Happy Father's Day, dads! Now please just go away.

Yes, daddy-bashing is suddenly cool. The cover story of the latest Atlantic proclaims "The End of Men: How Women Are Taking Control -- of Everything," while inside the magazine Pamela Paul poses the emasculating question, "Are Fathers Necessary?" Her answer, after sifting through the research: probably not. Social scientists have been unable to prove that dads contribute much, she reports. The effort and quality of parenting are what really matter, not parents' gender. ...

So what's a beleaguered dad to do? If science can't prove that we matter, does that mean we don't?

I've had plenty of reason to think about the role of fathers recently. Two years ago, doctors found a seven-inch tumor in my left femur. On the day I learned of my life-threatening illness, my 3-year-old twin daughters came rushing to greet me at home, laughing and falling to the ground.

I crumbled. I kept imagining the recitals I might not see, the graduations I could miss, the aisles I might never walk down. Would they wonder who I was or yearn for my approval, my love, my voice?

Three days later, I awoke with a plan to fill that void. I reached out to six men from all parts of my life and asked them to be there for my daughters at key moments. This group of men -- my oldest friend, my camp counselor, my college roommate, my business partner, my closest confidant and a tortured, romantic poet -- became the Council of Dads. I asked each to convey a different message to my girls: how to live, how to think, how to travel, how to dream.

Labels: culture, Fathers, fathers and daughters, National Fatherhood Initiative

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Maybe you have heard Roland Warren's football story before. But if you haven't, it's worth a listen.

Mr. Warren recently recounted his tale at a Capitol Hill briefing on the importance of involving men in the prenatal and postnatal care of their families.

His story starts out with familiar scenario: Handsome teenage guy becomes enamored of a pretty teenage girl. She reciprocates. They ended up getting pregnant.

Since this happened in the 1980s heyday of legal abortion, it would have been typical for this young couple to end their pregnancy and split up.

But Mr. Warren had grown up without a father, and he and his girlfriend decided to get married and create a family.

Before long, he found himself in a Lamaze class to learn about childbirth.

When the big day came, though, he soon realized he still didn't know what was going on.

People were bustling around "and a lot was happening," he said, "but I really felt like an outsider in that process."

Then, "at some point … someone gave me a baby."

"I remember thinking to myself, as I looked down at the little guy, 'Wow … a baby ' And the nurse had a look on her face that was sort of like, 'Good luck with that.' And here's the bill."

Labels: children, culture, Fathers, heterosexual couples, National Fatherhood Initiative

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Today, National Fatherhood Initiative (NFI) released Mama Says: A National Survey of Moms' Attitudes on Fathering, the first-ever national survey taking an in-depth look at how today's mothers view fathers and fatherhood.

The survey's most revealing findings deal with the enormous gulf between the assessments of fathers by mothers who are married to or live with their children's dads and those who do not. More than 8 in 10 mothers married to or living with the father of their children were satisfied with his performance as a dad, but only 2 of 10 mothers not living with the father were satisfied.

Furthermore, only 1 of 3 moms not living with dad reported a "close and warm" relationship between their child and the father, while nearly 9 in 10 married mothers classified the relationship as close and warm. A majority of mothers - 2 of 3 - agreed that fathers perform best if they are married to the mothers of their children. ...

The most troublesome finding for those who view fathers as playing unique roles in their children lives is the majority opinion among mothers that fathers are replaceable by moms or other men. More than half of the moms agree that fathers are replaceable by moms, and 2 of 3 moms agree that fathers are replaceable by other men. However, in a national survey of dads' attitudes on fatherhood, Pop's Culture, released by NFI in 2006, similar but slightly lower proportions of fathers agreed with these statements.

Therefore, it seems to be a majority view in the American public that fathers are replaceable despite near universal agreement that there is a father absence crisis in the United States - 93 percent and 91 percent of moms and dads, respectively, agree that such a crisis exists. The mothers who feel fathers are replaceable but feel there is a father absence crisis may believe that while possible, it is unlikely that an adequate substitute for a missing father can be found.

Labels: cohabitation, Fathers, Marriage, motherhood, National Fatherhood Initiative, out-of-wedlock births

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A NEW survey [pdf] from the National Fatherhood Initiative finds that 93% of American mothers believe there is a "father-absence crisis" in the country.

And absent fathers tend to have worse relationships with their children. Mothers are much more likely to report that the father of their child has a "close and warm" relationship with that child if he is living with the family.

A hefty 89% of married mothers thought this, and 85% of co-habitees. But in cases where the father is not living with the family, only 34% of mothers thought he had a warm and close relationship with a given child.

Interestingly, this survey finds little difference between married and co-habiting fathers. But Kathryn Edin, a professor of public policy at Harvard, warned that co-habiting relationships in America are much more likely to break up than those in some European countries.

Labels: cohabitation, Fathers, Marriage, National Fatherhood Initiative

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