Dads Matter

I recently found myself thinking about a conversation I had with a female participant in our REMix: Healthy Relationships in the Mix class. She was talking about her child’s father, with whom she has had a strained relationship for the past two years. She said, “He’s a waste of my time. I don’t need him anyway. I can give my son everything he could, and more.” This statement echoes a sentiment we hear often, especially with our female clients - a sentiment that is often repeated both overtly and subtly throughout our culture. When she made this statement, I paused and asked her if she thought that was true of every family in her situation - can a mother give her children everything and more than a father can? She replied with a definite “Yes, absolutely.” I then went on to ask her if the same applies to men in her situation - a father raising his child alone with no help from the mother. Can he give his child everything and more than the mother could? Her response was “Of course not. Every child needs their mother.”

I decided to pose these questions to the entire class, which included mothers and fathers. We asked them to name all the things mothers can do for their children. We then asked them to name everything fathers can do for their children. To the participants’ surprise (but not to the facilitators’), they listed the exact same things, maybe using a different word here and there. The only thing they could name that a father cannot do is breastfeed. Then we asked the question, “Do children need both their mother and father - or at least trusted males and females - to be a part of their lives?” This question was met with a resounding “Yes” from the group.

What do fathers and other male caregivers provide for children? How do they do this parenting thing differently than mothers? Do they have an important role to play in their children’s healthy development? These questions are raised a lot in the work we do with men. We’re always heartened when we hear our female clients say things like, “I want him to be more involved; my child needs him.” Or, “My father did so much for us; he would drop anything for us.” Unfortunately, for every client that says fathers are important, we have two that say women are always the better parent – and even sadder, many of our male clients are the ones saying so.

So what do fathers bring to the table? Looking at the research will show you that children who are raised by two involved, loving, and stable parents are less likely than children raised by only one parent to have behavioral problems, to drop out of school, to commit crimes as teenagers AND as adults, to be abused and neglected, to use drugs or alcohol, and to become sexually active at a very young age. They are more likely to do well in school, have stable friendships, understand gender roles, live in stable housing, attend college, and have positive self-confidence. Fathers and males, in general, approach some of the same parenting tasks in different ways that women. For instance, males are more likely to get down on the floor and play with their children. They roughhouse more (which is a very typical male-bonding approach). They are more likely to let their children take positive risks (“You can climb a little higher. You won’t fall.”). They can let their children fail and try to work out a task or problem on their own. And they often let their children decide how they feel before reacting and helping them. 

When we teach these concepts to fathers in our Focus on Fathers classes, we can sometimes see the internal struggle going on in the men who stated they believe mothers are better nurturers. They have been told all their lives that men can’t raise children as well as women. Some have been told by their own families and children’s mothers that their job is to make the money and mete out punishments – the rest the woman can do, better. They get excited to hear that getting on the floor and roughhousing with their children helps the child control his or her emotions and provides bonding experiences, especially for boys. They are happy that they can now put into words why they don’t automatically intervene when a child is working through a problem. They are relieved to be told that they can and should do things like sit down and read to their kids, comfort them when they are sad or hurt, and show them how much they love them. It’s a bittersweet thing to hear a man break down and say, “Why have I been hiding behind this tough-guy façade with my son? He needs me to talk to him, comfort him, help him with his problems. I needed all those things from my father, but didn’t get them. Why hasn’t anyone ever told me this before?” Our message is always the same: You are important. Don’t let anyone tell you differently.

At the end of the REMix class, the young lady came up to me and told me she had never had anyone dispute her beliefs that she could do it all on her own. She was amazed and surprised to hear that the rest of the class felt strongly that kids need positive male role models and admitted that maybe she really couldn’t do it all as well as she thought. Over the next few weeks she updated me on the progress she was making with her child’s father. She had called him soon after that first session and agreed to let him see their son. By the end of the twelve-week series, her son’s father was calling to talk to them every night of the week and spending time with his son every weekend. She said the changes in her son’s behavior were amazing – he was more compliant, didn’t act out as much, was doing better in school, and just seemed all-around happier… And so was she. 

Written by Nichole E. Kang, Director, Social Services for HPC’s Focus on Families program and facilitator of fatherhood classes for six years.