A Tribute to Single Dads on Father's Day

In 2008, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, 16% of single parents with kids at home were single dads. That adds up to 1.8 million American men shepherding their kids through the morning routine, ferrying them around after school, and serving as cook, maid, and homework helper at night. Day in and day out. Rinse, squeeze, repeat. A full 25% of these men were never married at all, and a frightening 57% of them struggle to provide for themselves and their children on earnings of less than $50,000 a year.

Single moms factor prominently in our collective consciousness since women in the single-parent demographic hold a comfortable majority. Undoubtedly, our cherished stereotype of the nurturing maternal figure contributes to this, as well. Mothers who go it alone are the recipients of our goodwill, not to mention charitable donations and community-funded programs. Men, on the other hand, are often assumed to be more interested in baseball stats and quarterly reports than developmental milestones. Not only do single fathers have to make do with fewer resources, but they also have to contend with disbelief and derision at their desire to parent. So let's dispel some of the myths that hound America's real heroes!

Despite the bias against single dads, research shows that they too are effective caregivers and that they balance work and home responsibilities with about the same competence as single moms. Kids of single dads are no less well-adjusted than kids of single moms, and they tend to have better relationships with both parents. Some studies indicate that children, especially boys, fare even better when they live with single fathers, scoring higher on measures of self-esteem, maturity, independence, resilience, and risk tolerance than those with only mothers at home. In addition, since men earn more than women, they may be able to provide greater financial stability for little ones. And, believe it or not, that extra testosterone doesn't translate into more misplaced aggression toward vulnerable sons and daughters; single mothers are five times more likely than single fathers to fatally injure their children. It's not a big leap from those findings to the realization that adult offspring of single fathers are just as happy, well-educated, and prosperous as those who grew up with their mothers. In short, a loving parent is a loving parent, and while the differences between Mars and Venus may forever intrigue, mystify, and infuriate us, they don't have much bearing on our child-rearing skills.

This Father's Day, Singletude celebrates the unsung single dads out there. Thank you for the tireless and often thankless work you do to raise the next generation. Because of you, 3 million children will sleep tonight knowing that they are loved, supported, and safe. Because of you, those children will grow up understanding responsibility, hard work, and sacrifice. Because of you, they will become adults who can truly say that you were their heroes.


Resources for Single Fathers

About.com
AskMen.com
fathers.com
Fathering Magazine
greatDad.com
Just4Dads.org
Single Dad
Single Dads Town
The Single Fathers' Lighthouse
singlefather.org


Are you or were you raised by a single dad? If so, what were some of the challenges and rewards you experience(d) as a single father or the child of a single father? Do you think children can thrive with single fathers as well as they can with single mothers?


Fun Link of the Day


Do you have a question for Clever Elsie about some aspect of the single life? Have a rant or rave about singlehood? Write in, and you just might see your question in a Singletude Q&A or your rant or rave in a Singletude Sound-off!

How Single Men Make Women Settle

I thought I'd said my piece on "Marry Him" by Lori Gottlieb, but it was stuck in my head today like the wedding march on repeat. Specifically her assertion that women settle, but men don't have to.

The so-called battle of the sexes frustrates me because, after all these years, it's still rooted in an us-against-them mentality. Well, a house divided against itself cannot stand.

If anything, the backlash to radical feminism only entrenched the archetype of the single woman as the Entrapper, who uses her feminine wiles to pull off the mother of all bait-and-switches, promising sex in exchange for 18 years of indentured servitude to her children. This stereotype persists even as women outpace men in education and join them in the board room and is the subject of countless bachelor party jokes and much commitment-phobic stammering.

What bothers me about it is not that it's untrue. I'll even go so far as to admit that it is true of the mating game as it stands now. What gets my dander up is that women have been backed into this corner, from which the only way out is scheming and pressuring, by men who believe that the future of the human race isn't their responsibility.

Granted, childrearing is not a responsibility that every man (or woman) should undertake. But most men still want children and end up fathering them. Not to conjure unwanted visions of Whitney Houston, but until they perfect this stem cell cloning business, the children are our future. We need both men and women to produce them. Sorry, but we're not as advanced as those asexual amoebas yet. And, frankly, many men want to be involved in their children's lives, so much so that it's a right guaranteed by law.

Despite these facts of life, females are routinely treated as though their biological drive to preserve the species is somehow aberrant or, at the least, incompatible with the evolutionary drives of men. Well, newsflash, guys: your genes are at stake here, too.

An excuse I may hear at this point from men is that their Darwinistic urge is to be procreators, not caretakers. But that's nonsense. Men have always supported the next generation, whether by hunting, farming, or fighting, and we have plenty of evidence that men participated in their children's lives from antiquity, even if not to the intimate degree that mothers did. In fact, before the advent of birth control, fatherhood was pretty much a given in any young man's life. It's only in recent years that men have balked at taking on this role and procrastinated about it for as long as possible.

Well, here's another tidbit that may interest you: Males hit "menopause" too, and their fertility declines after age 35 or 40. Yet when you ask men in their twenties or even early thirties about having children, a common response is, "Oh, sure, someday."

My point is that men today seem to have joined sides in a self-defeating war against women and ultimately the human race. Their contemporary "bros above hos" mentality falsely paints women as the enemy instead of partners in perpetuating the species and children as some kind of punishment. Due to this erroneous worldview, men who meet fantastic partners in their twenties and early thirties often resist starting a family, forcing these women to "settle" later. The men assume they can always avail themselves of younger partners after they've racked up enough notches in the belt, unaware that their own fertility, as well as their energy for children, will also decline...and that women 20 years younger don't always make the most willing or compatible partners.

Men, we may be living longer, but none of us are getting any younger. Please rejoin the human species. We can't do this without you. It's time you remembered that you need us, too.


Do you think women have to settle more often than men? If so, why? What do you think about male attitudes toward marriage and children?


Fun Link of the Day