Five Myths on Fathers and Family

Father’s Day almost upon us, expect a host of media stories on men and family life. Some will do a good job of capturing the changes and continuities associated with fatherhood in contemporary America. But other reporters and writers will generalize from their own unrepresentative networks of friends and family members, try to baptize the latest family trend, or assume that our society is heading ceaselessly in a progressive direction. So be on the lookout this week for stories, op-eds, and essays that include these five myths on contemporary fatherhood and family life.

1. THE ‘MR. MOM’ SURGE

Open a newspaper or turn on a TV in the week heading up to Father’s Day and you are bound to confront a story on stay-at-home dads. I have nothing against stay-at-home dads, but they make up a minuscule share of American fathers.

For instance, less than 1 percent (140,000) of America’s 22.5 million married families with children under 15 had a stay-at-home dad in 2008, according to the U.S. Census. By contrast, about 24 percent (5,327,000) of those families had a stay-at-home mom. This means that the vast majority — more than 97 percent — of all stay-at-home parents are moms, not dads.

The focus on Mr. Mom obscures another important reality. In most American families today, fathers still take the lead when it comes to breadwinning: In 2008, the Census estimated that fathers were the main provider in almost three-quarters of American married families with children under 18. Providership is important to protect children from poverty, raise their odds of educational success, and increase the likelihood that they will succeed later in life. Thus, the very real material contribution that the average American dad makes to his family is obscured by stories that focus on that exotic breed, the stay-at-home dad.

2. WOMEN WANT EVERYTHING 50-50

Another prevailing media myth is that contemporary women are looking for fathers who will split their time evenly between work and family life. It may be true for the average journalist or academic, but it is not true for the average American married mom.

Most married mothers nowadays do want their husbands to do their fair share of housework and childcare. But they do not define fairness in terms of a 50-50 balancing act where fathers and mothers do the same thing at home and work. Instead, contemporary mothers take into account their husbands’ work outside the home when they assess the fairness of the division of labor inside the home.

Moreover, most women who are married with children are happy to have their husbands take the lead when it comes to providing and do not wish to work full-time. For instance, a 2007 Pew Research Center study found that only 20 percent of mothers with children under 18 wanted to work full-time, compared with 72 percent of fathers with children under 18. My own research has shown that married mothers are happiest in their marriages when their husbands take the lead when it comes to breadwinning — largely because his success as a provider gives her more opportunities to focus on the children, or balance childcare with part-time work (the most popular work arrangement for married mothers). So, on this Father’s Day, dads who are fortunate enough to hold down a good job and make a major contribution to their families’ financial welfare should take some comfort from the fact that they are likely to be boosting not only their families’ bottom line but also their wives’ happiness.

3. MARRIAGE IS JUST A PIECE OF PAPER

With the rise of cohabitation over the last 40 years, a large minority of American children will spend some time in a household headed by a cohabiting couple. Experts now estimate that about 40 percent of American children will spend some time in a cohabiting household, either because they are born into such a household or because one of their parents cohabits after a breakup. Faced with this reality, many journalists, scholars, and advocates are tempted to minimize the differences between married and cohabiting fathers and families.

But the reality is that, on average, cohabiting fathers do not compare with married fathers. As Sandra Hofferth of the University of Maryland and Kermyt Anderson of the University of Oklahoma found in a recent study, married fathers are significantly more involved and affectionate with their children than are cohabiting fathers. In fact, from their research, they conclude “that marriage per se confers advantage in terms of father involvement above and beyond the characteristics of the fathers themselves.”

Married fathers are also much more likely than their cohabiting peers to stick around. One recent study by Wendy Manning at Bowling Green State and Pamela Smock at the University of Michigan found that 50 percent of children born to cohabiting parents saw their parents break up by age five; by comparison, only 15 percent of children born to married parents saw their parents divorce by age five. Dad is much more likely to stick around if he has a wedding ring on his finger.


This is because, for men, marriage and fatherhood are a “package deal,” as sociologists Frank Frustenberg and Andrew Cherlin observed a number of years ago. By force of law and custom, marriage binds men to their families and gives them a recognizable role to play in the lives of their children. Try as they might, unmarried men typically find it difficult to be a consistent and positive force in the lives of their children.

4. THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT

Every couple of years, some journalist seeks to revive the myth of the good divorce — often to excuse his or her own bad behavior. Sandra Tsing Loh is Exhibit A this week. In the most recent issue of The Atlantic, she spends several thousand words trying to justify her divorce from her husband of 20 years — a man she admits is a “good man” and “loving father” — under the cover of a sprawling, incoherent, and frankly disturbing review of five books on marriage and family life. (Among other things, the reader is regaled with all too much information about Loh’s private life; we learn, for instance, that one reason she ended up divorced is that she could not replace the “romantic memory of my fellow [adulterous] transgressor with the more suitable image of my husband.”)

Loh claims that her children appear to be doing just fine. Her two school-age girls — aged 7 and 9 — appear to be “unfazed” and “relatively content” in the midst of their parents’ divorce. Who knew divorce could be so easy on the kids?

In reality, Loh is probably deluding herself. The best social science presents a rather different picture than the rosy one Loh is trying to paint. According to research by Sara McLanahan of Princeton University and Paul Amato of Penn State, girls whose parents divorce are about twice as likely to drop out of high school, to become pregnant as teenagers, and to suffer from psychological problems such as depression and thoughts of suicide. Girls whose parents divorce are also much more likely to divorce later in life.

Moreover, studies indicate that children experience the most harm when their parents divorce after living together in a low-conflict marriage for many years (as Loh appears to have done). Why? These divorces come as the most surprising ones to children who thought that their parents had a good-enough marriage.

Though Loh manages to find for her Atlantic piece a bunch of well-educated friends who are also entertaining thoughts of divorce, she is (fortunately) in increasingly rare company. The work of sociologist Steven Martin indicates that since 1980, college-educated Americans have grown less tolerant of divorce, and the divorce rate among this cohort has fallen off sharply. Thus, well-educated readers of The Atlantic are unlikely to take Loh’s misleading and self-serving essay to heart.

5. DADS ARE DISPENSABLE

The final myth propagated by journalists in connection with fatherhood these days is the myth of the dispensable father. Often conjured up in glowing profiles of women who have become single mothers by choice, this myth holds that fathers do not play a central role in children’s lives.

This myth fails to take into account the now-vast social scientific literature (discussed above) showing that children typically do better in an intact, married families with their fathers than they do in families headed by single mothers.

It also overlooks the growing body of research indicating that fathers bring distinctive talents to the parenting enterprise. The work of psychologist Ross Parke, for instance, indicates that fathers are more likely than mothers to engage their children in vigorous physical play (e.g., roughhousing), to challenge their children — including their daughters — to embrace life’s challenges, and to be firm disciplinarians.

Not surprisingly, children benefit from being exposed to the distinctive paternal style. Sociologist David Eggebeen has shown, for instance, that teenagers are significantly less likely to suffer from depression and delinquency when they have involved and affectionate fathers, even after controlling for the quality of their relationship with their mother. In his words, “What these analyses clearly show is that mothers and fathers both make vital contributions to adolescent well-being.”

This is not to say that all journalists get it wrong when it comes to making sense of contemporary fatherhood and family life. This week, for instance, Sue Shellenberger at the Wall Street Journal had a great piece discussing the ways in which mothers serve as gatekeepers for fathers to their children; she also encourages mothers to allow fathers to engage children with their own distinctive style of parenting. Likewise, Linda Carroll at MSNBC has written an incisive story showing that involved and affectionate fathers play a crucial role in steering their daughters away from early sexual activity; in fact, it turns out that dads are more important than moms in protecting their teenage daughters from early sex.

In the coming years, we will need more tough-minded and honest journalism like the kind offered by Shellenberger and Carroll. This is particularly true because the cultural and economic storms of late — e.g., the individualistic turn of contemporary life and the recession — have been eroding the marital foundations of family life in America. Given the social scientific record on fatherhood, marriage, and family life, the United States could use more journalists who are willing to confront hard truths about the roles that fathers and marriage play in advancing the welfare of our nation’s most vulnerable citizens, our children, and the cultural, economic, and legal forces that are now undercutting marriage and fatherhood in America.

WRITTEN by W. Bradford Wilcox at The National Review on June 19th, 2009

Very Special Father's Day for Falcons' Nicholas

Stephen Nicholas' arms were wrapped around his infant son, somewhat loosely because he didn't want to bump the tubes that had kept the child alive the past four months.

Wife Irene sat nearby and the doctor began talking. The doctor said the tubes were going to come out that afternoon. Stephen and Irene looked at each other and started crying as both minds registered the same two thoughts.

Stephen Nicholas Jr. had been in Children's Hospital Boston since last summer, waiting for a heart suitable to transplant into his little body.

"That was the doctor's way of saying there was a heart coming in,'' Stephen said.

Stephen Jr. was going to get a shot at life with a new heart. Tears of joy for a few seconds. Then, tears of sadness.

"The most bittersweet moment you can imagine,'' Irene said. "Our baby was going to get a new heart. But then you realize the heart had to come from someone his age and his size.''

Somewhere, someone else had lost a baby.

The date was Oct. 17, 2008. The surgery took hours upon hours and finally ended sometime around 4 the next morning. When the father saw the son at around noon, the baby had better color and was looking more alert than ever.

In another few weeks, Stephen Jr. would be given a clean bill of health and sent home to Atlanta. The doctors all have said Stephen Jr. should have a normal and healthy life.

If you looked over at the bleachers where the families sat during the Atlanta Falcons' minicamp practices last month, you never would have guessed life had been far from normal for the Nicholas family. When practice was over, the father went over to where the son sat with his mother. Within a few seconds, the two were running around and rolling in the grass.

Teammates walked by and smiled at the scene. Their wives and girlfriends watched the two Stephens and there might have been a few tears. This was the happiest ending to the best-kept secret of the 2008 season for the Falcons.

While rookie quarterback Matt Ryan was lighting up the NFL and the Falcons were making a run to the playoffs as the NFL's most surprising team, there was a little family secret that wasn't public because it was a very private matter.

Now Stephen, Irene and the Falcons are ready to tell the story that everyone else helped keep quiet last year.

Stephen and Irene were going through hell, but they had 52 other Falcons, a coaching staff, an owner and an entire building of employees quietly helping them along.

After all the craziness (the Michael Vick saga, Jim Mora melting down and Bobby Petrino walking out on his team) that had surrounded the Falcons in recent years, this story -- even more than the playoff run -- demonstrates a franchise with sanity, compassion and priorities that are very much in order.

It all started soon after Jan. 6, 2008, when Stephen Jr. was born. He was the first child for Stephen and Irene, but the new parents quickly could tell something wasn't right.

"He was sleeping all the time and he barely would eat,'' Irene said.

There was a flurry of visits to pediatricians in Jacksonville, Fla., where the Nicholas family makes its offseason home. Nothing was really clear and doctors eventually sent the baby to a hospital in nearby Gainesville for more evaluation. That's when it first became apparent that something was wrong with Stephen Jr.'s heart.

More tests only enhanced that idea and, with help from Stephanie Blank, wife of Falcons owner Arthur Blank, Stephen Jr. was airlifted to Atlanta. Stephanie Blank is a board member at Children's Hospital of Atlanta. There, doctors determined the baby had cardiomyopathy, a condition where the heart isn't able to properly pump blood throughout the body.

At first, Stephen Jr. was given medication and sent home. There was some mild improvement, but it didn't last long.

"I can't even begin to tell you how many trips we made back to the emergency room,'' Irene said.

A few weeks before Stephen, 26, and the Falcons were scheduled to begin training camp last July, doctors sat him and Irene down.

"They basically said it wasn't getting any better and that just treating it with medication wasn't going to work,'' Stephen said. "He had to have a heart transplant and it would have to come soon. There was no other choice at that point.''

Irene and the baby went to Boston. Stephen went to training camp, where he went through the motions, but his heart was in Boston. For the next four months, Stephen Jr., wired with tubes of medication to help keep his heart functioning, waited for a donor they weren't sure would come in time.

As all this was going on, there was a development that makes you realize the NFL isn't always the cold, hard business we always hear about. First-year coach Mike Smith, a gentle man with a family of his own, sat down Nicholas and told him not to worry about his job security.

"We were very cognizant of what was going on and wanted to make sure he was able to get to Boston as often as possible,'' Smith said. "We wanted him to be with his wife and baby because that was a very trying situation.''

Smith offered a deal. Each Sunday night during the season, Nicholas could fly to Boston from wherever the Falcons were playing. He could take Monday and Tuesday off and fly back to Atlanta in time for Wednesday's practice.

The show of support went even deeper than that. As a second-year backup, Nicholas wasn't making a lot of money. Two veteran teammates, who don't want to be named, helped take care of his travel expenses and the costs of Irene staying in Boston.

Then there was Kevin Winston. Officially, he's the Falcons' director of player programs. Unofficially, he's the team's social worker and a big brother to the players. Winston looks like he could play linebacker, but has a soft spot for anyone who's going through a tough time.

"Kevin was on the phone with me all the time,'' Irene said. "He was always checking to see if there was anything I needed or anything the Falcons could do.''

Back in Atlanta, Stephen was able to focus on football for a few hours each day. He was a fixture on special teams and a backup at outside linebacker.

"It says a lot about Stephen's character that he was able to still play football while he was going through all that,'' Smith said. "It also says a lot about our football team and how the guys rallied around him.''

The situation also revealed an awful lot about Irene. She might have been the strongest of all. She was on the front line, sitting with Stephen Jr. every day, not knowing how long his heart would last or if a new one was coming.

"She's a rock,'' Stephen said. "She held down the fort and told me to keep plugging with football because we had to keep going on. I thank God for giving her to me. Every day when I go home now, I kiss my wife and I kiss my baby. I've been blessed with both of them.''

As Father's Day approaches this weekend, things are back to normal around the Nicholas' house -- as normal as can be expected when you're the proud parents of a rambunctious 18-month-old.

"He's more than normal now and really has been since just a few days after the surgery,'' Irene said. "He's into everything and he never really stops, but that's fine with us.''

Without knowing what was going on behind the scenes last season, some Falcons fans were wondering why Stephen was having a quiet year, after a promising rookie season, and not getting on the field much even though starting linebackers Michael Boley and Keith Brooking weren't having great seasons.

Now, fans know. The Falcons learned plenty about Nicholas last season and that's part of the reason they let Boley and Brooking go.

Nicholas has been working as the starter on the strong side throughout the offseason. Part of that is because the Falcons believe his physical skills are ready to blossom. And part of it may be because Nicholas already has shown he's the strongest player on the roster as a person.

"Stephen and his wife are incredibly strong,'' Smith said. "And they've gotten even stronger because of what they've been through.''

This year, Nicholas is looking forward to training camp and a shot at a starting job. Irene and Stephen Jr. won't be so far away this time. In fact, Nicholas already is looking forward to taking some glances at the bleachers between plays to see his son, safe, sound and healthy.

"It's going to be nice to be out there with a clear mind,'' Nicholas said.

WRITTEN by Pat Yasinskas for ESPN.com on June 19th, 2009

Man is On a Mission to Create Great Fathers

Tom FitzPatrick is a man on a mission. He wants to transform men, one by one, to become great fathers. He knows men have it in them to be successful in their home lives. A teacher, attorney and psychologist all rolled into one, Tom possesses the skills to guide men to leadership.

Leadership is not the word I typically think of when I reflect on what it means to be a dad. But after speaking with Tom, who is clearly passionate about fatherhood, I have new insights about the dynamics in a family that often lead dads to check out and leave the child rearing to moms.

Now, don't get me wrong, I know dads play a crucial role in the family. I'm also quite vocal about that when it comes to finding strong male role models in families where, for whatever reason, the father may be missing in action. But Tom's vision takes the roles of fathers to a whole new level of engagement.

Fathers often become passive and inactive when they feel disconnected, marginalized or alienated from the family. They become unanchored from the family. But rather than asserting themselves in a more dynamic, active role at home, they slink off to work, the golf course or wherever they feel more in control and empowered.

"Men come to me and they're confused," Tom said. "They're often sad, broken and have hit bottom."

In addition, Tom believes many men often feel that when it comes to being a good dad and husband, they think "I'm the only guy who doesn't know how to do this." But if Tom's practice is any indication, there are plenty of men out there who are disengaged.

According to Tom, the solution is to re-energize dads so they are more engaged and competent in their relationships at home. Tom believes every dad should learn to be a leader. "I have come to believe that what a family needs in Dad is leadership," he said.

Tom maintains that to be a leader, you have to have a vision. When dads lack a vision for their families, they have no plan or mission; instead, they amble from one day to another with any sense of direction or guidance. "If a man has a purpose and a mission and is on point with his mission, then he is not distracted when he trying to be and deal with his wife and children," Tom said.

To Tom, leadership is not tyranny or control but passion and purpose. It's about strength, conviction and service. Tom sees too little of that from dads today. So he is on a mission to cultivate fathers who know how to lead.

"This is my mission in my life: to give men more power," Tom exclaimed with his own sense of passion and purpose. "My goal is to bring men together so that they can create good fathering."

So once a month, Tom holds a Fathers Forum where dads come together to talk about fathering. When dads gather to discuss, share and support one another, they normalize what being a dad is for each other. They also get more power and passion in the process. "I like to see men come together to craft solutions, talk and learn," Tom said. "They support each other and build awareness about what it takes to become an engaged and dynamic dad. My job is to help men get more power, purpose, passion and peace in their lives."

Tom acknowledges that sometimes trying to bring men together to talk is like herding cats: It can be difficult and frustrating. But the fruits of his efforts are vast. Just ask kids about their dads and the way that they touch their lives.

Good dads are not tough to spot. They are like the mighty oaks that stand tall and strong. I've seen these types of good, strong and competent fathers and I've witnessed my fair share of dads who are disengaged from their families. There is no doubt that fathers with a sense of engagement and purpose raise children who have many more advantages and promise than those kids whose fathers are lackluster, disconnected or absent and where no solid male role model has been set in his place.

It's good to know there are men like Tom FitzPatrick in the world who care about the state of fatherhood and are using every ounce of their energy to reach out to dads to help them become strong, effective partners in child-rearing. So here's to you, Tom, for setting a path for dads to become a vital and vibrant part of their families.

And hats off and Father's Day salutations to all dads who understand what their involvement and nurturing does for their kids and families and who learn what it takes to be the best dads they can be. It's no small task to be a dad, but it has a huge impact that reverberates for generations because children with good parents learn how to be good parents themselves.

WRITTEN by Alyssa Martina at The Detroit News on June 19th, 2009

New Daditude: Hands On, Pressure Off

Today's fathers may well take parenting as seriously as their mates, but unlike many moms, dads don't view it as a competitive sport. Instead, the new attitude of 21st-century fatherhood is hands-on and involved, but with a hint of playfulness.
"All of these social expectations have developed over decades about what moms are supposed to do. We don't have a new picture of what involved dads are supposed to look like," says Will Courtenay, a psychotherapist in Berkeley, Calif., who is on the advisory board of The Center for Men and Young Men at McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School.

Those who study fatherhood say today's dads are forging a new identity, as working women press for a more egalitarian home life, and telecommuting and workplace flexibility make it possible for dads to have more time with the kids. Also, dads today are no longer the stuffy or clueless fathers portrayed on TV.

"It's cool now to be an active, involved father," says Aaron Rochlen, associate professor of psychology at the University of Texas-Austin. "Overall, men being more active fathers is starting to become more of the norm and less of the anomaly."

As a result, there has been a real shift in the way men talk about fatherhood, experts say: Young dads (generally those in their early 40s and younger) say they know they're not perfect, but they don't worry about being judged.

Compared with pressure that many moms say they feel, "the bar is set pretty low for father involvement and father engagement," says Jeff Cookston, an assistant professor of psychology who studies fatherhood at San Francisco State University. He calls the current group of younger dads a "pilot generation" because they're trying to figure out the transition from dad as a breadwinner to the hands-on pop who doesn't shirk from diaper changes or carpool runs.

Psychiatrist Kyle Pruett of the Yale University Child Study Center in New Haven, Conn., has seen changes in more than 25 years teaching child development. When he started, his students were all girls.

"Now, we've had a couple of years where there were male majorities, including one year where the entire starting line of the hockey team came to the class," he says.

When he has asked guys why they took the course, Pruett says he has heard some version of "because I plan to be an involved parent and an involved husband."

And dads are getting plenty of online support, as fathers make inroads into the parenting blogosphere that for years was for moms only. There are now lots of websites devoted to dads, such as DadLabs.com, which posts four weekly short videos of advice and product reviews, and Daddytude.com, which calls itself "a journey with a not-so-perfect Dad." New books about fatherhood include Michael Lewis' Home Game: An Accidental Guide to Fatherhoodand Jeremy Adam Smith's The Daddy Shift.

Many of these dads write about their experiences with humor, which Smith calls "the male response to being uncomfortable."

"They're doing the dishes and taking care of the kids, but it doesn't match with that traditional male image, so they laugh about it. They giggle. They make jokes," says Smith, 39, of San Francisco. He is senior editor of Greater Good magazine and founded the blog Daddy Dialectic.

DadLabs (with the motto "We screwed up, so you don't have to") was created by three former teachers. As new fathers, they found existing advice boring and clinical or just for laughs. They also have two DVDs and a new book, DadLabs Guide to Fatherhood: Pregnancy and Year One. They're now in discussions with production companies about a cable TV show.

The three daddies

Known on the Web as Daddy Clay, Daddy Brad and Daddy Troy, the site's founders are Clay Nichols, 42, a father of three ages 10, 7 and 5; Troy Lanier, 42, a father of two, ages 6 and 4; and Brad Powell, 41, soon to be a father of three. (The first two are ages 6 and 3, and a son is due any day.) Nichols has expertise in playwriting and drama. Lanier has film experience. And Powell, who has an MBA, has been a business manager and fundraiser. Another father, Owen Egerton, also appears in video segments.

Nichols was a stay-at-home dad during his oldest child's first year a decade ago, when such fathers were a curiosity. He says he has "vivid memories of taking Wilson to a local coffee shop and getting a lot of well-intentioned but nonetheless patronizing comments from women. … 'You tell Daddy you want some socks.' 'You tell Daddy you need a hat.' They would offer their very helpful parenting suggestions to the baby."

Wives of the original trio all work full-time. One is a hospital chaplain and the other two work at the private school where their husbands were employed before starting DadLabs.

The dads say their entrepreneurial effort is starting to pay off — it broke even for the first time in January after they signed a sponsorship deal, which has been renewed through 2009.

All three DadLabs creators have advanced degrees and could earn more money at jobs with greater prestige, but Nichols says they've decided being present for their kids is more important.

"There's a loud voice in my head that says 'You need to be making more money. You need to be getting ahead. You need to be succeeding.' That is a voice that I argue with on a daily basis."

Tradition dies hard

But this new, hands-on vision of fatherhood is not universal, says Courtenay.

"You certainly see traditional masculinity of the 1950s still alive and very well in many men," including younger ones, he says. "It's not as if that's completely going away."

Researchers say there are distinct socio-economic, racial and ethnic attitudes about masculinity that translate into fatherhood perceptions. For example, men from the South, as well as blacks and Hispanics, have more traditional ideas about fatherhood and masculinity.

This is rooted in a male identity that teaches "boys to be in charge and make decisions and not admit weakness," says Andrew Smiler, visiting assistant professor of psychology at Wake Forest University, in Winston-Salem, N.C., who studies masculinity.

"Then we get this generation of guys who say they want to be more involved with their children's upbringing than their parents were, but they don't know how to do it," he says.

The result, Smiler says, is this more laid-back attitude about parenting: "It's harder than it looks and I don't know what to do or how to do it, but I'm giving it my best shot."

Actor Shaun O'Hagan, 39, of Santa Monica, Calif., has five to eight auditions a week and he has taken his son, Ryan, 2, with him on most of them since his wife went back to work as an accountant following her maternity leave. Sometimes his brother-in-law has gone along to help, but O'Hagan says he has often relied on those at the auditions to tend to his son during the tryouts.

Despite earning residual checks, O'Hagan says, the economic downturn in Hollywood took a toll on his career last year.

"I had a little bit of an identity crisis when jobs weren't coming and I was full-time with Ryan," he says. "I just wanted to roll up my sleeves and work, especially since I had a son. I wanted to be the dad who went out and earned a living for my family."

Things have improved, he says, but "I really did appreciate my time with Ryan. I was really able to — as my mother uses the phrase — 'soak it all in,' " he says.

A close father/child connection is beneficial for kids, according to a body of research that suggests children with actively involved fathers do better academically, socially and behaviorally.

Gary Berger, 34, of Madison, Wis., found himself overseeing the household and his three children (now 8, 6 and 5) when his wife of almost 10 years served in Iraq for about five months. The couple met in the Air Force.

"She got out of active duty while I stayed in. I deployed for Iraq in 2003 (he flew B-52s) and she was a stay-at-home mom then, but stayed in the reserves. Then last Sept. 2, she deployed to Iraq," says Berger, who works in marketing.

"I'm not worried about people saying staying home with kids is a woman's job. That's old attitudes," he says. "A real priority in fatherhood is raising good kids. Every other concern becomes secondary to that."

WRITTEN by Sharon Jayson at USA Today on June 10th, 2009

A Critical Role for Fathers

The celebration of Father's Day allows our nation a moment to pause and reflect on the memories and experiences of childhood and fatherhood alike.

Aside from the typical gift selection of a new tie, putter or power tools, no serious consideration is given to this holiday. This Father's Day, take a break from the barbecue grill, playing catch or listening to another one of dad's widely exaggerated stories (that you've already heard at least a thousand times), and ponder a more broad subject, the rights of a father.

A father's rights have remained a largely hidden issue, tucked away beneath America's fiery and passionate opinions on abortion. In many ways, the parental rights of expectant fathers are blatantly ignored, and fathers are, in a court of law, unable to voice their opinion in regard to childbirth.

A fundamental assumption leading to the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade was that because women are biologically tied to the birth process, they should therefore bear all responsibility in deciding the life or death of their children. The reason for this perspective is straightforward: Roe v. Wade rejected the idea that another person controlled a woman's body.

On the one hand, this shattered patriarchal stereotypes that regarded women as little more than vessels. Plainly, that is a good thing. But in the continued fight for equality, various feminist groups have refused to acknowledge the basic human rights of the co-equal contributors to pregnancy: the unborn child and the father. Plainly, that is a bad thing.

Just ask John Stachokus.

Not long ago, Mr. Stachokus planned to have a child with his 23-year-old girlfriend. Together, they picked out the child's name and godparents. He proudly imagined what it would be like to start a family; this made him happy. Then one day, his girlfriend abruptly decided to terminate her pregnancy. She was reacting to pressure from her parents, Mr. Stachokus says. He responded by obtaining an injunction, temporarily prohibiting her from having an abortion, which a court rejected. And just that quickly, Mr. Stachokus' hopes and dreams for his child dissolved.

It did not matter to the court that Mr. Stachokus was willing to take full responsibility for nurturing and providing for the child. His basic human rights did not factor into the court's decision. All that mattered was that his girlfriend suddenly changed her mind and decided to murder their unborn baby. As far as the court was concerned, Mr. Stachokus had no say in the life of his own child. The court regarded him as little more than a soulless contributor of DNA.

Of course, the response of abortion rights advocates is predictable. They greeted news of the demise of Mr. Stachokus' child with cheers and the standard rhetoric about a woman's right to choose. "An adult woman has a fundamental constitutional right to privacy," said Linda Rosenthal, an attorney representing the girlfriend.

Indeed, it is her body, but her body does not exist in a vacuum. She shared that body with Mr. Stachokus - as he did with her - and together they made a decision that led to the creation of a baby (a feat neither of them could have accomplished individually).

Doesn't this symbiotic act give the father some say in the matter of whether his girlfriend may have an abortion? After all, if the baby had been carried to term, Mr. Stachokus, irrespective of his own preferences, would have been legally obligated to pay child support. Society would have demanded that he take responsibility. And yet when it comes to the decision of whether to abort that same child, he is denied any say whatsoever. That is an appalling contradiction.

We live in an age of eroding family values, in which fathers routinely abandon their children and disregard their familial responsibilities. Mr. Stachokus' desire to raise and care responsibly for his child should be commended and encouraged. Instead, the law brutally and arbitrarily denies that he has any right to his child whatsoever.

Countless men are faced with the same nightmare of having no voice in the execution of their children.

"Men's rights are trampled on all the time when it comes to reproductive rights," said Dianna Thompson, executive director of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children. It is time to fight back, to force our government to re-evaluate the logic of treating men as little more than fertilizers.

This case raises serious questions about a father's say in the life of his own child, as well as the extent of the government's duty to help project human rights and encourage the family unit. Sadly, these profound questions fall by the wayside in a society that worships at the golden calf of individual choice, and relegates the voice of fathers and unborn babies to the margin.

The outcome of the Stachokus case and other, similar cases points to a need to widen the consideration of abortion beyond just the rights of the mother to the rights of fathers and - of central importance - the unborn child. Only by placing abortion within its proper context will we get a better understanding of its full implications.

Fatherhood is a lifetime commitment, deserving of much more than a single day's celebration. We should not allow the failed father figures of these modern times, or the negative examples of parenting portrayed on television to define or represent every father in the country. This Father's Day, don't limit your thoughts to only fatherhood. Instead, reflect upon the larger concept at hand, the celebration of two individuals uniting together, prayerfully in marriage, to perform one of the most challenging tasks ever known, parenthood.

WRITTEN by Armstrong Williams at The Washington Times on June 17th, 2009