Honoring Our Fathers

http://mensnewsdaily.com/2006/04/04/...our-fathers-2/

Honoring Our Fathers
April 04, 2006
Denise Noe
In arguing for reinstating the military "risk rule" that prohibited female
soldiers from being deployed in areas where being killed or captured by the
enemy was possible, Linda Chavez wrote, "The death of a father, tragic as it
is, does not compare to the death of a mother."

While this writer agrees with Chavez that it may be necessary to reinstate
the risk rule because of women's special vulnerabilities to rape and
pregnancy, I was disheartened to see her argue for it by denigrating the
importance of fathers. Unfortunately, she follows a greater cultural
tendency to treat fathers as second-class parents. In books, movies, and
TV, fathers are often depicted as drunken, violent "patriarchs," feeding a
sense that men do not belong in children's lives. More generally,
fatherhood is often reduced to economic support. Chavez may, at least to
some degree, hold this view. If a father's role is simply that of a
paycheck, he can be replaced, while a mother, whose role is viewed in terms
of a relationship, cannot.

Indeed, it may be true that, for too many people, a father is a lesser
parent. But even given the biological realities of pregnancy and childbirth,
fathers need not be emotionally less important in the lives of their young
than mothers. As adoption shows, caring for a baby after it is born can form
a powerful parent-child bond. Men can hold and cuddle, change diapers and
soothe. They cannot breastfeed but they can feed through a bottle, even the
mother's milk that is usually best for the child.

American society currently has contradictory trends regarding fatherhood,
some of which are anti-fatherhood and others which build it up. The worst of
the former is the prevalence of single-mother homes that deprive children of
a strong link to their fathers and vice versa.

Marriage has been criticized as an institution of men's tyranny or as an
invention of women for the purpose of exploiting men. The truth is that a
primary reason for the evolution of marriage was the meshing of men's and
women's desires regarding the next generation. Marriage compensates women
for the biological inequality of pregnancy and childbirth by ensuring that
they have men's help in rearing the next generation. Marriage compensates
men for that same inequality by giving them a position from which to
powerfully influence the young. A man cannot nurture babies and children
unless he is there, and marriage is the surest way to this goal.

However, marriage does not guarantee a genuinely close bond between fathers
and children. The male provider role often leads to long hours away from
home, resulting in emotional distance. Fathers who are also their family's
sole providers must make an extra effort to keep themselves from being
reduced to dollar signs. Equally important, Mothers must help in this
effort by willingly giving up some of their children's time and attention to
Dads.

One of the more interesting contemporary phenomenon is that of the Mr. Mom
or stay-at-home-Dad who is the primary caregiver for babies and children.
Many men fall into this role because they happen to be unemployed but others
are eager to assume it. This should not be too surprising. Changing
diapers may be odious but it is less so than the chores of many
male-dominated jobs such as garbage collector and sewer worker. Moreover
the joy of cuddling a happy baby and hearing it coo, wave its tiny arms and
smile can more than make up for the grubby aspects of infant care. As one
man explained, "The most intense personal rewards for me have come when I
have been doing the domestic manager deal, taking full exclusive care of as
small child."

Society has become flexible enough to allow for men as primary parents and
women as family breadwinners. However, this does not mean that all sex
distinctions should or can go by the wayside. As noted at the start of this
essay, the special vulnerabilities of female captives could mean that the
military may have to again restrict women soldiers from working in places
where they might be captured. It is certain that, as long as we have the
tragedy of war, those doing frontline infantry combat will be men and not
women due to the significant degree of the average size and strength
differences between the sexes.

However, a change may well take place in combat when the first generation of
sons raised by stay-at-home-dads come of age. Wounded soldiers are famous
for crying, "Mama!" Perhaps in the future, some will cry, "Daddy!"
honoring our fathers in a genuinely new and most emotionally heartfelt way.

A previous version of this column was published in the Bolivar Free-Herald