Every Father's Day there is a spate of stories about fatherhood and it's meaning and status in the world in which we live today. I seldom find the discussions very edifying.
It seems to me painfully self-evident that all parents -- good, bad, or indifferent -- have a profound impact on their children. However, the "pro-father" forces -- I don't think anyone is really anti-father -- get bogged down in gender essentialism -- fathers are important because they are both caretakers and they are men. And the latter characteristic is deemed as substantial as the former.
I understand the argument -- it is premised on the notion that children need models -- both male and female -- to help them learn to steer their way through the world. But the longer I do this the less I think notions of traditional masculinity have very much at all to do with being a good father. And I find the stereotypical premises behind much of the traditionalist rhetoric -- father as disciplinarian, rule maker, and authority figure to be absurd and limiting. Indeed, at least in my social circle, it seems to be the mothers who are far better at laying down the law, with me and my fellow fathers tending to be a little more laid back about our children's' foibles -- perhaps because we had more of them ourselves.
I continue to be enough of a traditionalist -- well a pragmatist really -- to believe that two parents are a marked advantage over one. I am equally convinced that the sex of the parents just doesn't mean that much -- except possibly in communities where fathers are wholly absent.
