TEXANNE writes:

Emily Hall in this previous entry rightly admires her mother for the way she managed the household and children during many long absences of the father. Her description of her mother as being “both father and mother,” immediately struck a chord because, in a way, it seems to give short shrift to the reality of her father’s genuine significance and active role as head of the family. Even if he happened to be away fulfilling his obligations to his family,  they knew their father was real, knew who he was and why he was away and that he would come back. 

Father away on business was not uncommon for many of us growing up in the post-war business boom. But even while our mothers were tending the home fires, the awareness of the husband and father and his role in the family was constant. We implicitly understood that his working and traveling was exactly what enabled us to have a home and a mother who was there to care for us with the means he provided, and we felt safe. 

Single mothers are often described as being heroically “both father and mother,” but this same phrase has an entirely different meaning when there is no father — when he was a mere sperm-donor or when he has absconded or been disposed of. 

It took me a while to recognize in my life as a wife and mother with a professional career how easily I and many of my women friends seemed to slip into the toxic martyr mentality of being “both mother and father” — trying to do it all, working full time as well as attempting to provide the home life that most of us grew up in. How much expert advice has been offered about how two-career couples must share household chores and child-rearing, and how unfair it was for our incompetent, insensitive husbands to leave it all to us? How many hours did we overburdened women spend together complaining of our useless spouses and lamenting our predicament? 

Of course, we were suffering from circumstances brought on largely by ourselves — as we had been conditioned by our supposed role-models that we could and should be able to do both jobs of traditional motherhood and fatherhood with careful management and efficiency. 

The disasterous results of this kind of thinking and behavior (compulsion?) throw the family dynamics into chaos, and tend to leave husbands and fathers marginalized and confused about whether they might, in fact, be unnecessary. A particular illustration of this unraveling is illustrated in the essay of Sandra Tsing Loh published in The Atlantic a while back.

Laura writes:

That’s an excellent insight. A father who is absent because of work is still present.

                                                     — Comments —

L. writes:

Beyond absence by duty, there is absence by fate. I have heard that there is stark epidemiological evidence to suggest that the effect on children of loss of their father due to death is wholly different from loss of father due to divorce. The conclusion of the paper linked includes this:

In contrast, children from widowed single-mother homes are not significantly different than those from two-biological-parent families on any of these dimensions, with the exception of having  slightly lower odds of completing high school.

My father lost his father at the age of 13. Forgiving my bias, aside from choosing a poor major in college leading to a blue color career, he seemed to be an excellent father and husband and, though wounded, was not significantly damaged by the loss of his father. Had his father lived, he would have pushed him differently in college, since my grandfather was both an English and physics major, later becoming a lawyer.

Laura writes:

Good point, There is a big difference.

Jesse Powell writes:

There’s a book out called “The Other Wes Moore” about two different men, both named Wes Moore, who grew up in the same neighborhood, were both fatherless, both got into some trouble while growing up, but ended up with wildly divergent fates; one Wes Moore is serving a life sentence in prison for murder while the other became a Rhodes Scholar and successful businessman.  

Once, when the successful Wes Moore was interviewing “The Other Wes Moore” in prison for his book the imprisoned Wes Moore told him, “Your father couldn’t be there but my father chose not to be there.” That is the key difference between children of divorced mothers or mothers who never got married in the first place and the children of widowed mothers; there is a big difference between abandoning your children involuntarily, through death, and abandoning them by choice for lifestyle reasons or personal preference. 

I would add, from the child’s point of view, it is better to be a child of divorce than it is to be the child of a never married mother; this is why I have no sympathy for the so called “marriage strike” being advocated by the men’s rights supporters; it is better to try to create a good environment to raise your children within, by getting married to your partner first, and then fail at a later date due to divorce than it is to never even try to create a good environment for the children in the first place by not getting married. 

Sarah F. writes:

My husband serves in the Army National Guard, and has been deployed for two and a half years out of the last five years. This is not including special training camps, monthly camps, and domestic deployments such as flood duty two years in a row. He left on his first deployment when I was eight months pregnant with our first child, and didn’t come home for sixteen months. A month before his second deployment we discovered I was expecting our second child. This deployment only lasted nine months, and he was able to watch our baby grow during her first year. I am writing this because as an Army wife I have learned something about the importance of the father. Father is more than important to a child and to the well being of a family. When my husband is in the field I am on my own. I can’t call him to ask how I should handle the finances or how I should discipline our children. I do shoulder the burden of keeping the home fires burning on my own. However my children still know that their father loves them. We try and teach them to be proud, but it’s terribly sad for them when he is gone. Terribly sad. I could NEVER be a father to my son. I have taken my son fishing, played base ball with him, and even built tents with him in the yard. However, we are all aware that I could never fill the father void. There is a very special bond that sons have with their fathers, and no matter how wonderful of a mother I am, I could never be his father. Children need both their father and mother. I see it first hand every day when my husband is in the field. At least in our situation, even when my husband is gone he remains in spirit as the head of our home. The children know that their father is away serving our country, doing his duty. So, they know why he has to be gone. They understand that even when he is physically gone, he is still here. My son has respect for his father. I’ve seen so many men (and women) leave their families….adultery or boredom or simple pure selfishness. I can’t imagine how the crumbling of a child’s stable home life would adversely effect his development. Certainly, a mother is NOT capable of being a father. She can be an excellent mother, but something in the boy will always be hungering for that father/son bond. The “single mothers can be mother and father” lie is incredibly sad. When my husband is home, he makes every effort to grow a deep relationship with his children. I can read my son bedtime stories, but when daddy does it…it takes on a whole new meaning for our child. I read Winny the Pooh and my husband reads him children’s physics books, wrestling books, ect. With my husband my son feels like “one of the guys”. With me….he feels like my little boy. I am extremely grateful that my children have such a good father. I see how important his role in their lives is….and I wouldn’t wreck that for my kids….not for anything.

Laura writes:

Not only is a father important because the child – both girl and boy – desires a connection for all the reasons Sarah mentions, but also he frees up the mother to be a a mother.

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