Tim Stanley writing in the Telegraph:
A British consumer agency released a survey that showed that the tenth most requested gift from Father Christmas was “a dad” (coming in just behind “snow”).
Categories: Fatherhood
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It just really get to me when people say that a child needs ‘a father’rather than saying that they need THEIR father. They have one of course or they would not exist.
I guess it just makes fathers all seem so interchangeable. The kid should have a right to expect their own father to be raising them and supporting them but absent their own actual father’s involvement, then a step father or male roll model or fatherly figure is nice but not essential.
It’s not that kid’s are suppose to have a male role model its that they are suppose to have a particular male roll model – one who is fulfilling his obligation to raise the child he created.
Kid’s don’t have to have their father around to get by in life, but they should have the right to expect him to be present and if he’s not they should have some legal recourse. A father won’t really do the trick because only theirs owes it to them to be there.
Marilynn, it is possible to speak in support of the obligation that a biological parent has to do right by their genetic offspring without belittling the commitment, love, and hard work that many adoptive or step parents bring to the lives of children, often of necessity.
A genetic connection can certainly be important, but I think if you fetishize genetic connections too much, you’re not really helping actual children.
Every child has a right to be raised by a person or persons who loves them and cares for them and is committed to their well being. It is generally true that children are better off with both genetic parents, but it isn’t reasonable to pretend there are never exceptions.
Exactly Marilynn! THEIR dad. THEIR father. Getting adults to cooperate is the key….Which is why the marriage debate is stronger than ever.
…and why “donor” conception and surrogacy is so socially and culturally problematic/ethically challenged.
Phil we actually agree but you need to hear what I’m actually saying rather than what you think that I’m saying.
The term fetish paints the wrong impression entirely. My concern is that minors rights to physical and financial support from their parents and their right to be legally recognized as a member of their genetic family never be altered or severed even when someone else has to step in and raise them. Those who step in should be willing to do the work without severing all legal ties between the child and their genetic family. For instance still being the legal sibling of any other offspring their parent might have despite being adopted by someone.
What matters to me is how people come to obtain possession of someone else’s offspring. I understand that there are many times when it is much better for a child not to be raised by their biological parents. But lets be clear that their parents have failed them and that it is a tragedy that they did not receive the care from their parents that they deserved. In the even the parent fails THEN the child deserves the best alternative care possilble and I would never down play the importance of the adoptive or step parents efforts. It is however very important that they come into that position in an ethical way. The most ethical way is to arrive in that position without having anything to do with the reason why the parent failed. Like they did not ask the parent to make a baby and hit the road so they could have one. It’s important that the child was not separated from the bio family to serve the needs of someone who wanted to raise a child. Then at that point any love or effort or bond that person has with the child becomes tainted by the fact that they orchestrated the separation and as far as I have ever been told its a real big deal and is almost never discussed with the rearing parent be they biologically related or not. Women that use donors and raise their offspring alone or with partners still create a kind of Stockholm thing because they are sequestering the child from the bio family in order to serve their need to have a child alone or with a particular partner. It is an unusual thing to do – to want to keep a child from their bio family to make it so they don’t know who is OK to date etc. So my whole point always is that non bio parenthood is an ethical minefield that needs to be carefully negotiated or you end up objectifying the child that you love and desire so much. You don’t want to have anything at all to do with the reason they are not being raised by the bio parent. Most adoptive parents have nothing to do with encouraging relinquishment so the child can be sad about the relinquishment without resenting their adoptive parents for causing it. Their feelings about who raised them can be separated from any anger they may feel toward the bio parents for not raising them. Nobody should ‘get anything’ out of placing a child in an adoptive home either. It should be free to adoptive parents the state should pay for everything because it is cheaper than foster care and it solves the objectification concern almost entirely.
Phil I want you to point out the specific statement where I was
and I want you to point out the specific words where you think I fetishized genetic connection.
because I thought I was very clear in saying that children don’t have to have their fathers around to do perfectly well in life. I also don’t think they have to have roll models of a particular gender to do perfectly well in life. I also don’t think they absolultely must have their biological relatives around to do perfectly well in life. I think that they have a right to expect their bio parents to take care of them and if they don’t take care of them they have the right not to be treated as the bio parent’s property to be gifted or transferred around. If their bio parents don’t take care of them they should have the right to have the situation scrutinized to make sure they were not bought sold or traded.
I said “Kid’s don’t have to have their father around to get by in life, but they should have the right to expect him to be present and if he’s not they should have some legal recourse.”
and I said
“It’s not that kid’s are suppose to have a male role model its that they are suppose to have a particular male roll model – one who is fulfilling his obligation to raise the child he created.”
Which means if the kid is going to be adopted it makes no difference if it is a man and a woman or two men or two women because its not like its the gender that is important. Was was important is that the child see the people responsible for making them doing the proper thing and taking care of them so if they are not going to do that its not like the kid MUST have a male roll model must have A FATHER figure to do well. The point of them needing a father in the first place was that it needed to be their father. If he’s bugging out then really gender be damned either will do because then its just a care giving thing. Then it is what you say which is they just need someone to take good care of them
I just don’t see how that is fetishizing the bio connection.
Every child has a right to be raised by a person or persons who loves them and cares for them and is committed to their well being. It is generally true that children are better off with both genetic parents, but it isn’t reasonable to pretend there are never exceptions.
There’s some crucial unexamined things here, I think, including why these children are saying what they are saying and what they mean by using the word “dad”.
These sorts of articles dot the landscape nowadays, and a huge part of our existing culture and media have spent as long as I can remember sending out this narrative – that if you lack “a father” then you really need one. Given what’s essentially a decades-long ad blitz, is it really surprising that children have picked up on the cues? It’s noted that this is the tenth most requested thing among the polled children, so why aren’t the higher ranking items on the list, including a pet horse or their very own car, seen as innate needs? Because those are things that we realize are advertised.
Beyond that though, because I think many of the children were speaking from their own desires in saying they wanted “a dad” what was meant by that? Do they literally mean that they want their biological father? That’s how Marilyn and Karen have clearly interpreted their response, but they changed the wording – from “a dad” to “their dad” – which clearly skewed things more than a little. I think what this speaks to is a need for (additional) supportive, caring, role-models. It seems quite clear that the kids aren’t going to reject anyone offering that because of their biological relationship or lack thereof.
And to the extent that this is gendered, and it’s about wanting that parent to be male – doesn’t that speak to the assumptions that are drilled into us from young ages? Most single-parent families are composed of single mothers and their children and the UK, as the article Elizabeth linked to shows, is a society that presumes that a family is composed of a man and a woman and potentially their children. Working to express the lack of resources or attention that many single parent families have with a language biased by those views of what a family *is*, it makes sense for those children to express their need by asking for a father.
All media brainwashing, is that what you are saying Matt?
@Matt N – I can’t believe you think children are asking for fathers because of advertising campaigns.
For heaven’s sake, children love their parents. They want them. That is perfectly normal and to be expected.
If you have a high divorce rate and a tendency for children of divorced parents to lose contact with one parent, what else would you expect? Add in couples that lived together and split and lose contact with each other and you’re going to have tons of children who have fathers who aren’t in their lives and are going to miss them.
This link tells a little more about the survey. Apparently parents were asked what was on their children’s Christmas list. It’s not clear if the kids asked for “a dad,” or “my dad” or just “dad.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/christmas/9764688/A-dad-is-tenth-most-popular-Christmas-list-request-for-children.html
I don’t think we can say anything from this about whether the children want their biological father or a new step-father or a step-father who left or whatever.
I think we can conclude from this that many children who don’t have fathers or who don’t have contact with their father wish that they did.
And that many children would rather have a father/their father than pets and toys. That is a great statement about the value of humans and parents and love.