Excerpts from Chapter 1
"Why Dad is Crucial"
The policy implications emanating from the larger picture of
the value of dad begin with educating our children to dad-as-nurturer-connector
rather than dad-as-provider-protector; they include education
to prevent divorce -- both legal divorce and psychological divorce;
and, if divorce is the only way, making shared parent time the
starting way. Just as the pen can be mightier than the sword,
so a little education about fathering can be mightier than lawyers,
judges, police, and social workers....
But many specific findings also have policy implications. For
example, the Danish study's finding that children living with
dads are only half as likely to have difficulties concentrating
is especially relevant to American children -- especially boys
-- who are often put on Ritalin to control Attention Deficit
Disorder. Perhaps we should take them off Ritalin and put them
on dads?
In industrialized countries, there is perhaps no area of greater
underlying tension between men and women than women's feelings
of being victims (especially of men) and men's less-often articulated
feelings that the very women who are the most educated and privileged
are the most likely to yell "victim." The Danish study
finding that children living with their dads are less likely
to manifest the seven "victim characteristics" (e.g.,
feeling victimized by other children; seizures of fear; frequent
nightmares; low self-worth; sensitivity to criticism; temper
tantrums; feelings of lonesomeness,) has enormous implications
for reconciling that underlying tension between the sexes. It
is difficult for a victim to trust. And it is difficult to trust
someone who cannot trust -- who needs to create a perpetrator
when not everything goes her or his way.
Perhaps the group of women who feel most victimized are single
moms. On top of the stress is fear -- fear of poverty, and fear
that her situation will scare men away. As I mentioned above,
her fear of economic deprivation is matched by his fear of emotional
deprivation.
What the success of today's single fathers points to is that
for millions of single moms and dads there is a win-win-win
solution: Have the children be with the dads for the first couple
of years after divorce until, for example, the children make
a natural transition (e.g., beginning or graduating from grade
school). Here's why this is a win-win-win alternative....
During this period mom has the time to build up her economic
muscle, thus reducing her economic dependency and fear; dad
feels emotionally needed by his children, not a younger woman
substitute for child; the children benefit, both for themselves,
and for their future view of alternatives to dead-end dads and
stressed out moms in the event their own marriage ends in divorce;
as for feminists, well, feminists get role models to die for.
Okay, so it's not win-win-win. It's win-win-win-win.
The full-time fathering option should not replace the shared
parenting option as the first choice. But if full time fathering
leads to more trust and fewer victims, it will also lead to
our children having better marriages and fewer divorces, thus
reversing the children of divorce pattern. Less victimhood,
more trust, and more fathers bringing up daughters will translate
into fewer workplace sex harassment and sex discrimination lawsuits.
Most important, it leads to a deepening of the love between
the sexes that is everyone's common goal.
If all this data were to reach one conclusion in one sentence,
it might be: Mommy is no substitute for daddy and money is no
substitute for daddy.
Knowing that dad is important does not, though, overcome that
nagging feeling underneath it all that there's a mothering instinct
but not a fathering instinct. Nor does it leave us with a clear
understanding of exactly what dads do with children that's different
from what moms do. Here's what that is....
Read
excerpts from this book:
From
Introduction | From
Ch. 1 | From
Ch. 2 | From
Ch. 6
See
Table of Contents | Order
this book online
Reprinted
with permission of Warren Farrell, Ph.D., from his Father
and Child Reunion (NY: Tarcher/Penguin, 2001). Do not reproduce
without proper authorization from the author or the publisher.
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