Posted by
Robert on Tuesday, November 11, 2008 12:00:00 AM
There was an article recently by Mona Charen which discussed if Todd Palin, husband of Sarah Palin. was "dissed" by the media, mainly for overlooking his role and his importance to Sarah and the family. It was a good article, and after reading it, a nerve or 2 was struck about how society seems to have dissed fathers in general. So I posted 3 responses since there were way to many characters to put into even 2, let alone one. I will use the old cut and paste technique to reveal them here:
"Women's libbers, or feminists, will say that women should have the right to pursue their careers, and if they choose, to have children too. The arguement that women should stay at home with their kids instead of pursuing their careers is considered sexist. Yet this is the exact same arguement they used, and are still using, on Sarah Palin. Huge double standard here. In reality, the feminists do not promote women's liberation. They promote women with liberal beliefs. Sarah is not one of "them".
Feminists have done one heck of a job devaluing men into being nothing more then sperm donors when it comes to children. Men have no say so in whether or not an abortion is considered. But men are hunted down to provide financial support should the woman decide to have the baby (which the right to choose has now given the fetus human status...another double standard). I totally agree that men should provide financial support. But if they are decent enough people themselves, they should be allowed to contribute to the raising of their children without question
A little about me. I am a divorced father of 4 children. My oldest has autism. I share custody of them with their mother. They live with me on the weekends and with her on the weekdays. I still pay child support. In MI we have the option, through court approval, for one ex to pay child support to the other ex directly without garnishment. This is how we've done it for the last 4 years. I pay copays for all their medical, dental, and optical needs without bugging their mother for assistance. One day each week I take one of them for alone time where we eat somewhere (usually Burger King), do homework, go cruising around to malls, video stores, clothing stores, parks, or just hang out at my place. I'll take them to events like math or science night at their school, or floor hockey, or basketball. I help my autistic son with becoming more independent by doing things more on is own and help him express his wants as he is nonverbal. I make parent/teacher conferences when I am able. I bug them when I can about getting their homework done.
I take great offense when someone spouts off or ignores altogether the importance of fathers in children's lives. I know a few fathers who have children out there somewhere that they have nothing to do with, and I'd like to wring their necks. But they are NOT representative of all men. I love my children dearly and want to be as involved with them as I can. There are others out there like myself, Todd Palin, and others who currently have full custody of their children. Maybe it's about time we all get a little recognition, not for recognition's sake, but for awareness. Not all men are useless sperm donors. Some of us actually DO care about the children we helped to bring into this world and, like Todd Palin, very supportive of their wives decisions, and are willing to pitch in themselves in the home. But do you actually think the msm will have such a story to report? Doubtful. It's much more newsworthy to report on how many single mothers are out there and how many sperm donors are running around which means more single mothers and more people relying on welfare." End of post.
I'd like to hear not only responses to my above rant, but also from single fathers who are actively involved with the raising of their children. Rightly so, single mothers get a lot of credit, but I've heard nothing about single fathers outside of the negative things. I look forward to your stories.