My wife and I were out on a date a few Saturdays ago, and we went to an Asian place in the Village, having been saddened to learned that the French restaurant we went to on our first date is no more (it’s now Mexican, and since we were going to a play after dinner we decided out of consideration for the other theatergoers to avoid it).
After we had ordered a large contingent came in and sat near us. There were five children, four girls, ranging I’d guess from ages seven to about eleven, and there were I think five women, most of whom were clearly related to these children in one ay or another, as mothers, aunts, perhaps even grandmothers. I believe it was one of the children’s birthday being celebrated, as the well-to-do middle class in NYC are likely to have for their children.
But I kept wondering. It was bothering me. I wanted to ask them, where are you menfolk? Just like that. “Where are your menfolk?” Here it was, Saturday night, and these children are not with their fathers, and at least one of these kids is celebrating a birthday without her or his father. I was wondering how that happened.
Now there are many many many many many possible explanations for this. First, this little shindig might have been planned as “girls night out,” and the fathers were for all I know taking care of much younger children so that the older ones could go out. Maybe their fathers are in Iraq or Afghanistan. There could be any number of legitimate reasons Dad is not around. I know this. Yet it still paints a strange picture in my head.
I don’t mean this to be some kind of patriarchal rant, no. If anything I think that fathers miss too much of their children’s lives. Fathers work, often too many hours. Fathers, being men, are often not taught how to parent, except perhaps by example, and what kind of examples do most dads give? Work, and be emotionally distant. And of course, fathers do leave. I see it happening all around me. So many of my contemporaries separating, and the dads don’t get custody. Even in fairly equitable custody arrangements, the kids are with their mothers, and their fathers live elsewhere. Off the top of my head, I can think of one father-custody situation I know well: my wife’s cousin, who took his ex to court to get that custody (he could not prove it in court, but he was certain she tried to burn her house to collect the insurance money). The men are just not around.
A lot of men have no choice. And fewer choices are open now with the changes in the economy. But I don’t think what we have works all that well. Dads have to be more of a presence in the lives of their children. And this can be helped by changes in the culture so that material possessions don’t possess us. My father worked for an insurance company, but what mattered to us was that he played and coached us in sports, sang songs with us, cultivated a passion for using our voice talents, and a love of old movies. I like my job, and the girls like where I work, but what they’ll remember are the impromptu dates at the Indian restaurant, or the sushi place, and reading books in bed, and things like that — I don’t want to miss them as they grow.