Absent Fathers In The Home: No Outrage Here

By L. Ardor
Pride Columnist

As a single parent, my daughter and I understand far too intimately the effects of a fatherless home.

The absence of an active father is created in more ways than everyone’s favourite explanation of deadbeat dads, and the baby momma epidemic; death, divorce, incarceration, and immigration have all had a hand in creating fatherless children.

The statistics remind us every year that the ideal two-parent home is in danger.

I wonder what the statistics are however, for two-parent homes with only one parent actively raising the child(ren)? After the age of 13, my Jamaica-born and raised father was not as active in my life as he would have liked to think he was.

Yes, he was present at all my publically defining moments; birthdays, basketball games, and graduations. Yes, my father drove me to school and picked me up from school until the 11^th grade, and brought me breakfast in bed on the odd occasion.

Yet, it was my mother who raised me. My mother was my doctor, my chef, my maid, and my counsellor. She praised me when I did something right, and whopped my butt when I did something wrong.

My father was a provider, with three children, the last two being one year apart, he did what most men who accept the role of fatherhood do, he provided, and he provided well.

My mother was also a provider; she provided her feminine energy to raise three beautiful children. When her children were old enough, she went back to work, also financially providing for the family. In our eyes she seamlessly moved from working woman to the ever providing mom we knew.

Unfortunately she is not an example of the exception. The gender roles we have accepted and nurtured have given us this craving we want to fulfill.

A loving husband, a house on a child-friendly street, yoga and coffee in the morning, with Pinterest inspired meals for when the bacon comes home. When do we realize that the ideal we crave is lacking?

If just financially providing isn’t good enough for a father that is not a physical presence in the home, why is it acceptable for the ones that are? Where is the outrage? Is it lost in duty? Do we accept the obligation: “Kids are expensive these days!”, so we make room, and prepare more room for the little girls and boys that grow into adults telling the same story, “I never really knew my father, he was never really there for me.”

What are the statistics of women that like it that way? Sandra, a mother of two post-secondary students admitted that she liked having her children to herself. “We agreed, once we have kids I would be a stay-at-home mom to take care of the kids, because my husband’s work involved traveling, and we did not want our kids to grow up without one of us.”

There is no violence in that right? Taking into account the mortgage payment we label as childcare, it is essential for one parent to fight hard to win the bread. And fighting is hard work; the daily grind of being one in a sea of fighters, sometimes all vying for the same bread, is exhausting.

Couple that with the hard fist of systematic racism, and the daily struggle for men of colour, it is understandable why retreating to the couch, the man cave, and the bedroom after a long day of work is the medicine many seek.

Many women like Sandra are essentially single mothers, with the comfort of a husband who comes home at night.

“Yes, my husband feels one of us should be responsible for rearing our kids, and he was happy with me raising them, and he providing the financial support so we are able to do that. I love being a Mom, I did not resent my husband for this, if anything I love him more, because it gave [me] time to mould the kids into [the] people I want them to become.”

This is the price families should be prepared to pay when the man accepts his God given role as the provider.

We have pigeon holed ourselves into the easier definition and application of what it means to be a provider, and we have forgotten why we crave the ideal found in the woman plus man plus baby equals family.

Our belief has always been that children need two loving, attentive parents to survive in this world better than the rest.

When we substitute one loving and attentive parent for a loving and attentive paycheque, we have an accurate depiction of many families in Canada and the Caribbean.

I am not downplaying the importance of the paycheque, the paycheque is important, the paycheque ensures the family will live under a roof and within their own four walls—the paycheque creates a means for “happy” children.

I am expressing sadness that the paycheque has grown arms and hugs the children, tucks them in and kisses them goodnight.

When I asked Sandra how her husband compensated for his absence in his children’s rearing, she told me stories of family outings, “Once he is home we spend all the time doing family stuff, going out for dinner, movies and parks. In the summer we would visit all the parks on the waterfront, from Oakville to Toronto. Season pass to [Canada’s] Wonderland, Marineland, all the hotels in Niagara Falls.”

We did those things too, my father, mother, two younger siblings and myself, and they were great times, yet they were not the times I remember the most. When thoughts of my childhood flash in my memory, I see my mother yelling at us to clean up our rooms, while my dad watched wrestling on the couch.

I see myself waking up early to watch Saturday morning cartoons with my father, and declaring Hulk Hogan to be my favourite wrestler because it was time I was able to be a part of my father’s world.

Now I understand my father should have been vying for a spot to be a part of my world.

We have passed on a crooked ideal. Fathers and mothers have forgotten that it is also the man’s duty to water their seed. Fathers have forgotten how to raise their children outside of the occasional “listen to your mother.” What I crave in my equation is a partnership.

Maybe I am the exception to the rule, and maybe I have truly learned from my experiences growing up, and want better for my child(ren).

I am not throwing the two-parent home ideal into my well lit fire; as an ideal, I have kept it with me. I am however, questioning our quest for the almighty paycheque at the expense of well-fed, seemingly happy, albeit neglected children.

L. Ardor is a writer who believes that everything in life stems from love. Her mission is to spread her philosophy to all brave enough to embrace. You can find Ms. Ardor on twitter: @LaLaArdor.