The Silence of the Good People
by Stephen Baskerville
Wade F. Horn, David Blankenhorn, and Mitchell B. Pearlstein, eds. The
Fatherhood Movement: A Call to Action. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington
Books, 1999. ISBN 0-7391-0022-X.
The last five years has seen an explosion of campaigns dedicated to
the crisis of fathers who are cut off from their children. Some are
large, well-funded national organizations, generally dedicated to
promoting responsible fatherhood in cultural rather than political
terms. Others are small, scattered, and ragtag groups concerned with the
political and constitutional rights (or lack thereof) of fathers and
their children.
The relationship between these two wings of the fatherhood movement
has thus far been largely complementary and amicable. They share the aim
of promoting awareness of the importance of fathers and families, and
rights and responsibilities are, clich�that it is, undeniably two
sides of the same coin. But as the movement grows (which it is doing by
leaps and bounds), friction is bound to increase.
This collection of essays by some major figures in the more
established wing of the movement makes clear that that they wish to
include and accommodate fathers rights advocates among their ranks, at
least to a point. Too much discussion of rights does make some
conservatives (and nowadays some liberals) uncomfortable in a society
where every group under the sun seems to be staking a claim. For their
part, fathers rights advocates are ill at ease with the implication that
fathers should be presumed to be irresponsible. All this may appear as
another division familiar in any political movement between moderates
and radicals, but the political dynamics are complicated. While radicals
are unlikely to be entirely satisfied with this book by moderates, they
should not dismiss it and may even gain a few useful insights.
Wade Horn, president of the National Fatherhood Initiative, the most
well known fatherhood organization, repeatedly writes in his keynote
essay about the new attention to fatherhood as a social movement (my
emphasis). The word he avoids, quite intentionally, is political. Horns
reluctance to discuss fatherhood politically may proceed from
justifiable concern that some could use this to dismiss the movement as
a stalking horse for some hidden agenda to restore patriarchy. What
remains of politics therefore is largely public policy. But the
parallels Horn himself invokes with movements that initially had little
connection with government (abolitionism, temperance, civil rights)
betray the fact that, admit it or not, what we have here is a political
phenomenon from which the demand for civil rights is inseparable.
The volumes main concession to the rights of fathers is the essay by
Ronald Henry on divorced dads, which is indeed one of the most
forthright in the book. Henry sets off to elucidate brilliantly the
dangerously intrusive nature of family courts:
A custody decree is an order that restricts parents access and
custodial rights with respect to the child andenjoins the parents from
the exercise of their former, unrestricted rights. In all other
situations, the guiding principle is that injunctive relief should be
carefully crafted to impose only such minimum restrictions upon the
parties prior freedom as is required to resolve the present dispute. In
contrastthe most common custody decrees issued by the courts today
impose maximum rather than minimum change upon the parent-child
relationship.
Unfortunately Henry then capitulates to what Maggie Gallagher
belittles as good divorce in setting forth joint custody as the least
intrusive alternative to automatic sole mother custody. Joint custody
has much to be said for it in some circumstances those where the divorce
is truly mutual, for example (a mere 20% according to Gallagher) and it
mitigates some of the trauma of divorce for some children. But Gallagher
is right to debunk joint custody as a panacea for the traumas of
divorce. For connected reasons, I also do not think it is very effective
or inspiring as a political focus for fathers. Here is one place where
we might emphasize common ground with some in responsible fatherhood.
(Though Gallaghers position on marriage is far from universally accepted
even among them, as the essay by Ronald Mincy and Hillard Pouncy
indicates.)
For one thing, joint custody appears to fulfill the stereotype of the
divorced dad, a stereotype which is too visible a presence in this book
as it is. Far too many times it is simply assumed that divorced and
absent fathers are willingly divorced and absent rather than, as is much
more likely, divorced over their objections and absent because of a
court order. But we lend support to the stereotype or we are at least
acquiescing in it when we make joint custody, rather than judicial
kidnapping, our only battle cry.
Moreover, joint custody is not the least intrusive custody standard.
The least intrusive standard is also the only morally and
constitutionally defensible one, the only one that provides for minimal
state intrusion into the family, that will bring down the out-of-control
divorce epidemic, that will end the use of children as weapons and tools
for the power and profit of adults, that avoids the abominations of
primary caretaker or highest earner and the extremes of sole mother or
sole father custody: Custody goes to the parent that (barring legitimate
grounds) wants to hold the family together.
A parent that leaves a marriage without grounds, knowing she is
walking away from her children, is putting her own desires before the
needs of her children.
She is, by that fact alone, a less fit parent than one who holds the
family together.
Moralistic? Judgmental? Perhaps it is time we grasped this nettle. We
are moral beings. More importantly, our children require a moral
upbringing. Children are not pets who only need feeding and exercise.
And many writers in this book emphasize fathers as specifically moral
leaders. Horn highlights fathers as disciplinarians and moral
instructors. Ken Canfield stresses promoting moral and spiritual
development. Don Eberly writes that fathers engender trust, cooperation,
and a social generosity among citizens are preconditions of a vigorous
civil society. To remove moral judgment from the family (and justice
from family law) is, inherently, to undermine fatherhood.
This brings us to what, for our purposes, may be the most suggestive
essay in the book, the one that establishes fatherhood as serious
political topic. In No Democracy Without Dads, Eberly says that Fathers
can be a powerful influence in making better citizens. This argument
might be taken much further, but Eberly makes it concisely. A democracy
requires of its citizens that they possess enough faith, energy,
imagination and self-control to work actively together to solve common
problems, to help one another, and if necessary to sacrifice for their
own future well-being and the nations, he writes, Fathers play a key
role in developing and sustaining the kind of personal character on
which democracy depends.
Eberly writes in a long tradition of what was once known as
republican virtue. This in turn was a secularized version of Puritan
godliness, a testimony to the connection of religion not only to
fatherhood but also to the politics of fatherhood. The Puritan belief in
the family as a little commonwealth anticipated our conviction that
families are the building blocks of civil society. It was a radical and
revolutionary idea, responsible for the toppling of monarchies and the
expulsion of colonial powers. (And lest feminists point to this as
evidence of a resurgent patriarchy, it might be added that it did so by
destroying the patriarchal theory of divine right monarchy and that
women were drawn to Puritanism and Republicanism in disproportionately
large numbers.)
For Eberly trust within the family is the precondition for social
cohesion. When sad experience has taught you that you cant trust your
own father, he asks who are you likely to trust? Overlooking (yet again)
the slur on fathers who may have no choice, the point is central. In
fact what Eberly seems to see only obliquely is that it can be extended
to every other authority, for example mothers and government
institutions. He is exactly right to point to the erosion of trust
produced by a growing number of parents who fail to preserve the bonds
of trust with their own children, adding: Since most absent parents are
men, we are referring primarily to fathers.
No we are not. Most absent parents are indeed fathers, but it is not
necessarily they who are causing the absence, and depending on their
age, children (unlike policymakers) are quite capable of perceiving
this. A mother who has put her own desires before the needs of her
children by removing them from their father also has no moral authority
to correct or discipline a child. Likewise, a court or social service
agency that has engineered the destruction of a childs home for its own
political or bureaucratic purposes is also morally bankrupt in the
childs eyes. When the fathers expulsion is condoned by relatives,
clergy, the media, and virtually every other social and cultural
institution (as Barbara Dafoe Whitehead describes in her essay), it is
not difficult to see why children grow up with no moral authority in
which they can put their trust. It is this destruction and moral
bankruptcy of all authority that accounts for the alienation of
fatherless children not only from their own fathers and families but
from the institutions of our entire society and government as well.
For our purposes, the implication is that political action on behalf
of children and fathers is, in and of itself, an antidote to the
destruction of fatherhood. The remedy arguably the only remedy for this
destruction of authority is the father who is politically active for his
rights and those of his children. It also means that restoring our
fatherhood is simultaneously a work of restoring our democracy. Social
and religious activism is part of this and may be sufficient for some
fathers. But the stigma of the Bad Dad (as described in the excellent
essay by Armin Brott) is far too advanced for many to be overcome
without vocal and public agitation.
Moreover, the political attack on fatherhood is far too advanced. The
child custody/support machine is a power that is, in the true and strict
sense of the term, not far short of totalitarian. This overused word is
appropriate to describe this machine for at least two reasons: It
ruthlessly invades and destroys the private sphere of life, and it
involves the bureaucratic pursuit of officially designated villains.
This last, unfortunately but not surprisingly, has even infected the
fatherhood movement itself. Horn admits that Some are tempted to
designate absent fathers as the enemy. Horn himself flatly rejects this,
but even broaching a fatherhood movement in which fathers are the enemy
provides as clear an admission as we could ask for that we are engaged
in a witch hunt. Senator Dan Coats, for one, has no hesitation in using
his contribution to the volume to vilify private citizens who have no
opportunity to reply in their own defense: The most serious problem is
absent, irresponsible fathers, he says flatly. Mitchell Pearlsteins
essay is a paragon of political correctness, qualification, and evasion,
with the masculinization of irresponsibility, abandoned kids, and
missing men. By his own admission, Pearlsteins words are carefully
chosen. But his reluctance to offend is more apparent toward groups that
are politically influential, and he is more than willing to bash those
who are not. Like the good senator, who lauds millions of single mothers
who raise their children in hard circumstancesexamples of sacrifice and
commitment against the suffering of children caused by absent and
irresponsible fathers, Pearlstein is confident that millions of single
mothers are rising their children heroically and successfully with
little help from men, whereas some men are honorable and responsible
(128).
With this bashing of the politically mute within the fatherhood
movement, we may justly ask what is going on outside it. Were Mr.
Pearlstein to walk a mile in the shoes of these absent fathers he might
discover they are some of the most heroic fathers there are. They
certainly do not deserve his cheap excoriation.
This leads to the most troubling thing about this book. What is
missing from these pages is any voice from the fathers concerned. Many
of the writers are fathers, as indicated in the biographical sketches.
But they are not the so-called absent fathers. The voices of the absent
fathers are absent from this book, and the obvious question becomes
whether it is for the same reason they are absent from their homes:
because they are not welcome and have been removed by people who wield
political power.
If this fatherhood movement is a movement of fathers, there is little
indication of it here; it is more of a movement about and perhaps for
fathers. But this violates a basic tenet of any social movement: that
people must accept responsibility for their own liberation. Yes,
responsibility: This is a perfectly valid and important word, and
fathers rights advocates should not forget it. But there is also a
rather glaring omission in a movement promoting this term in every sense
but a political one. A social movement comprised solely of government
officials, policy wonks, and foundations can hardly help but be (if you
will pardon the term) a little paternalistic.
On this score it is no criticism to point out the likelihood that,
like many moderate reformers in the past, Horn and his colleagues may
eventually find they have started something they have difficulty
controlling.
This is especially likely when we see (as we must) the mobilization
of one constituency about whom (but again, perhaps, not to whom) this
book is addressed: young, unmarried, urban black fathers. David
Blankenhorns suggestive remarks on the potential for racial
reconciliation in the fatherhood movement might have been worth
developing into a full-length essay:
"Even ten years ago fatherlessness was largely seen as a black
problem, with specific causes and dimensions that were distinct from
trends affecting the larger society. Moreover, from the mid-1960s until
quite recently, many opinion leaders, both white and black, have
insisted a few still insist today that calling attention to father
absence amounts to little more than racism, an attempt to blame the
victim. No longer."
Or at least the victims now come in all races. Since Blankenhorn
doesnt develop the argument, I will suggest it might run something like
this: There is an important sense in which we I mean white males are now
paying for what we, or at least our forefathers, did to black males. I
say this not to cheaply expunge white guilt but to achieve a perspective
and perhaps some sense of humility in our legitimate outrage. We
destroyed the black family and in particular the black male in slavery
and segregation, and the image of his superfluity and worthlessness has
now been extended to us. Those who blame feminism might also consider
that the womens movement has, in both the last century and this one,
followed in the aftermath and mimicked the techniques and the rhetoric
of the anti-slavery and civil rights movements. The Bible says that the
sins of the fathers will be visited upon the children, and we who would
understand the politics of fatherhood should be mindful of this. By the
same measure fatherhood will explode politically when (and perhaps only
when) these fathers are mobilized and allied with their more affluent,
better-educated, and politically experienced brothers. The common
denominator linking the two groups is the thus-far largely apolitical
black middle class.
Currently, however, policymakers have a different agenda for this
constituency: to spend more money. I dont want to dismiss some of the
worthy things on which money might be spent, but our willingness to
spend money as a way of avoiding difficult choices is a metaphor for the
crisis of fatherhood and parenthood generally. (Judith Wallerstein urges
more parenting classes.) We have all seen the weak parent who will spend
any amount of money on his children to avoid dealing with a problem.
Likewise, the surrogate father in the form of government is willing to
dole out money to reunite fathers with their children on its own limited
terms rather than taking the politically more costly step of restoring
their rights to be true, full-time parents. Here the essay by Mincy and
Pouncy provides a salutary reminder of the realities facing low-income
unmarried fathers that middle-class divorced dads ignore at their peril,
but one might have hoped they could have moved beyond the image of these
fathers as passive recipients of generosity from the state.
It is tempting for ditched dads to be contemptuous of responsible
fatherhood promoters, to deplore their timidity and sneer at their
hobnobbing with the rich and powerful. This is a mistake.
The cultural and educational work promoted by the responsible
fatherhood movement is important, and ditched dads should not sneer at
it. But it is not mutually exclusive with political action, and it
should not become an excuse for inaction. This too was the experience of
the civil rights movement. There are always those individuals who argue
that legislation, court orders, and executive decrees from the federal
government are ineffective because they cannot change the heart,
observed Martin Luther King. It may be true that the law cant make a man
love me, but it can keep him from lynching me. The law cannot make us
value fathers, but it can prevent us from ripping away their children.
We must also recognize that it is not up to Horn to speak out against
the political machine; it is up to us. But above all, there is in
political thought an old and functionally necessary sense in which
oppressed people are by definition irresponsible: they are irresponsible
to the extent that they fail to stand up, speak out, and shake off their
oppression. We are irresponsible to the extent we tolerate the judicial
kidnapping and institutionalized abuse of our own children. This is more
than a clich� As Frederick Douglass once commented:
It is a doctrine held by many good menthat every oppressed people
will gain their rights just as soon as they prove themselves worthy of
them; and although we may justly object to the extent to which this
doctrine is carriedit must still be evident to all that there is a great
truth in it.
This proof comes through the very process of struggle. What might be
called the Booker T. Washington side of the fatherhood movement may not
wish to appear political, but its political significance is profound.
Historically, movements for social responsibility apparently apolitical
and often religious have invariably preceded or accompanied political
mobilizations in ways that even their early advocates may not have
anticipated. The Puritans began by rooting out wickedness in the
alehouse and the brothel and ended up executing a king in the first of
the so-called "great revolutions." The Great Awakening created a style
of popular agitation that culminated in the American Revolution.
Methodism left a similar legacy in English working-class organization.
The advent of Promise Keepers, the Million Man March, and other
quasi-religious mass movements (recounted here in an essay by Glenn T.
Stanton) along with responsible fatherhood itself however fundamental
our differences may now seem, are all unmistakable signs that our day is
now arriving.
And yet as we sit by and watch the unopposed spread of one of the most
shameful episodes in our history, it may be another truism of the
struggle for civil rights that eventually comes back to haunt us:
Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection,
King wrote in the same essay. We will have to repent in this generation
not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but
for the appalling silence of the good people.
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