Fathers, We Still Need You
by Aja Dorsey Jackson
This week, a study was released stating that children of lesbian couples were better off than those of straight couples. The study was funded by several gay advocacy groups and tracked 78 women who became pregnant through artificial insemination. There was something that bothered me about this article. I have no interest in debating the issue of gay marriage, or whether or not a lesbian couple can provide a loving home. My issue with this article is with what it implies but does not say. It is a message that is spoken in many different forms but seems to be gaining popularity in our culture. That message is this: that children do not need fathers, and in this case, may be better off without them.
The most recent study is by far not the only way that this message has been relayed. More often it comes in the form of attention given to single mothers, and suggests that women can raise kids alone just as well as they can with a man. I have no doubt that a single mother, a grandmother, or any other capable woman who decides to give a child a loving home can do so. I was a single mother for several years and I am also the product of a single parent household. My mother raised me and my siblings well and did all that she could.
But she couldn’t be my father. No matter what she did she could not provide that Father/Daughter relationship for me, nor could she demonstrate for my brother the day-to-day activity that went into becoming a man. Like many children, my siblings and I adapted and grew up to become productive members of society. Yet that lack of a close relationship between my father and I affected me at every stage of my life, especially as I entered my teenage and dating years.
Now as the mother of a daughter and a son, I see the difference that having an active involved father makes. My daughter has the confidence that comes with being the apple of her father’s eye and doesn’t have to wait for some teenage boy, or grown man, to come in and fill that role of father figure. I see how my husband comes home and does all the wrestling and ball-playing that my son wants to do all day that I have no interest in. I see how he balances out my tendency to be nurturing and to let things slide with a little more discipline. I could try and do all of these things if I had to, but having him by my side gives us the freedom to both do what comes naturally.
Maybe it has developed as a coping mechanism for women raising kids alone, maybe it has to do with a variety of factors, but it seems that while we still regard mothers as vital to a child’s success, the role of fathers seems to be getting pushed further and further into the margins. It seems to me that as a society we are sending a very mixed message to fathers and an even more confusing one to the sons coming up behind them. If we continue to say “We don’t need you” how can we also continue to ask “Why aren’t you there?”
Aja Dorsey Jackson is a freelance writer and public relations consultant in Baltimore, Maryland. Find out more about her at www.ajadorseyjackson.com or follow her on twitter @ajajackson.
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