Fatherhood and its Discontents
by Stephen Baskerville
Ross D. Parke and Armin A. Brott, Throwaway Dads: The Myths and
Barriers That Keep Men from Being the Fathers They Want to Be (Boston
and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1999). ISBN 0-395-86041-5. $24.00.
Reviewed by Stephen Baskerville, Department of Political Science,
Howard University
In Totem and Taboo Freud argued that civilization was built upon the
collective murder of a primal father. He argued that this killing was
perpetrated by the sons, who both feared an envied his power.
Civilization began with the self-imposed rituals and prohibitions the
sons then instituted to prevent themselves from destroying one another
over the spoil. Among these was the ritual feeding on the body and blood
of the sacrificed victim. This at once commemorated the deed and
bequeathed to the sons the life and strength of the father. The father
was thus made to bear the burden of the community's sins, which were
absolved for each participant in the ritual feeding.
Today we seem to have come up with a variation on the Freudian theme.
As a society we seem intent on dismantling civilization by ganging up on
all fathers, on whom we heap our sins and whom we make to atone for all
the ills of society. Their very absence, we are told plausibly enough,
is the cause of all our social problems. Yet the virtue of their
presence seems to be to serve as victims for a new form of human
sacrifice. The temples in which this modern sacrament is performed are
generally courtrooms, where priests in black robes mutter some formulaic
incantation before they break the body and pour forth the blood, thus
beginning the communal feeding frenzy. Our modern revolt seems to be
perpetrated not so much by the sons themselves as by those who claim to
be acting in their interests: mothers, in the first instance, with the
active assistance of lawyers, judges, psychologists and psychiatrists,
social workers, mediators, counselors, and a swarm of other human
parasites who derive lucrative financial nourishment from the
cannibalized father.
Yet it is possible we are at last seeing the resurrection of, if not
the mighty paterfamilias, at least a more modest and humbled "dad."
What was until recently a trickle of books on fatherhood has now
become a stream; soon it may be a torrent. Following closely on Sanford
L. Braver's explosive Divorced Dads: Shattering the Myths (itself soon
to form the basis of an ABC News documentary), comes a new book by two
leading fatherhood advocates. This work similarly aims to demolish
current misconceptions about what swine fathers are. Despite the
somewhat touchy-feely cover, this is not a sentimental panegyric to some
abstract ideal of fatherhood. It is a tough polemic that directly
confronts the current vilification of fathers in the media and by
politicians, family law practitioners, and extreme feminists.
Parke and Brott are more comprehensive than Braver in that they take
on myths such as the "Dangerous Father" as well as the "Deadbeat Dad."
(For the latter they are succinct, but one should still consult Braver.
I looked in vain, for example, for the crucial statistic that, when
children are involved, two-thirds of divorces are initiated by women.)
They are especially effective in detailing the rampant abuse of power by
family courts and child protective services when fathers are falsely
accused of child abuse.
They address other barriers to father involvement too, such as
obstruction of visitation and father-hostile policies in the workplace.
They also confront subtler impediments such as sexist stereotypes in the
media and children's literature. For all these topics this book is an
admirable collection, with valuable, up-to-date examples and reliable
documentation.
It is understandable that Parke and Brott, like Braver, should devote
their energies to demolishing "myths" and "bias." Few fathers realize
how dangerous the current smear campaign against fathers is until they
arrive home one evening to find the children gone and themselves
summoned to court.
Likewise, Parke and Brott are restrained in their tone as well as in
their recommendations. The marketing on the dust jacket further attempts
to render the book palatable to a wide audience, including fathers in
intact families, by playing down the polemics and advertising the
palliatives.
Necessary as this may be, the careful reader (and the experienced
father) will find that what is happening to fathers in this country has
now gone far beyond "myths," "bias," and "negative stereotypes."
The ugly truth is that this country is now engaged in an all-out
witch hunt from which no father is safe. It is not just unwed fathers or
divorced fathers: Any father can now find himself caught up in a
nightmare of kidnapped children, plundered savings, public excoriation,
and summary incarceration in what more and more are describing (with
only slight exaggeration, given the incarceration and suicide rate among
fathers) as a reign of terror.
Indeed, the parallels with the kind of ideological-bureaucratic
dictatorship of which this century has already seen enough are
disturbing indeed: a bureaucratic apparat that has systematized the
invasion of private homes and the confiscation of children to a routine;
political leaders using their public office as a platform to vilify an
entire class of private citizens who have been convicted of nothing and
who have no opportunity to defend themselves; a court system whose
rulings have become so formulaic and predictable that they might be
described as scripted; government officials marching into the homes of
private citizens who have been accused of nothing and simply helping
themselves to whatever they want, including their children, their life
savings, and their private papers; the media and civil libertarians
looking the other way in the face of mass incarcerations without charge,
counsel, or trial; the use of children as informers against their
parents; and a feminist ideology that has long since departed from its
idealistic origins and entered its quasi-Stalinist phase. We even have a
kind of Orwellian Newspeak, where government-sponsored kidnapping and
extortion are justified with euphemisms such as "divorce" and "custody
battle."
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Stephen
Baskerville teaches political science at Howard University, where he
recently organized a conference on The Politics of Fatherhood.
The
Best
Parent
is
BOTH
Parents!
_________________________________________________________________________________________
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