A Father’s Love

I saw this article on Facebook late last week.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mbvd/wife-files-for-divorce-after-dad-refuses-to-give-up-newborn?utm_term=4ldqpia&bffb=world#.gv7pA7xlzl

 

In the realm of TLDR, here’s the highlights: A woman in Armenia gives birth to a boy with Down Syndrome. She promptly tells her Kiwi Husband, to decide between the baby and her. Dad opts for the baby, divorce papers are underway. Dad goes public, get a ton of support from GoFundMe and gets enough to give his son a good life in New Zeland and the leftovers will go to fund programs in Armenia for those born with disabilities.

 

Now, before you all go “aww” and decry the heartless mom, let me say that she has since rebutted his story of the ultimatum and portrays herself as the martyr who gave up her son to have a better life in a faraway land. I am sure that we do not have all the facts in this case and probably never will. That is not my concern or the focus of this post. If we take the man’s story as is, we have a wonderful tale of a father’s love. Women swoon and men puff their chests with pride. What I am here to say is that THIS IS NOT EXTRAORDINARY!

 

Fathers love their children every drop as much as the women who bore them. Of course, I don’t want to take anything away from this man. He has a lifetime of work ahead of him as he works to give his son the best life possible, and he won’t know how difficult a road it will be for at least a year or so. But choosing to love and care for the seed of your loins is part and parcel of fatherhood. I know of several cases where men would literally give their right arms to be able to be in their child’s life. I know of men who were tricked into fatherhood, some of whom didn’t know there was a baby until a few years and court documents later. These men are often denied access to their child, but desperately want it.

 

Our society needs to stop seeing men as emotionless automatons who exist solely to work to provide a stable home for the young, needs to stop portraying fathers as bumbling, well-meaning idiots who can’t take reasonable care of themselves, much less the child.  There is a constant and consistent devaluation of men on the silver and little screens, in books, and in the media. Of course, a humorous tale can be told of an irresponsible person who learns through trial and error how to care for his new family, but this should be such a standard.

 

I am disgusted that in this country, if people see a man hanging around a playground their first thought is of alarm. Instead of “I wonder which child is his”, there is a “I wonder which child he intends to kidnap” mentality. When did men become the enemy? Why do we have to laud every little accomplishment men do in a family capacity as if it is unusual? I will admit that for a portion of my fatherhood, I did not engage. I didn’t wash clothes, set dinner, give bathes, or a host of things men (including me) do daily to care for their kids. Why? Because it had been beaten into me that I couldn’t do it right and that their mom could do it better.

 

Well, thankfully for my kids, I discovered while they were young that I could do it all just as well. They have had a fully engaged dad since they were small. If you have ever been made to feel like “you can’t do that, let mom do it”, I encourage you to take a stand. If you don’t know quite how to do something, ask for help. Observe and learn, then try. You only achieve mastery through consistent and proper practice. Neither sex is born with the inherent skill to do all the tasks. But one sex is socially conditioned toward a certain skill set  while the other is directed toward different skills.

 

The bottom line is, fathers do not love their children any less because we were denied the ability to bear them. And women, please stop holding that over our heads. If I could have, I would have gladly carried all five of my kids, especially the last, as my wife endured a number of difficulties during her pregnancy. And can we drop the joke that if men were the ones to get pregnant the human race would end? Quite the opposite! Men are competitive by nature. We’d probably revel in tough pregnancies or multiple births.

 

I wish Sam and his son well in New Zeland. I hope that things work out for the lil guy and that his dad and mother find a way for her to be involved in his life, because he deserves two loving parents, even if they are apart.

 

Rant over.

 

All my best,

Robby

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