One cannot presume that the non-involvement of the Dad is his choice. Here I speak anecdotely but many divorces in my practice include Dads who want to stay involved and Moms who do not want them to be involved. If Mom is given sole custody, as is the norm, and the parents have little ability to communicate with each other (no duh, or else the divorce would have been less likely) then Dad being dealt out of involvement in significant decisions, day-today decisions, and eventually any relationship at all, is not shocking. Their war is fought on the batleground of the child. When there was no marriage at all then a bad blood break-up makes it the more tempting for Dad to be dealt out of the equation. Who is being the crappy parent here though?
And you fail to appreciate the importance of “out of wedlock” births and the problem of absent fathers. The point is that these families are somewhat at risk from the start even with the best of intentions. It is a family that can disintegrate easily.
Also there is the significant demographic aspect. Remember that 12% of American Black males in their 20’s and 30’s are incarcerated. Source. So take that “Fragile Family” and put Dad not just out of state but behind bars and not a surprise that he doesn’t come out to raise a family with a picket fence white or otherwise.
Now, how much of that tripling is a difference in measurement system. (i.e. it is generally beleive that child abuse has gone done, but reporting has gone up - therefore statistically child abuse has increased, but some experts believe it a measurement system error). And how much of it is choice (I have a single friend who adopted a girl from China - there is no absent father because there never was a father, other than in the biological sense). To get from 9 to 12% statistically isn’t hard to get to just in measurement error and choice.
And I’m still not convinced about the big picture. A well known “family secret” is that one of my grandmother’s sisters (born in the 1920s - my mother’s side of stricter Catholic Germans, rather than my fathers side of “Its believable that my grandmother was knocked up by her boyfriend at 15”) was a cousin born out of wedlock. But given that all my great grandmothers children were born at home on a farm five miles out of town, it wasn’t hard at all to show up in church with a newborn and claim it as your own. There would have been no record of that birth being anything other than my great grandmother’s child. And if the rest of the town suspected (or flat out knew) no one was going to say anything - next time it might be their sister needing a convienent family “adoption.” Until the majority of births were in hospitals, this sort of fiction (as well as the “pregnant widow” who was never married) was easy to maintain.
What? Maybe you should spend less time trying to analyze my “agenda” and more time finding out why your daughter doesn’t speak to you anymore. You seem to have bigger issues to deal with. Please stop trying to hijack my thread.
Sorry, I meant to put some cites in there to better explain where I’m coming from, but it was late and I figured I’d address that issue when I had more time. I wasn’t necessarily saying fathers are worse today than they were “x” number of years ago, however it seems like the end result is certainly worse.
Not only are absent fathers far more common, there are other peripheral issues that I think are troubling. For example:
Here are some more interesting statistics regrading absent fathers.
Clearly, there is a strong relationship between absent fathers and troubled children. The fact that there are more absent fathers today then in the past leads me to believe that collectively, fathers are doing a worse job. That’s not to say that there aren’t plenty good ones out there, but my experience leads me to believe the general statement I made is true. Another troubling aspect of this, for me, is that my anecdotal experiences are mostly about people who’ve come from positive economic circumstances. I grew up in a fairly affluent area. Most of the people I’m basing my opinion are upper-middle class white people. That’s partially why this is so perplexing to me.
The father seems to be cooperating fully in this particular lack of involvement by surrendering the telephone to the mother. If he is the main caregiver and knows more about the situation, as well he should, then he should be quite capable of asking the right questions and calm enough to handle a “berating” wife. He is responsible for his own actions.
One can presume that if a dad really wants to be involved in his child’s life, he will get court ordered visitation and will take the bitch to court every other Tuesday before he lets her come between him and his children.
I cannot believe a parent who says that she or he wants to be involved in the kid’s life but the ex won’t allow it – unless that parent has been determined by the courts to be unfit.
Which brings me to my last point. It is a disgrace that fathers don’t have equal standing in custody hearings. If the ERA had passed, fathers should have had a much better chance. (My own father was the nurturing force in my life. I wouldn’t have survived emotionally without him.)
Zoe, obviously you are not a married man. We married men, if we’re smart anyway, learn what fights are worth having. Generally we just do it her way. She wants the info, she wants to be in charge of the kids diarrhea, fine. Give me my marching orders. And I’m a pediatrician at work. At home I’m just Dad and my word don’t mean diddly. Truth is she has concerns that I don’t have, and the purpose of the call for Dads is less the information than it is setttling Mom’s concerns.
Likewise you fail to recognize how difficult it is for even the well intended seperated father to maintain a good relationship if he is being dissed and dismissed by the mother. Impossible? No. But very diffficult, yes.
bb, There are at least two issues mixed together here: absent fathers and present fathers. No doubt a parent who is absent is of poor quality and it does appear that “fragile families” have made this a more common occurance. Once again demographics plays a significant role. But that same data you quote shows what a good job present fathers do. A minority of youth suicides come from father-present homes, only 10% of run-aways come from father present homes, only 15% of youth in prison come from father present homes, etc … And I would posit that if those stats were further broken down that father-present would not so much mean in the household but as an involved force in the childs life. That is father absence more than non-residential is the poorest indicator. Together this reads like a story of how non-crappy Dads are today if they choose to/are able to/are allowed to stay involved as Dads. Of course these are just associations and may be markers for other risk factors that cause both the father absence and the poor outcomes … cautious interpretation is warranted.
I suspect that this is less a feature of Dads as it is of non-custodial parent, which usually turns out to be Dad. I’ll try to dig up some numbers on non-custodial Mom outcomes later.
Thank you for saying that! I feel better because I always end up deferring to her because she is “medical” but it’s good to know that, even if I were much more medical than she, I’d STILL be an idiot.
Typical conversation:
Wife: “You call the doctor’s office. See when’s the earliest we can make an appointment.”
I dial and talk to the nurse a bit.
Wife: “Ask New Question #1.”
I ask New Question #1, pass along the reply, and go back to trying to make the appointment.
Wife: “Ask New Question #2.”
My hand on the mouthpiece, I suggest that, if she has specific questions she didn’t mention before I dialed, she should talk to the damned nurse herself.
Wife: “No, you should be more involved in your children’s lives.”
I ask New Question #2, pass along the reply, and finally make the appointment. I make some small talk with the nurse, awaiting the almost certain interruption for New Question #3. It is not forthcoming so I hang up.
Wife: “Why didn’t you ask New Question #3?”
I squish my anger into a tiny, black ball and dial the phone.
But isn’t the subordinate role you (if I’m understanding you correctly) and other fathers have at home evidence of the diminishing impact fathers have. It seems as though you still manage to be a good father while differing a lot of the responsibility to your wife, but I think that being involved in such a manner would be harder for less capable dads to achieve the same result. I don’t mean to be insulting, so I apologize if it came off that way, but I think what you describe is becoming more and more common.
Very good point. The fact that there are more absent fathers means that, collectively, fathers are doing a worse job (IMO). I know absent fathers and bad custodial fathers are two separate issues, but I think the two are related in many ways. I think one of the problems is related to what you were saying. While I’ve heard many husbands who say they, “pick their battles with their wives,” and, “just do what she says rather than argue,” I don’t hear many wives saying that. I don’t know whether these husbands are afraid of their wives, or are trying to avoid conflict, but I think they cede a lot of their power in exchange for comfort and regularity. To me, this attitude borders on the kind of weakness and passivity that is detrimental to children.
Perhaps, I would appreciate it if you can elaborate on this.
You don’t talk to many women. Women also pick their battles. My mother has yet to see my father put a dish in the dishwasher – drives her batty. But she just puts the dishes in anyway, picking her battles for the things she NEEDS done. There are a few battles I don’t fight with Brainiac4, not important enough. Likewise there are a few he doesn’t pick with me - its the nature of marriage.
With kids, in most (not all) households, the woman is the primary caregiver. So she does know more about the children. So the father may choose to defer to her expertise (your son doesn’t like those kinds of socks).
I know very few successful relationships were either partner is in a subordinate role. In most cases there is a partnership, which each person taking a subordinate role in some respects, playing on each others strengths.
BTW, I’d think Brainiac4 is the primary caregiver in our house - we both work full time, but I think he has a better handle on our kids. But I front the primary caregiver role to the outside world - I take them to most doctors and dentist appointments, for instance.
Likewise to Dangerosa’s house. I actually do more of the kid stuff. I read the bedtime stories (did with my eldest up through Freshman in HS year and still do with the incoming HS Freshman), I make the dinners and pack the lunches. I sit on the couch watching bad cartoons and go on the bike rides. I check the homework and get them to do the chores. I monitor what they are doing on the web. But my wife manages the household. She organizes. She does the piano practice cause I have zero musical ability. Don’t get me wrong, we bicker plenty. She knows when I disagree and she usually gives in on the few times I really feel that strongly about something. But usually she holds her views a bit more intensely than I do mine and I respect them. She tolerates most of my quirks and I mostly tolerate hers. Hers are fairly typical for working married women in today’s America. The woman is “supposed” to be the prime childcare provider. Either they resentfully do it in addition to their jobs outside the home and encourage Dad to be more passive parents, or they feel like the rest of the world needs to get the impression that they do …or else they are less of a woman (or so they have been conditioned to believe). But most of all, she worries more. That and the stupid bit about toliet seats must be left down!
BTW, in case you ever do get married, my word of advice: the greatest strength you can have in a marriage is the ability to not have it your way. This is not weakness, it is not passivity and it is not detrimental to the children.
I cannot find much on non-custodial mothers. But one article seems to show that non-custodial moms do better at staying in touch than do non-custodial Dads.
While I’d like to see that two groups were otherwise comparable (age that they had become parents, ever having lived together, SES, etc) this is the best we have to work with so I’ll have to tentatively accept that non-custodial Moms are less crappy than non-custodial Dads.
Still the biggest issues are the ones that lead to so many fragile families in the first place. IMHO.
Just so we are clear, I “front” primary caregiver because I have the less demanding job - so traditionally I can haul them to the dentist and doctor and swing by the school. I’m not resentful of it, its the way it is. Nor do I do it to create some sort of external impression. But despite me probably spending more time with the kids, he handles them better. Play to each others strengths and abilities. Your either/or needs a third - women who do co-parent and aren’t resentful about it nor do they feel less womanly or motherly. (Most of us feel, honestly, rather relieved that there is another adult capable of taking kids to t-ball in the house).
I do like Brainiac4 to do it once it a while - so my boss doesn’t look at me everytime I leave for the dentist with that “I have a wife for that” look. And so he is familar with who the peditrician is and where we take our kids to the dentist.
That’s quite different from saying that she “prevents” them from being “more involved.” (Your words) Don’t blame her if you don’t think that being more involved is worth taking a stand.
Anecdotal. Do you think you might be projecting this situation onto the parents of your patients?
You are really combining your own experience at home and projecting that onto all of your Dads and Moms. How do you know that it is always just the Mom that is concerned?
No, I know that parents who bad mouth the other parent are doing a disservice to the child. But I have seen children battle their way through dismissive put downs to love the non-custodial parent unconditionally. That’s because the dad was very loving to the children with his attention even though he didn’t pay child support. It’s not so difficult when the father spends time with his children. They respond to actions more than words.
Besides, I was responding only to this comment which is patently false unless the court has determined that there is a good reason why he should not see his children:
It is not up to the mother!
My advice on marriage: Marry someone who is flexible, has a sense of humor, and knows how to be happy. But first, learn to be all of those things on your own.
Sorry Dangerosa if I unintentionally implied something about your specifics.
No Zoe, this is not projection. I’ll state less sweeping though: Many Moms have cannot help but try to play to what they believe are society’s expectations of them and in the process block some Dads’ attempts to do more, and other times enable Dads’ passivity. That better.
You are being a bit naive if you do not recognize the gattekeeper role the custodial parent serves no matter what the court has ruled.
We learn how to be parents (before actually becoming parents ourselves) by (a) learning from the example of our caregivers (be they biological parents, grandparents, adoptive parents or otherwise) and to a lesser extent by (b) taking on limited caregiver responsibilities (babysitting, supervising younger siblings, cousins, etc.).
families tend to be smaller (fewer children) and more scattered geographically than was historically the case, so we are getting less experience from “practice” caregiver jobs and fewer models of caregivers to emulate
specifically for boys, they are not encouraged to get babysitting experience, where this is a common early paid job for girls
previous few generations of fathers were breadwinners, with bringing up kids being a designated job for mothers, whether they were stay-at-home or also working outside the home; this makes it not surprising that some men who are becoming fathers now have little idea how to be a good father, and only know how to play with the child
Societal expectations have a big impact on both moms and dads:
-moms are still expected to be primary caregiver, regardless of what a husband & wife team feels works best for them; this often affects how much they let fathers participate in childcare
-dads are portrayed in advertising and popular media as well-meaning but incompetent (think of cold-remedy ads, Tim Allen shows/movies)
-most men now seem to want to be more involved in their children’s lives, but the tacit and overt discouragement they get from all sides is really hard to overcome.
My husband trupa tells me that despite my support and encouragement, he found that my mother (when she stayed with us for the first 6 weeks post-delivery of trusquirt) kept brushing him away, rather than helping him learn how to take care of new baby. I know she was trying to make sure that I (not we) would be able to manage baby when she left. Only when trupa went on pat leave and took care of our 9 month old for 3 months, did he develop confidence in his ability as a father and an enjoyment of parenting our child. (Please don’t get me started on the negative feedback from my husband’s work colleagues when he announced that he was taking pat leave, nor on the derision from previous generation males that was thinly disguised as teasing.) Many new fathers trupa has known have said that they had a similar experience with new baby, and ended up feeling incompetent at parenting (and like a 5th wheel at home) and so retreating to an area where they did feel competent: paid work outside the home. The care I give our son is “to be expected”, in the eyes of family and friends, while the (same level of ) care my husband gives our son is “above anything that can be expected of a man” – my mother and mother-in-law are both astounded, and frequently mention that their husbands would never have participated in baby and toddler care.
Subsequently, trupa has decided to leave his job and become a stay-at-home parent, while I continue to bring home the bacon. Trupa’s mother is horrified, and my father (a university professor) has been spouting homilies on how men are not biologically suited to staying at home without a paying job. Somehow I suspect the reaction would have been different if I as mother had made the decision to quit my paid job instead …
Points that other posters raised are also important, such as easier access & less stigma for divorce and less opportunity for learning childcare skills when both parents work outside the home.
serious lark, thank you for your thoughtful and well written response. I tend to agree with much of what you said, but I wonder what you think can be done to fix this problem and reverse this trend?
But that’s a tautology, isn’t it? You’re saying, in effect, “Dads are non-crappy when they choose (or are allowed) to be non-crappy.” That does nothing to answer why the crappy ones are crappy. Or is crappiness the natural condition?
serious lark, I agree with everything you wrote about how we as individuals and as a society undermine the efforts of fathers and encourage them to be incompetent. I think it’s an interesting problem, and one which deserves attention and change.
Thanks for the praise! I don’t pretend to have the solution, but here are my thoughts for what they’re worth:
when I was expecting, there were prep courses at our local hospital not just for labour & delivery issues, but also specifically for fathers-to-be to learn from experienced fathers about what to expect with new baby, their advice for handling new baby,etc. Dads-to-be should go (and be encouraged to go) to these classes. I believe trupa found the knowledge he gained in these classes helped him to a certain extent in dealing with the dismissive treatment from my mother; even if he had no experience, he could hold on to the fact that he had been taught by qualified professionals and he could do babycare.
-wives, mothers, mothers-in-law, sisters, etc: we have to look beyond societal pressures that make us feel inadequate if we are not primary caregiver for our child(ren) and be willing to share childcare responsibilities with the fathers. Not only that, but we have to support and encourage them when the fathers get involved, not crowd them out when they don’t do things the way we would or when other people are watching. Men need to speak up if they are getting crowded out, and not just let themselves be pushed “out of the way”.
-wait for the attitudes of the older generation to change or be replaced by those of our own. Men need to be encouraged to take pat leave despite the workplace culture of looking down on men who do - I think this is one of those virtuous circle things, that once a certain critical percentage of fathers take pat leave, this will become societally accepted. Obviously, I think men who decide to become stay-at-home parents should be encouraged and supported as well, but getting society at large to encourage this will probably be a huge uphill battle, given that society is more interesting in getting mothers to work outside of the home (and farm out childcare to daycares etc) than in encouraging them to stay home to take care of their children.
-media portrayals of fathers needs to be improved. If we can challenge ads and TV shows for being racist, sexist, etc, surely we can denounce ads that depict fathers as less competent than their children in domestic tasks, let alone their wives. Try picturing mothers presented in the same way … and then imagine the uproar.
