by Joy Jones
“Daddy, what’s the biggest number of numbers?” I remember asking my father that question when I was five years old. I was recounting this episode recently to my friend, Gwen, explaining how my father kept me counting higher and higher.
Whenever I reached a number that seemed really big he would ask, ”Can you add one to that?” and because I always could, I kept going. “And that’s how I learned the concept of infinity,” I told Gwen.
“I always love it when you talk about your Dad,” she said in a wistful tone. Her longing surprised me because I thought she’d had a father in the home. However, her father had worked the evening shift so he was rarely home when she was home. Then he died when she was in junior high school.
And that sigh in her voice reminded me one more time, how very wonderful – and increasingly rare it is – to have a father.
June is not only the month for Father’s Day, it is the most popular month for weddings. This June marks the 60th wedding anniversary of my parents. In wedding day pictures, my mother looks ecstatic. My father looks petrified. Not long ago, I asked him what was he thinking at that time. “Wondering whether or not I was doing the right thing,” he replied.
“So why did you get married?” I asked.
“Because I wanted to have children.”
How times have changed. Love-marriage-baby carriage is no longer the automatic order of things. And even if you start off following the traditional path, there’s no guarantee that you’ll last beyond the proverbial seven-year-itch period. According to the US Census, a first marriage is likely to unravel with a separation in year seven, a divorce in year eight. It is well known that the divorce rate is slightly below 50%.
I have often had friends tell me point blank that they envy or even resent me for having a ‘real’ father. I believe that having a ‘real’ father is not just the result of a man who takes his responsibility to his children seriously although that’s a critical component. Just as it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a confluence of conditions to make a good father – things which now seem to be in short supply.
You’re probably thinking that a good role model is necessary. That certainly makes it better, but I’m not so sure it’s a requirement. My father’s father died when he was twelve yet I give my dad high marks on his parenting skills. One of the most conscientious and committed dads I know, ‘Bumpy’, is a man who did not meet his father until he was a teenager, and then only had conflicted and intermittent contact with his dad. With three marriages, Bumpy’s’ own track record hasn’t exactly been smooth and easy either, yet he is known as ‘Father Hen’ in his extended family because of his active and nurturing role in his sons’ lives. It’s easier when you have a good example, but it doesn’t take a degree in psychology to figure out that if your father didn’t do the right things, then doing the opposite of what he did might be a useful starting point.
Being a decent father is helped by having a wise wife, ideally the woman with whom you created the children. Being a good mother is not only how you treat your children. It’s also how you help shape your children’s view of their father. As I got older, I could see some of my parents’ shortcomings – not just as parents but as a husband and as a wife. If either had sought a divorce, I would have understood their reasons. But they did not bad-mouth one another to me or my siblings. In fact, my mother consistently undertook it to underscore to me the importance of my father’s contribution to the family. After I graduated from college, she would often say to me, “Don’t think just because you have a good job you don’t need a man to have a baby. You may not need the man, but the child needs a father.”
This next requirement is hopelessly obvious, but a family man needs a breadwinner’s job. Most men define themselves primarily as being providers. And most women want a man who is gainfully employed. As one wit noted, nobody would have called the Good Samaritan good if he hadn’t had any money to help out. Sadly, today’s economic world is precarious, especially for what is traditionally regarded as men’s work. The Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that in January 2013, the unemployment rate for manufacturing jobs which employs a lot of men, was 7.9% while the education and health services sector, which employs a lot of women, had a lower rate of 5.4%. Some analysts connect rising unemployment to declining marriage. The Pew Research Center notes that for the first time, there are more young adults in the 25-34 year old range who are unmarried than married, a pattern that increased since the recession.
A lot of people don’t marry until they feel economically secure – and with jobs eliminated by overseas outsourcing or digital technology, that economic security may never come – meaning that a lot of adults never marry, and children never get the “Daddy-what-is-the-biggest-number?” moments.
Finally, a parent needs time. Those who do have jobs have found that eight-hour shifts have become 24/7 leashes. Thanks to technology, we are on-call by the job at all times and in all places. My father is now retired, but when he was working as the clinical manager of a ward of severely ill men at a psychiatric hospital, he came home every day by 6:00 p.m. Although he did receive occasional calls at home, those calls were usually for genuinely urgent matters. That is in contrast to the hourly email check-ins and ceaseless cell phone calls that are routine in many jobs. When you aren’t always thinking about the job, you have time and space to think about other priorities, like family.
Experts and ordinary folks alike recognize the value of a father in the lives of young children, but I can attest that it improves the quality of life for adult children. I pride myself on being able to pay my own bills, but it’s good to know that I have a financial back-up. I have loved and lost the love of more than a couple of men, but I know there’s one man’s love that is rock steady. The ability to complete a college education, choose the right spouse or escape from the wrong one, pull together the deposit on an apartment, have someone to counsel you that doesn’t have to be pre-approved by your insurance plan or face any of the other vicissitudes of adulthood can be eased by having a father in your corner.
The adult world my father entered into in the fifties had most of the afore-mentioned conditions in place to support his desire to be a caring father. That’s not to say the ‘good old days’ were without problems: racial segregation, limited rights for women, communism vs. capitalism, the Cold War. And so, today, we have our own set of challenges. One is to make sure that as society changes, we make progress without discounting the things from the past that have value. It would be a mistake to think that like rotary phones, doo-wop music and love letters written in cursive, a conventional father is a quaint custom that contemporary families have outgrown. A person can be reared by a single mother, a gay couple, or in an orphanage and still grow up fine. One of the remarkable things about human beings is that we are adaptable. But every time I hear someone say to me, “I wish I had grown up with a father… “ I know that the blessings that come from having a good dad number into infinity.
Joy Jones is a Washington, DC writer who often writes about the nuance and complexity of relationships and culture. She wrote the provocative Washington Post op-ed, “Marriage is for White People.” Joy is the author of several books: Between Black Women: Listening With The Third Ear, about male-female relationships;Tambourine Moon, a children’s title which was featured on The Bernie Mac Show; and Private Lessons: A Book of Meditations for Teachers. In addition to writing, Joy is a popular and dynamic speaker and storyteller. Subscribe to her newsletter by emailing joyjones100@cs.com. Or pay a visit at www.JoyJonesOnline.com.