Which one is it: "Children don't need fathers" or "Feminists are not responsible for single mothers"?

Question

There seem to be two contradictory positions taken on here.

1) When asked why women go to sperm banks, put the incorrect father on a birth certificate, file for no fault divorce and get child support or fail to exercise their full reproductive rights to "saying no", contraception, the morning after pill and abortion and having the child anyway, not to mention claiming women can "have a child on their own these days":

People here claim men do not need a father, or they have a "right to motherhood" regardless of male involvement.

But whenever I bring up consequences of not having a father on a child:

*Among long-term prison inmates, 70 percent grew up without fathers, as did 60 percent of rapists and 75 percent of adolescents charged with murder.

*They are up to 40 times more likely to experience child abuse compared with children growing up in two-parent families.

2) They claim feminism had no hand in it and opt to blame men.

They are contradictory. Which one is it?

Answer 1

Any arrogant person who steps forward and says a child does not need a father is a total creep, and should not be allowed to have children. Children need both parents, and that is why it takes a MAN and a WOMAN to make a baby in the first place. Obviously nature intended for BOTH of them to be involved in the rearing of that child. I am sick of people trying to deny children their rights to both parents.

Answer 2

1

Answer 3

"Parasite" is a very strong term. But if you read the gist of a lot of your quotes these women are making a couple of points. 1. A housewife and a husband have a parasitic relationship, which means, in this context, that she leaches off of him, and his energies. He gets the poor end of that deal, financially. But the problem with this relationship, is that the parasite does not change, grow or mature as a person, but continues to owe its mere survival to its host, therefore, enlarging as a parasite. The host also does not gain anything by having a parasite. The parasite sucks the life out of the host. In essence, domesticity is destructive to both men and women, according to this philosophy. If anything, men should appreciate this point of view. Bear in mind that the year is 1970. She is blowing the whistle on a particular type of traditional arrangement. 2. Housewife jobs and women's work can be unfulfilling. In reference to being an 'illegitimate profession' Gornick is saying that this work is not respected, and leaves the woman with little to show for her time. My spin: if anything, men should be relieved by this kind of thinking. Basically, people were having complaints about the housewifely arrangement. The man was responsible for feeding, clothing, housing and providing medical care for a grown woman. But this woman was not encouraged to cultivate her mind, or any actual interests or job skills. So at its worst, the man would come home and be bored to tears with his wife's company. So it sucked for both. The communists which you brought up by quoting Lenin did not like the culture of domesticity, because of its largely bourgeois aspects. This woman's sphere of hearth and home is actually a relatively modern phenomenon. Before, men and women suffered equally in the farm and fields. Lenin's cult of misery also was a sucky alternative. Also, like Grappler pointed out, these feminists have even moved away from this type of thinking.

Answer 4

You're making the issue too black and white. I was raised without a father, my best friend was raised (if you can call his influence on her life "raising" her) by a man who was hardly around and when he was, a horrible father. Point being, having a bad father can be just as damaging to a child as having an absentee father.

You also, though, can't say that there are women out there who don't do the job of two parents very very well. You also cannot blame feminism for single-parenthood. What's a woman to do if she's tried her best to provide stability in her life before bringing a child into the world only to have that child's father die. Tell the 9/11 widows that they're bad mothers for their children being raised without fathers. What's a FATHER to do if the wife chooses to leave him and the child/children? That happens too. Your question, though very interesting, hardly looks at all of the dynamics at play so it's virtually impossible to answer.

Answer 5

Of course children need a 'Father'. If not as a 'Father Figure' then surly as a sperm donor. My 'Mother" had Me because She was paid by My 'Father' to marry Him so that He could become an Australian citizen. I am the result of Their one night together to legally 'consummate the marriage'. He went off to do His thing and She, after having another child to some other man, finally abandoned us so that She could run off with Her 16yr old school girl 'Girlfriend'.
I was eventually raised in a predominantly 'female/lesbian/feminist/liberal/new-age/alternative lifestyle environment' But there were men around and I clung to them every chance I got. I learned how to be "MALE" from men, because, let's face it, no matter how hard a woman might try, one thing that she can never teach a boy to be, (not from personal experience) is how to be a 'Male'. A woman might try, but, for the most part their efforts are corrupted by Their own sense of 'what' masculinity is supposed to be.

Answer 6

When there is only one parent in the family, there is generally only one source of income. The parent is more likely to stress out about money and take their frustrations out on the child. When a single parent is working all of the time, the child often has less parental involvement and is therefore more likely to get involved with wrong things.

Your statistics (which you should site by the way) are not about male vs. female, they are about quality of care...and when there are two parents opposed to one, there is generally more time and more money to raise the child properly.

The issue is not as clear cut as you are making it--each case is going to be different. You say which one is it...sometimes it is one, sometimes it is the other, sometimes it is a little of both and sometimes it is neither one.

Answer 7

Since very few women go to sperm banks, I have to agree with choice number two.
Since I see so many references to 'my baby's daddy', I think parents single or married need to give their children lessons on FORMING RELATIONSHIPS that go beyond "don't have sex before marriage"; which tend to not be listened to anyway.

Answer 8

Children need 2 parents.

It's not "men" and it's not "feminism".

It's irresponsible people making irresponsible decisions. If you can't see that your child is entitled to two parents, you aren't ready for parenthood.

Answer 9

you make some very good points, unfortunately we are in a finger pointing society so no matter what you say no one will take the blame, I think all parents need to be responsible no matter what their gender, race or financial situation.

Answer 10

Definition: “rant”

verb ranted, ranting

1. To talk in a loud, angry, pompous way.
Thesaurus: rave, fume, bellow, bluster, holler, clamour, rail, vociferate, let off steam (slang).

2. To declaim in a loud, pompous, self-important way.

noun
3. Loud, pompous, empty speech.

Thesaurus: rhetoric, bombast, bluster, fustian, balderdash, nonsense, cant, rubbish.

An angry tirade.

Thesaurus: harangue, tirade, storm.
Derivative: ranter

noun
Someone, especially a preacher, who rants.
Derivative: ranting
noun, adj

Derivative: rantingly
adverb

Etymology: 16c: from Dutch ranten to rave.