THEY CAN'T PUT A HAPPY FACE ON FATHERLESSNESS
Lancaster New Era, Sunday, July 25, 1999, By Maggie Gallagher Syndicated Columnist
The American Psychological Association, fresh from Dr. Laura's pummeling for a study that urged us to view "adult-child sex" in a less pejorative light, has done it again. "Reconstructing the Essential Father," by two Yeshiva University scholars, appeared in the June issue of the American Psychologist, which lands on the desk of almost every practicing psychologist in America.
Their goal: To torpedo the emerging new consensus that intact marriages are important for kids.
At least they admit it: "Our goal is to generate public policy initiatives that support (fathers) without discriminating against women and same-sex couples ..: (and) that support the legitimacy of diverse family structures, rather than policy that privileges the two-parent, heterosexual, married family."
Take that pesky idea that mothers and fathers are, well, different. Did you know that male mountain gorillas with harems don't spend a lot of time in child care, while marmoset fathers, whose "wives" always have twins, must care for them so she can eat enough to nurse them? That human fathers sometimes care for infants full-time? From data like this, they conclude that "both men and women have the same biological potential for nurturing."
They make the astonishing claim that the least amount of father involvement can be found in "poor, unmarried teen- age fathers and upper-class fathers in traditional nuclear families." Have they ever heard of absent dads?
Yes, for they report that out of one sample of 45 urban teen girls who didn't live with their fathers, seven saw them weekly, while "only" 10 had almost no contact with them. That proves that "it is not the decline of marriage that is discouraging responsible fathering. Rather, various social conditions inhibit involved parenting by unmarried and divorced men." Gee, silly meI thought actually living with your dad was likely to encourage contact with him. Poor, noncustodial fathers who have jobs are more likely than unemployed dads to pay child support, they note. From data like this, they conclude "... it is economics, not marriage that matters." Huh?
Our new desire to strengthen marriage is in their view just a scary attempt to reassert "the cultural hegemony of traditional values, such as heterocentrism, Judeo-Christian marriage, and male power and privilege." It leads to horrible, unrealistic policies like giving job help to low-income married fathers (and not just welfare mothers), or a more marriage-friendly tax code. Instead, these hard-headed professors urge more practical solutions, like reconstructing traditional masculine ideology so men care for infants as much as women.
Statements like "responsible fathering can occur within a variety of family structures" are obviously in some technical sense true. What they are not is relevant to the current debate, which asks:
Under what conditions are children likely to fare best? And, are adults obligated to provide, if they can, the best situation for their kids?
What a healthy marriage provides fathers and their kids is not one thing, but a series of things: more money, more time with mother as well as father, more consistent discipline and a model of family commitment and love. Married fathers and mothers every day declare to their kids: Family bonds last.
When fathers and mothers aren't married, these things happen: They don't live together. They develop new emotional, financial and erotic obligations to spouses or romantic partners who aren't in love with their kids. They find new things to fight about too often, as mothers experience repeated disappointments and fathers juggle their various conflicting emotions and obligations.
All parents struggling to raise responsible kids deserve our support. But a few words issued from an ivory tower aren't going to change the reality of fatherlessness that, sadly, too many of our children today know by heart.
Study denouncing fathers sends danger signals
By Kathleen Parker, The Orlando Sentinel, USA, on July 18, 1999
Now is the time for all good fathers to come to the aid of the family.
But you'd better hurry; your days are numbered. In fact, if you happen to be a heterosexual male (further doomed by Caucasian pigmentation), your days are already over, according to a cover article in the June issue of American Psychologist, published by the American Psychological Association.
In their article, "Deconstructing the Essential Father," researchers Louise B. Silverstein and Carl F. Auerbach challenge one of the core institutions of our culture -- fatherhood. Read More .. less, fathers, as we've known and loved them, are obsolete.
The article makes numerous breathtaking assertions, but basically the researchers state that fathers aren't essential to the well-being of children Read More ...
TV Show about Parental Alienation
W5 investigates: Children on the frontlines of divorce
November 7, 2009
The world of divorce is scary for any child. But when a divorce becomes especially toxic, children can become the target of an unrelenting crusade by one parent to destroy the child's relationship with the other. Experts call it parental alienation.
Affair led to mother murdering her own kids
Days after buying another woman Valentine's Day flowers, a Sydney father came home to find a trail of blood leading him to the bodies of his two young children lying next to their mother, a court has been told.
Australian Associated Press
Aug 24 2009
The woman had given the couple's three-year-old daughter and four-year-old son rat poison and an unidentified pink liquid before smothering them and killing them, court papers said.
She then tried to take her own life, the NSW Supreme Court was told.
Doctors agree the mother, from Canley Heights in Sydney's west, was suffering from "major depression" when she poisoned her children on February 19 last year.
She has pleaded not guilty to the two murders by reason of mental illness.
As her judge-alone trial began, the mother's lawyer told Justice Clifton Hoeben his client didn't think life was worth living after learning about her husband's affair.
American Psychological Association
Dating Violence Statistics in the United States
Nearly one in 10 girls and one in 20 boys say they have been raped or experienced some other form of abusive violence on a date, according to a study released Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association.
Teen depression on the increase
More and More teens are becoming depressed. The numbers of young people suffering from depression in the last 10 years has risen worryingly, an expert says.
BBC, UK, August 3, 2004
Government statistics suggest one in eight adolescents now has depression.
Unless doctors recognise the problem, Read More ..uld slip through the net, says Professor Tim Kendall of the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health.
Guidelines on treating childhood depression will be published next year. Professor Kendall says a lot Read More ..eds to be done to treat the illness.
Woman convicted of killing 3 kids after custody battle
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, USA, August 26, 2008
HELSINKI, Finland - A court in Finland has convicted a woman of murdering her three young children and has given her a life sentence.
The Espoo District Court says Thai-born Yu-Hsiu Fu was found guilty of strangling her 8-year-old twin daughters and 1-year-old son in her home.
She tried to kill herself afterward.
The verdict on Tuesday says the 41-year-old woman was found to be of sound mind at the time of the murders.
Court papers show the murders were preceded by a bitter custody battle with her Finnish husband who was living separately from her at the time of the murders.
A life sentence in Finland mean convicts usually serve at least 11 years in prison.