The NY Times is having a discussion titled “What are Fathers For?” in the opinion section under the heading “Room for Debate.” Several of the opinions say “not much,” including Jane Mattes, founder of “single mothers by choice,” and Michele Weldon. Jane and Michele are both single mothers, and admit that this was their own choice. Their children, of course, had no choice as to whether they would be fatherless or not, and that should be enough to give everyone some reservations about their judgment.
I’ll add that personally, as a father who went through a custody dispute, although I fought for time with my kids, I never for a single moment considered removing their mother from their lives, and never would have done so even if it had been possible. To me, denying a child access to a parent, unless that parent is flat out dangerous, is unthinkable. How is it that so many women can find the nerve to justify doing so for even the pettiest of reasons? It is a moral shortcoming that I just don’t understand, because it implies a real lack of consideration for one’s children’s needs as human beings.
Both Mattes and Weldon are second wave feminists; the type who were celebrated in the 80s and 90s as empowered career women. However, as the picture of single motherhood comes into focus after decades of cultural attacks on the family, we don’t see so many professional women raising children alone, but rather hapless, impoverished, dependent and uneducated young women.
These old feminists, in defending their part in dispossessing so many American children, and perhaps the unspoken results of their choices, would throw millions of future children under the bus for a concept of “family” that just doesn’t work very well. In an article titled “When Children are Better off Fatherless,” confronted with the emotional pain that fatherlessness causes children, Weldon displays a callousness that must come from ignorance; if not, she is a thoroughly disgusting person.
Take her interpretation of a scene from The Fresh Prince of Bell Aire, in which Will Smith breaks down when his father disappoints him:
In time for Father’s Day movie bonding, Will Smith stars in “After Earth” with his real-life son, Jaden. But a 1994 episode of “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” shows a much younger Will Smith in a scene that is more real to many American boys. The Smith character’s father runs out on a promise to take his son on a trip, and Smith shouts: “I’m gonna get through college without him. I’m gonna get a great job without him and marry me a beautiful honey and have me a whole bunch of kids. And I’m gonna be a better father than he ever was.” And then he chokes, “How come he don’t want me, man?”
I know there is no possible answer to that question. But I also know it is time to stop damning the children who need to ask.
Ms. Weldon, by dismissing the importance of fathers, you just did damn those children. Is justifying what you did to your own sons so important that you would break the hearts of even more boys?
