I am the mother of a 3-year-old girl and a soon-to-be 14-year-old son. My son, who is on the verge of a wonderful manhood, I have raised principally on my own. It was not my choice to raise him in a home without a father. I would have embraced, if given the choice, a man with the attributes of my own father – kind, strong, morally centered and incapable of allowing any of his children to say an unkind word about their mother.
““I don’t care what she did. She’s still your mother and you better respect her.’’ As a typical adolescent I didn’t much like hearing that, but my father taught me a very important lesson. He taught me that not only must I respect my mother, but that he must too.
As I grew up, the gender wars ensued, as did the sexual revolution, the Me Generation and the era of political correctness. The ““tender years’’ law, which protected the interests of little children by assuming that they belonged with their fit mothers, was discarded. ““After all,’’ the experts argued, ““if women want equality, we’ll give it to them.''
Although the courts may view your children as property to be divided, young children are human beings with important bonds who are normally with their mothers. When children and even adults cry out in pain, it is often for Mother.
I nursed both of my children for over a year, while I worked full time. At home, I was the gentle, nurturing mother but in the workplace I was fierce and competitive. And for me, these were not contradictions.
By nature, I was and women are simply better equipped biologically for parenting young children. This absurd notion that men and women are equal in this capacity just isn’t true.
That is not to say that fathers do not love their children. They do, and I honor the fathers who, like my father, provide, by their example, the love and respect their families need and deserve. However, one only has to examine the fabric of family life in America today to understand the obvious gender differences. We have a nation of fatherless – not motherless – children. And it is not the women who have walked out.
Now that women have achieved some level of economic independence, there is a movement in this country to take custody away from perfectly fit mothers. It should shock the conscience of any court, because it is often a serious indication of a man’s desire to control and hurt the mother of his children, rather than an indication of any sincere desire to care for his children. Using the argument that women work and are therefore less fit is equally appalling, as most of the men who seek custody also work. It is often unspoken, but a strong bias does exist against successful working women. It is further complicated by a growing resentment that women have been given enough opportunities, and that it’s time, more or less, to put them in their place.
Their place in the work world is growing, but their place in the home is still of primary importance to most women. If we are to survive as a culture, if we are to raise children who have a moral compass, then we must stop trying to destroy the mothers, who are the ones trying to keep family life together. If you start taking our children away from us because we are working, and at the same time you are proposing to take our children away to put them in orphanages if we stay home with no support, then just what choices do we have?
In the interests of family preservation, I’d like to make a bold, politically incorrect suggestion.
What is in your best interests, Mr. Clark, and what is in the best interests of your children (an expression casually tossed about in the courtroom, but rarely honored) is this: you should act according to the best interest of your wife, who, as the much loved mother of your children, has earned the right to be treated with respect and honored for the important role she has played and will continue to play as the mother of your children. This is something my father, man to man, would tell you if you were his son. It is something, I am sure, that your lawyer would never advise you to do.
As Mrs. Clark is going through a difficult and taxing professional period right now, may I suggest that you set aside your own heartbreak and extend a protective and fatherly hand. Privately, you should tell your young boys that their mother is doing something very important, that she misses them when she is working, that she loves them very much and that she wants them to feel safe. You should add that when Mommy is finished with this important job, she will be able to have more time with them.
Your responsibility, as a father, who professes to love his children, is to allow them to feel loved by their mother, not threatened with losing her. It is your responsibility to assist the mother of your children in any way that you can in caring for your children. By demonstrating to your children that despite your differences you respect their mother, you will be teaching them what it means to be a decent human being and a man. They will, by those actions, respect and love you more.
May I suggest, as a measure of your manhood, that you call your wife and say something like, ““Marcia, I know you are under a lot of pressure and I’d like to contribute more time to the care of our children while you are going through this. I’m very proud that you have been able to accomplish so much and I want our sons to be proud of you, too. I’m sorry about our differences, but I don’t want to hurt our children. So, let’s work together to help them through what must be a confusing and heartbreaking time for them.''
Mrs. Clark, if she is a good and loving mother, will say yes.
And you, Mr. Clark, will be a man . . . and a father.
