Several years ago, it seemed an annual ritual that Father’s Day was celebrated by some by denigrating bad fathers. Namely, fathers that left families or that never pay child support or whatnot. I am not sorry that tradition has passed. I really hope, though, that it is not replaced by a new tradition of questioning the necessity of fathers. This is being held up by, among other things, a study suggesting that lesbian parents are the best parents of all.
The problem with the lesbian study is that it is comparing apples to oranges. Lesbian parents are by necessity one of two kinds: artificial insemination or adoptive. They compared these parents to all straight couple and single parents. That would include those that never intended to be parents or that barely wanted to be parents. Meanwhile, Lesbian parents - by virtue of having more hoops to jump - are far more likely to have made a much more deliberate choice for parenthood and thus are more likely to be prepared for parenthood. They are also more likely to be educated and have enough money (or at least enough discipline on meager earnings) to be able to afford adoption or insemination. If being a natural parent cost between $500-2000 up front before the pregnancy even begins, you’d likely see better results for straight parents, too. The results would have been far more meaningful if they had compared adopted and inseminated children of straight households compared to Lesbian ones.
None of this is to denigrate the results of the study or suggest that they are meaningless. They do tell us that Lesbians make good parents and that we don’t have any real reason - excepting opposition to homosexuality itself - to prohibit Lesbian couples from being parents. But they don’t tell us much useful beyond that except for the rare bisexual who is making a decision to marry a man and have a child with him or to have a child with her Lesbian suitor. Most women aren’t Lesbians, though, and the results are not clear enough to suggest that they try really hard at Lesbianism for the betterment of their future children.
But the results do seem clear enough to some to question the necessity of fathers. Leaving aside huge social ramifications that would make almost nobody better off (which I will get to in a bit), the alternative to most straight women of having a father in their child’s life is… not having a father in their child’s life. The research on that is pretty clear (Pamela Paul’s provocatively entitled “Are Fathers Necessary” essay bends over backwards to avoid mentioning that while women single moms do better than single dads they do not do better than moms-and-dads, in the aggregate). There are many, many competent single mothers that do not need the help of a man to raise their children (and many fathering men from whom it is better to keep children away from), but there are enough that cannot manage it on their own for this solution to be without cause for concern on a wider scale. Though it seems not to matter a whole lot what the gender of the second parent is, two parents is better than one. There are some ideas about how we could go back to a society in which the two parents includes a mother and a grandmother or two women pooling their resources, but is this an idea that we want to risk society on?
No. Not the least of which because society benefits a great deal when men are involved in the family. Having a family gives men a stake in society. One of my favorite stories (perhaps one of those false-but-accurate stories) is an ad campaign to convince men to wear life vests. They tried a number of pitches to men, but far and away the most effective one showed a man drowned in water and two very scared children in a boat. The way to get men to behave responsibly was to show them what they were responsible for. My father-in-law describes the birth of my wife as the event that forced him to approach his career more seriously and work harder to provide for his near family.
If you look at cultures in which men are not involved in the family, you see cultures that have extreme difficulty progressing. When you look at the fatherless inner-city, you can either say that the women are having such a hard time of it because the men are so much more likely to desert them or you can say that the men are so rotten as to be unwelcome. Both of these point to the need for fatherhood. If not to provide for the women (we’ll even make the most charitable assumption that the women are providing for themselves), then to keep the men in line. But the charitable assumption is very often incorrect and they are very frequently needed to provide money for the children. If not in the form of child support than in the form of taxes. That brings me back to my father-in-laws comment about how productive men are without a stake in the family. Yes, some men are extremely productive regardless, but there is a difference between providing for children you’re going home to and providing tax funds to take care of kids you have no access to. And even if you are inclined to believe that women could take care of it on their own because they’re coming into their own financially, you still have a problem of worker-to-supported-child ratio of a society in which everyone invested in society can bear children of their own.
The speciousness of the argument that fathers don’t matter is more-or-less revealed by our approach to child support. At the very least they matter on a material level. And by participating on a material level, they have at least earned the right to participate in the child’s lives (until or unless demonstrated otherwise). To treat fatherhood as a courtesy to men because, as Pamela Paul put it, “we’ve gotten used to him,” is to confirm the most odious arguments made by skeptics of our child support system. And though in my younger years I might have gotten a kick out of having the ability to father children without any of the rights and responsibilities thereto, I simply would not want to live in a society in which that was the norm. There is a reason why societies, cultures, and subcultures in which parenthood is a joint effort succeed.
I sure wouldn’t want to do it alone. I never even considered going the single mother route, even if it meant I couldn’t have kids otherwise. Of course, who knows, maybe I would have changed my mind, but I really doubt it. I gew up in a single-parent family. Before my dad was widowered (if that’s a word), things were lot better.
We didn’t starve or die or anything afterward, but I never thought “Hey, this is so great I want to replicate it voluntarily!”
Comment by stone — June 20, 2010 @ 11:04 pm
What I’ve been realizing recently is: Many women seem to think it is THEIR JOB as women to have children. They think they have a fundamental duty to have children.
Therefore, they also think they have a fundamental right to support, by some man or entity, as they satisfy this obligation of theirs. It’s not really that they’re craftily strategizing to get support for themselves, as it’s tempting to think.
The philosophy of limiting one’s reproduction to children you personally can arrange support for — that only applies to people who consider having children a privilege. But when you think about it, we’re biologically hardwired to think otherwise.
And we also need to acknowledge that there are many, many women who would simply not be able to have children if they had to find either a job or a man who would and could voluntarily support them.
Some of us — mostly the smarter ones, I think — can intellectually override the sense of obligation. Maybe some of us don’t feel it much in the first place. But many other women feel this is WHAT WE WERE PUT ON THE EARTH TO DO, NO MATTER WHAT.
Society really gives us a conflicting message there. People complain about welfare mothers, but they also complain about childless career women. And many people speak very disparagingly of women who terminate their pregnancies. Often this is not for religious reasons, but just because there’s a fundamental disgust for women who go against Nature’s Plan for us.
Comment by stone — June 20, 2010 @ 11:15 pm
It doesn’t seem that any of the studies adjusted for IQ of either the parent or the child. They never do.
I just think there’s a world of difference between a single mother who needs public assistance to get by, and someone like Maureen O’Dowd. But the O’Dowds are few, the public assistees are many.
And I view it not as what’s best for the individual child, but what’s best for society. How many children do we need? What does it take for them to be productive? We’ve had a couple of regular visitors to Hit Coffee who are very bright children of welfare parents. This cuts against my general feeling that children of single parents on welfare are unlikely to be productive, stable and law-abiding. Is it worth it for society to keep its birth rate up by supporting mothers to have children?
Think about the likely offspring of a successful, bright single mother such as Maureen O’Dowd. Or think of Megan, the former blogger who’s an engineer. She was thinking about going that route for a while. She apparently has some family who would be pretty supportive, too. Wouldn’t those single mothers’ kids be lucky? Sure, their situation isn’t ideal, but won’t they still have it pretty good? Wouldn’t we expect them to grow up bright and successful? Or do we think it’s an absolute rule that no one should plan children without an involved father, no matter what else the mother brings to the table.
Comment by stone — June 20, 2010 @ 11:59 pm
Many women seem to think it is THEIR JOB as women to have children. They think they have a fundamental duty to have children.
Am I wrong in thinking that there might be a correlation between this and people who don’t have much else to offer in terms of career or other success? It seems understandable to me that if you’re at something of a dead end in life that you would focus on the one thing that you can contribute that society places some value on. A sort of “fall back” without it consciously being so?
Society really gives us a conflicting message there. People complain about welfare mothers, but they also complain about childless career women.
I think this goes to your next comment. There are certain preferences when it comes to who we wish would be childless (or at least keep offspring to a minimum) and who we wish to replicate more of. Sometimes without meaning it. Hugo Schwyzer commented on this a while back, getting very angry at people who say that it’s great that people like him have children. I think this was right after the post where he was upset that someone complimented his little one’s blue eyes.
Regarding your third comment (which I’m too lazy to pick out a representative quote), I think that Megan would be a great mother. I think a lot of people are capable of being good mothers and would oppose a marriage requirement for artificial insemination.
But most people aren’t Megan. I think that people like her and Maureen O’Dowd are exceptions to the rule.
I also think that there is a hierarchy (pertaining to the benefit to society, not necessarily the benefit to her) even for people like Megan:
1) Megan finds right guy, marries him, has his kid
2) Megan has child on her own
3) Megan has child with wrong guy
4) Megan does not reproduce
I think that the hierarchy differs from person to person mostly in that #4 moves up to become somewhere around #1-3. Numbers 2 and 3 may reverse when we get down to the nitty gritty of “how wrong is the guy?” But I struggle to think of a situation where #2 is going to rank higher than #1 and while there are situations where the difference between #1 and #2 is minimal or even non-existent, I would consider those situations to be extremely rare in the greater scheme of things.
Comment by trumwill — June 21, 2010 @ 12:30 am
“But most people aren’t Megan. I think that people like her and Maureen O’Dowd are exceptions to the rule.”
Aha, so we’re at least in agreement about what constitutes “the rule” and “the exceptions?”
The Rule is that one person isn’t competent enough to parent and provide well on his or her own. (At least not as well as we’d like. Isn’t one of the reasons Nature wants us to have two parents is so we have a spare?)
There is an Exception for high competence, which includes (but is not limited to) intelligence and earning ability.
Comment by stone — June 21, 2010 @ 8:43 am
“Hugo Schwyzer commented on this a while back, getting very angry at people who say that it’s great that people like him have children. I think this was right after the post where he was upset that someone complimented his little one’s blue eyes.”
See, I feel the opposite. Society had damned well better be grateful for me having and raising children! This is a LOT to expect someone to do just for their own personal fulfillment. It’s a huge expense, both physically and monetarily.
I doubt I’d have just come up on my own with the idea to raise a family, absent social conditioning. With the social pressure should come some social reward.
Comment by stone — June 21, 2010 @ 8:49 am
One of the advantages of having two parents is that there is always a back-up to help a family withstand life’s slings and arrows. Even a high-earning single parent can become ill or incapacitated in some way. In a two-parent household the other partner usually can pick up the slack if there’s illness, a layoff, etc.
Comment by Maria — June 21, 2010 @ 8:55 am
“Am I wrong in thinking that there might be a correlation between this and people who don’t have much else to offer in terms of career or other success? It seems understandable to me that if you’re at something of a dead end in life that you would focus on the one thing that you can contribute that society places some value on. A sort of “fall back” without it consciously being so?”
I thought that for a long time. But then, how do we explain teen mothers? The theory makes more sense for women who’ve been adults for a while. Teens should still be fantasizing that they’re going to be superstars.
MOST women aren’t going to have much career success. Heck, most people aren’t, but especially most women. Again, Maureen O’Dowd (a successful and famous female writer) is an outlier. Most of us who work have mediocre jobs, even those on the higher end of the professional scale. I make less than the average male attorney, although more than the average male college graduate, and more than the average working mother.
For many thousands of years — until the past two or three decades — all we were SUPPOSED to have to do was bear and raise children. This was to be our great shining accomplishment as women.
I think there’s an *override* that kicks in for those comparative few of us who can have a nice lifestyle on our own (or with a very limited family size). And the more intelligent one is, the more one is likely to make a reasoned analysis of how you’ll live with kids, or with X number of kids, versus without. And, one is more likely to develop other areas of reward.
Comment by stone — June 21, 2010 @ 9:04 am
“In a two-parent household the other partner usually can pick up the slack if there’s illness, a layoff, etc.”
For sure. I mean, it would have sucked if my mother, who died, had been a single mother! Now, it’s true that many of these single mother families seem to have extended family support. That counts for a lot. Like, Lady Raine appears to have her sister living with her (along with her sister’s kids). I sure hope she’s getting some help in return for the financial support she’s providing.
But while extended family support is good, the law only recognizes two people as parents: The father and the mother. I get various relatives hassling me all the time, because they think that the fact they helped raise a child gives them legal rights. It doesn’t.
Comment by stone — June 21, 2010 @ 9:11 am
I want to know about the adult productivity of the children of people in these different arrangements, particularly those on public assistance. I don’t see it as a moral issue.
What if it turned out that we’re better off with them than without them? In other words: We need “x” amount of new people produced each year for whatever purpose. We’re better off getting them as the fruit of single parents and raising them on the taxpayer dime than we would be not having them at all.
Few people would argue that society would be better off if *I* didn’t exist, and I’m mostly the product of a single-parent family. Does the fact that it wasn’t planned that way really make a difference?
Comment by stone — June 21, 2010 @ 9:19 am
God damn it Trumwill, why couldn’t you have posted this yesterday, before I spaced fathers’ day? I’m predicting a very long comment thread for this one. I’m sure I’ve mentioned appreciating hit coffee for providing a forum for topics like this one where everyone isn’t batshit crazy, but it’s worth saying again.
Comment by rob — June 21, 2010 @ 10:47 am
The problem with the lesbian study…
There’s another problem you didn’t mention. The study assumes that parents stay together. This isn’t true for gays or straights, but it’s more true of straights. Lesbian divorce rates are astronomical. So children born of Lesbian parents are more likely to end up in single-parent homes than straight parents.
Comment by Raymond — June 21, 2010 @ 11:17 am
Aha, so we’re at least in agreement about what constitutes “the rule” and “the exceptions?”
Well, exceptions when it comes to single women having children over not having children. I think a majority of the time it would be beneficial if they were not single even if they are capable of taking care of the kid by themselves.
But yeah, when it comes to not having children at all, I think society benefits when some single women do and when other single women do not. There are probably more in the latter category. I still think that society should not withhold support from the latter, but that’s something of a different subject.
I would also add that some exceptions are okay under a wide array of circumstances as long as they are exceptions. I think there reaches a tipping point within a culture where it starts to become a problem. I don’t know where that tipping point is. But a few single mothers without the ability to care and properly raise their children in a middle class community isn’t going to hurt things all that much. But when they reach a certain number, it becomes a cultural problem.
I doubt I’d have just come up on my own with the idea to raise a family, absent social conditioning. With the social pressure should come some social reward.
Interesting you should say that. Post on the subject later this week or maybe next.
I thought that for a long time. But then, how do we explain teen mothers? The theory makes more sense for women who’ve been adults for a while. Teens should still be fantasizing that they’re going to be superstars.
True. I think I am assuming too long future time horizons here. I should ammend the statement to say “failing to contribute now or without the prospect of contributing in the future.” Teenagers are in a situation where they have spent their lives without contributing. Teenage stories are fraught with children trying to find a place in the world. Now, those with parents having them on the right path, with the right frame of mind, and with good time horizons will know that they will contribute in the future (if not as superstars).
I know that I was more indifferent to fatherhood when I was 17 than I was when I was 21. By 21 I was against it (at least for the time being) in part because the future in which I would contribute to society was closer. It wouldn’t surprise me that girls, with stronger social conditioning and/or a stronger biological urge, would start out at a place where parenthood is more desirable than for boys
But while extended family support is good, the law only recognizes two people as parents: The father and the mother. I get various relatives hassling me all the time, because they think that the fact they helped raise a child gives them legal rights. It doesn’t.
I remember flipping through channels a while back and stumbling across Bill O’Reilly talking about this. His position was that grandparents should have legal rights. That’s only okay if we’re willing to saddle them with legal responsibilities. But if grandparents can turn their back on their grandchildren, parents should be able to cut their grandparents out of the loop.
It does bring to light an interesting possibility for dual-adoption. Allowing Lady Raine and her sister to mutually adopt all three (?) kids, if that was what they wanted. The extended family support is indeed a good thing. And in lieu of having a spouse, having someone else with whom one has a bond to help raise the kids can serve as a good substitute. Even in those situations, though, the situation is going to be more fluid than with a mother and a father. Their situation changes if either of them get married or one of them gets a good job offer in Toledo. Divorce rates hover around 50%, though I expect that number goes down significantly when children are involved. I imagine the “divorce rate” among siblings and grand-parents is going to be generally higher.
I want to know about the adult productivity of the children of people in these different arrangements, particularly those on public assistance. I don’t see it as a moral issue.
We could run into a demographic economic problem if we’re producing too few young people, though others (including aforementioned Megan) would argue that would be more than mitigated by the environmental sustainability. It could even be that one Sheila isn’t worth five of her single-parent counterparts, societally speaking. But for me I think it is a moral issue, to some extent, and I think that a society that can afford it should be extremely wary about curbing the right to reproduce especially to below the number 2 or maybe 1.
I do think it likely, though, that in the event that men are cut out en masse of the parenthood loop, you’re likely to see a lot stronger feelings towards curbing reproduction. The attitudes that right now exist on certain elements of the blogosphere will take hold among a much greater percentage of men whose taxes are going to pay towards kids they are not given access to. Society cannot demand the cooperation of men while viewing them as a luxury or interloper in the family.
Few people would argue that society would be better off if *I* didn’t exist, and I’m mostly the product of a single-parent family. Does the fact that it wasn’t planned that way really make a difference?
I would imagine so. If there were marriage licenses being passed around at the time of your birth, your parents likely wouldn’t have had a problem getting one (I wouldn’t think). That your mother died after you were born would make it too late to revoke said license.
Comment by trumwill — June 21, 2010 @ 11:17 am
“It does bring to light an interesting possibility for dual-adoption. Allowing Lady Raine and her sister to mutually adopt all three (?) kids, if that was what they wanted. The extended family support is indeed a good thing.”
In order for them to do this, they’d have to terminate both fathers’ parental rights. This would require legal proceedings and notice to the fathers of these proceedings.
People often confuse “custody” with “parental rights.” One can have no custody at all, and pay no support, but still have parental rights. People will sometimes say, “I want to waive my parental rights,” but they can’t do this unless someone else wishes to adopt.
You’d be amazed how many parents (mostly men, but not all) who’ve had nothing to do with a child in years, or ever, will become incensed and combative when they receive notice that their parental rights may be terminated. I’m sure it’s something about the finality of it that provokes them, and also the phrase “rights.” No one wants any rights taken away to anything.
Comment by stone — June 21, 2010 @ 11:35 am
You’d be amazed how many parents (mostly men, but not all) who’ve had nothing to do with a child in years, or ever, will become incensed and combative when they receive notice that their parental rights may be terminated.
Ragweed, my former neighbor in Belle Rieve, had a father that jetted at a young age and he was raised by his mother and step-father. I don’t know that he was ever fully adopted, but he nonetheless took his step-father’s last name. His father got back in touch with him about the time I was living by him and was incensed that his son, whom he had not seen in over a decade, would take someone else’s name. I think it particularly smarted since Ragweed was his only son. I lacked sympathy.
Comment by trumwill — June 21, 2010 @ 12:23 pm
“I do think it likely, though, that in the event that men are cut out en masse of the parenthood loop, you’re likely to see a lot stronger feelings towards curbing reproduction. The attitudes that right now exist on certain elements of the blogosphere …”
Here’s the thing, though: I’ve never once found one of those blogger guys saying he wants to be a father. They complain about custody arrangements (and support) … but never has there been one who has said he wants to be a father and can’t.
What most men seem to fear and resent about single motherhood is the support requirement. Sadly, I don’t think we’d find nearly as many men fighting to share custody if it weren’t for the financial angle. Especially lower-class men.
Comment by stone — June 21, 2010 @ 12:37 pm
Here’s the thing, though: I’ve never once found one of those blogger guys saying he wants to be a father. They complain about custody arrangements (and support) … but never has there been one who has said he wants to be a father and can’t.
No doubt. That’s one of the multitude of reasons that it is difficult to take their “concerns” seriously. That’s why I was saying “in the event.” That’s not the reality we live in now. Fortunately, movement is currently in the opposite direction. Even in communities that are bereft of fathers, it’s not because they’re not welcome but rather because they’re (a) unworthy by any standard or (b) uninterested in parenthood.
However, if people took Paul’s article too seriously and fatherhood was considered a courtesy or a gift that can easily be rescinded, I think that you’re going to see the attitudes expressed by those guys taken up by men that, in the current environment, are non-complaining fathers. I look at the pseudo-MRA-types and I ignore them in part because I know that involved fatherhood is an option available for most men. Take that away and I look at what they say in a different light.
I’m not particularly worried about it happening. I am worried about having to argue the point over and over again with women who suggest that fatherhood is unnecessary. And I’m worried about it being used as a club against men in general in what are already frequently contentious men-women discussions and debates.
Comment by trumwill — June 21, 2010 @ 1:08 pm
Rob, I actually did post it yesterday, but too late for it to do any good. I was scrambling to get it written last night so that I could at least have it out before midnight. The thoughts had been festering for a while. Anyhow, I am very pleased with the ability to discuss some of these issues without it degenerating into a shoutfest or an invasion of the crazies.
Raymond, I’m not sure I follow. The study looks at single and coupled parents. Lesbians that don’t stick together are counted in the “single woman” category, below couples but above single men.
Comment by trumwill — June 21, 2010 @ 1:09 pm
Maureen Dowd may have considered the single-motherhood route but never went through with it.
Comment by Peter — June 21, 2010 @ 1:59 pm
“Maureen Dowd may have considered the single-motherhood route but never went through with it.”
Peter, I was sure I’d read an article by her about single motherhood — I thought she’d adopted. But I see I spelled her name wrong, so I could be wrong about that too. I wonder who I was thinking of? I know I read a story by some prominent female East Coast journalist about voluntarily being a single mother.
Comment by stone — June 21, 2010 @ 4:28 pm
Hey Rob: I took care of Father’s Day for Mr. Tone’s dad *and* stepdad. See, this is what wives are good for.
Comment by stone — June 21, 2010 @ 4:29 pm
See, this is what wives are good for.
When have I knocked marriage or wives? I hear wedding bells whenever a girl smiles at me, so every month or so, but still. “Commitment-phobic” men overlap significantly with “have lots of options” dudes. My theory is that women tend to conflate the have lots of options subset with all men because unattractive and just average men are invisible to them.
Comment by rob — June 23, 2010 @ 5:26 pm
I don’t want to be too snooty, but this really should be addressed:
This was NOT a random sample. They went to bookstores in Boston, Seattle, and DC. That’s a totally nonrandom sample. People in bookstores in Boston, Seattle, and DC are very different from the general public (basically, arch-SWPLs). They didn’t recruit a control group from the same place, which would have been the scientifically sensible thing to do.
Basically, this is bad science trumpeted as such because it’s PC.
Comment by SFG — June 23, 2010 @ 5:37 pm
Whatever you think of blue-state bookstore goers, they probably have relatively few social pathologies in the broad sense.
Comment by SFG — June 23, 2010 @ 5:38 pm
SFG, wait… they did WHAT?!
Comment by trumwill — June 23, 2010 @ 9:25 pm
Rob, by and large, people that are reluctant to settle down are people that think they can do better. Often, when it seems like a problem with a guy or girl being willing to settle down, it’s really just a matter of who. More than once I have seen an alleged commitment-phobe leave someone twisting in the wind for an extended period of time and then marry the next person almost immediately.
That’s part of what factors into The Nguyen Count.
Comment by trumwill — June 23, 2010 @ 9:30 pm
Yeah, the lesbian mom study is a study in how to get a study to show what you want. Not only what SFG said, but IIRC, they didn’t even give personality tests are whatnot to the kids. It seems they pretty much said, “You know how Jeebus people hate lesbians and think if they have kids the kids are gonna be all sorts of effed up? How would you rate your child?”
There is at least one more sort of lesbian parent: the had a child (or more) with a dude, then discovered I was a lesbian. It’d be interesting to see how those turn out compared to the eugenic children.
Comment by rob — June 23, 2010 @ 11:07 pm
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/reprint/peds.2009-3153v1
Read the paper. It’s not in scientific jargon, it’s pretty accessible.
And it’s all questionnaires filled out by the mothers themselves. In a national lesbian study…you don’t think they’d censor themselves just a little to avoid looking bad?
It’s sort of like the study on BDSM practitioners that claimed they didn’t have higher levels of dysfunction…on surveys they filled out themselves.
Comment by SFG — June 26, 2010 @ 5:13 pm