Do Children Need a Father?

Since an increasing number of single mothers appear in the society, they work hard to raise and support their children, as Obama’s mom and Bill Gate’s mom, and then people cannot help asking whether children still need a father. Some hold that the role of a father can never be replaced by a mother because the father, from the vantage of gender essentialism, should take the responsibility to raise the entire family, to protect and set rules for their children. While as for non-gender essentialism, they argue that there will be no necessity for the existence of the father. Mothers can be “breadwinner moms”, which mean that they are capable of earning money to support their children and meanwhile devoting love and caring for their children. This essay will address the opinions of those people who hold entirely different views about the role of father and also elaborate my perspective.

As for people who agree with gender essentialism, they believe that father plays an indispensable role in the growth of children. In their eyes, children’s raise needs father’s company. To be specific, children’s growth needs father spend time with their children, pay much more attention to their children, to make disciplines for their children and also show affection to their children. It is found that boys without a father are easy to enter into jail, and girls without a father are probably to get pregnant even when they are teenagers.

Moreover, father and mother are of different social divisions and family divisions as well. Fathers can provide physical protections to the whole family and are always defined to go out for money. It is father’s responsibility that financially support the family. Moreover, father should set examples for their children with healthy authority influence. All of these presentations of fathers can be concluded as a sense of security. The role of a father can provide children and their wives a sense of security. This security comes from physical protection, financial support, healthy authority and most importantly emotional dependency. The emotional dependency on fathers is different from the reliance on mothers. This dependence on fathers is unconscious, and the lack of the dependency will render children to search for it for their whole life. Except for the dependency, modern fathers have contributed much time to take care of their children and do domestic work than what their previous generation do. It is reported that a large number of fathers prefer to spend much more time with their children with love and emotional support rather than earn much more money. Moreover, most children with single unmarried woman live in poverty.

Although many advantages for a family with a father, people who believe in non-gender essentialism hold completely different views. First of all, they stress that the environment suited for the growth of children should be steady and loving and needs the supports of the society. From this perspective, no matter whether a family has a father or not, it is not the essential point for the healthy growth of children. In other words, only if the family can give children a steady and loving circumstances and can get the support from the society, children can be raised well even without a father or same-sex couples. For those special families, the society just should give them more supports and considerations. Secondly, for some women, they choose to be single mothers because they do not trust men who will become a good and loving father and husband. However, they believe their children who have the ability to get what they require from various influential people, such as their grandparents, friends, teachers and so on. Besides, as for women, the concept of their children’s father is just a person who also needs to feed. It is hard to say whether children need a father but father should be a good father. Finally, the absence of a father means to get rid of “chaos, anger, pain and disruption.” Women who leave their abusive and bad-tempered husband can give their children a better environment to grow. If the father cannot take their responsibility to be a caring and loving parent, it is better for a mother to leave this man with their children. Even American government support the actions of the mother.

No matter what gender essentialist or non-gender essentialist argue for the necessities of the existence of a father, as far as I am concerned, breeding children needs, at least, one consistent caring and loving parent whether it is father or mother to take this role. If a single mother raises children, the mother should set limits for their children just like what a father normally does. The traditional function of a mother should be slightly changed. A single mother is no longer a mother who do chaos at home all the day, but she should make money to support the family, to love and educate her children and to play the role of the traditional father as well. While if a single father breeds children, the father should spend time and efforts in communicating with his children and getting connect with children emotionally, which usually does by a mother. It is good and lucky for children to live in a complete family with loving parents. However, if not, it is not pity or shame. Except for more hard work for single parents, the society should give more supports and understanding for those families because children need a safe environment to grow and they are the future of our society.