intended—quite attached. A less determined researcher might see this as evidence of Brad’s need for a dad. Not Drexler, who instead tells us that, given Ron’s presence, Brad’s mom “knew she didn’t need to worry about Brad’s lack of an everyday father in his life.”
Julia’s little boy says “I want a daddy.” Darlene’s little boy tells his mom “we could find a daddy and he could move in with us.” Three year-old Ian--fatherless by the decision of his “single mother by choice” mom Leslie--watches TV with mom, continually pointing at male figures on the screen and saying “there’s my daddy.” Leslie explains “no, we don’t have a daddy in our family,” but little Ian doesn’t get it and continues to point and ask. A problem? Not according to Drexler, who writes “Will some little boys trail after men they don’t even know, perk up at lower-decibel voices, or hang on to the pant legs of the men who cross their paths? Maybe.” But whatever it is, she assures us, it isn’t father hunger.
She enthuses that “sons of lesbians went to great efforts to define the terms of the bonds and relationships in their lives that the boys from straight families seemed to take for granted. All terms in their lives were complex.” Is this a good thing?
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