In the July/August issue of The Atlantic, journalist Pamela Paul seriously asks, "Are Fathers Necessary?"
Necessary?
Christians can point to a whole body of evidence showing the importance of "Dad" at home. According to the National Fatherhood Initiative, "Children who live without their biological fathers and are, on average, at least two to three times more likely to be poor, to use drugs, to experience educational, health and emotional and behavioral problems, to be victims of child abuse and to engage in criminal behavior than their peers who live with their married, biological (or adoptive) parents. Children with involved, loving fathers are significantly more likely to do well in school, have healthy self esteem, exhibit empathy and pro-social behavior and avoid high-risk behaviors." Fathers, the research seems to prove, are not only necessary. They are essential.
Not so fast, Paul might rejoin. This kind of research, she says, is skewed, because it compares households with a mom and a dad to those headed by single women—in other words, we have been comparing apples to kiwis all this time. Paul says that when we look at households headed by two adults—whether man-woman, man-man, or woman-woman—the supposed advantages of fathers melt away like an ice cream cone at the county fair.
She concludes: "The bad news for Dad is that despite common perception, there's nothing objectively essential about his contribution. The good news is, we've gotten used to him." Score one for "Heather Has Two Mommies"?
And indeed, the culture often seems to agree. It's true that President Obama has strongly supported the role of fathers for strong families. But in his recent Father's Day address, the president muddled his message by extolling the contributions not only of fathers, but also of social arrangements with "two fathers." Isn't that an inherent contradiction, like a circle with four corners?
Gone are the days when the media could be expected to lionize "traditional" fathers. Instead of the wise patriarchs encountered in programs such as "Father Knows Best" and "Bonanza," we mostly get ignorant goofs in "Married, with Children," "Family Guy," and "The Simpsons." When was the last time you saw a TV dad who wasn't the constant butt of jokes for his ineptitude? The Cosby Show's solid, if imperfect, Cliff Huxtable seems like a quaint anachronism now.
And while male DNA is still necessary to propagate the species, growing numbers of would-be mothers are opting for anonymous sperm donors rather than conception with a husband. About 1 percent of all children are now conceived via sperm donation in the United States. Further, we are legitimizing what used to be known as illegitimacy, at unprecedented rates. Forty percent of all American children are born today without benefit of married parents.
So is the culture right? Are fathers unnecessary after all?
People who end up—for one reason or another—in households with no father often turn out just fine. I had a pastor whose father died when he was young and was raised well by his mother and grandmother, as well as by some key male role models in the community. Barack Obama himself grew up to be president, despite the fact that his biological father was a scoundrel who abandoned him and his mother. It is also true, to the grief of untold moms and dads, that kids from homes with fathers present often go terribly awry.
Yet those who support the role of dads as essential have a much more impressive body of evidence, as well as basic common sense, on their side. According to just one study, infants lacking a father's name on the birth certificate are over twice as likely to die in the first year of life as infants with a father's name on the document. Given the fact that families headed by men have been the norm since time immemorial, the onus of proof is on those who would dismantle them to make a political point.
