Single Father's Day

...The first is that more fathers than ever before in our history are now absent from their children's lives...

...the vast majority live in families shaped by divorce or out-of-wedlock births...

...Odd—I didn't read a word about parents like that this Father's Day...

...Any celebration of single dads, then, that goes beyond an entirely appropriate recognition of individuals striving to do the best they can by their kids, amounts to a celebration of divorce and other causes of non-marital child-rearing...

...The second, and smaller, change is that some fathers are now more motivated than most were in the past to provide hands-on care for their children...

...Today, only a tiny percentage of children living with one parent are raised by widowers...

...Finally, non-custodial mothers often lend a hand...

...and to legitimize, in particular, a mother's freedom to have her children not live with her, if this suits her needs and the father is accommodating...

...They featured almost exclusively one relatively small group of dads: single fathers...

...A trou-I bling possibility is that some on I the left, having won the battle % for public opinion that has made ^ marriage no longer a prerequisite or even particularly important for child-rearing, are now carrying their campaign to reshape public sentiments a step further—so that eventually a mother's remaining with her children will also come to be regarded as optional and unimportant...

...It is hard to see what possible social gain could come from shifting the care of children from mothers to fathers...

...married fathers, after all, are full participants in that...

...Indeed, it seemed that in order to be feted on Father's Day 2001, a man had to be either not married to his child's mother, or married but biologically unrelated to his child...

...The underlying purpose of the coverage seems to have been different: to consolidate mainstream acceptance of the decline of marriage, along with the concomitant freedom to choose "alternative family forms...

...It notes, quite reasonably, that the growth of single fatherhood is explained not only by the new desire of men to be hands-on fathers, but also by "the loosening of bonds on women...

...Somewhere on the scene, typically, there is a woman who is helping them...

...A glance backward reveals that in 1900 a much higher percentage of children in single-parent households lived with their fathers (27 percent) than do today (17 percent...

...Noting that the number of single fathers increased by 50 percent in the 1990s, Goldberg's piece suggested that a "revolution" was afoot...

...While there may be many good reasons to recognize such men, singling them out to the exclusion of all others suggests that editors had some agenda besides a simple tribute to fathers...

...It is to be expected that as we advance the laudable involvement of fathers in caring for their children from birth onward, more fathers will want some form of custody of their children after a divorce or unmarried birth...

...And this loosening of bonds, the writer adds, "may help explain another aspect of single fatherhood: that fathers often get custody of their children belatedly, when the mother decides they would be better off with him...

...The piece went on to describe the lives of several harried dads who, despite society's view that men cannot be good nurturDavid Popenoe is co-director of the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University and the author of Life Without Father (Harvard, 1999...

...But these stories didn't quite level with the reader about what kind of revolution today's single fatherhood represents...

...This is ill-considered, to say the least, in light of the abundant evidence that children are better off being raised by two parents than by one...

...nor did they make a convincing case that we should celebrate it...

...It is common for a single father to have a live-in or live-out girlfriend who contributes to the child-rearing and housekeeping...

...Furthermore, single fathers have higher incomes than single mothers and therefore can, and do, more frequently hire help...

...But the freedom of adults to suit themselves does not always promote the welfare of children...

...Moreover, some studies suggest that children are no better off, and are in some ways worse off, being raised by single fathers than by single mothers...

...Fatherhood has undergone two great and contradictory changes in recent decades...

...Of course, single fatherhood in 1900 was mostly involuntary, necessitated by the death of the mother...

...ers, are in fact doing a wonderful job of parenting (or so they assured the reporter...

...The New York Times set the pattern with a front-page article by reporter Carey Goldberg...

...All too often, "alternative family forms" introduce into children's lives revolving-door "parental" figures who in the end supply nothing remotely resembling the unconditional love, unwavering dedication, steady nurturing, constant attention, and thoughtful guidance required of true lifelong parents...

...One is left wondering what explains the media's infatuation with single fatherhood...

...A perusal of newspapers ranging from the New York Times and the Washington Post to the Chicago Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Boston Globe yielded precious little mention of the great bulk of fathers, who are married...

...Or consider this: Unlike single moms, a majority of single dads looking after children are single only in the sense of not being married...

...The story quoted a men's rights advocate saying, "In their quiet, harried, domestic way, all those single fathers are waging as much of a revolution as the 20th Century women who flooded into the workplace...

...The Times article provides some support for this line of thinking...

...as a group, they remain more involved with their children than do non-custodial fathers...

...But the media weren't applauding the "new fatherhood" this Father's Day...