Editorial misses the mark

Real men don't run
The Dominion Post | Tuesday, 24 June 2008


No father should need to be told that his responsibility does not end at conception, The Dominion Post writes.

It is, however, a sad reality that increasing numbers do need to be told just that. Not enough young men acknowledge fatherhood is a life-long commitment, not a bothersome by-product of a sexual encounter that someone else will take care of.

United States presidential candidate Barack Obama's decision to deliver just that message on the day Americans celebrate fatherhood is a welcome attempt to provide some long-needed reality in a debate that is fogged by a willingness to excuse irresponsibility.

Too often for children at the dawn of the 21st century the narrative of their growing years is drawn not from Father Knows Best, but The Man Who Wasn't There. In this country there are 95,861 people of working age receiving the domestic purposes benefit, nearly 90 per cent of them women. Maori are hugely over-represented in those figures, accounting for 41.4 per cent of those receiving the dpb. In the 2006 census, nearly a third of the children in one-parent households identified themselves as Maori.

No one should pretend that a two-parent household is inevitably better than a solo-parent one. No relationship between parents is infinitely better than an abusive one where the family lives in fear of the next angry outburst and the next beating.

But nor should any notions of political correctness be allowed to disguise the reality that children benefit immensely from having two parents who love and support them, and who provide a stable environment where they canlearn what it is to be an adult.

Boys in particular need to have strong male role models and the natural person to do that job is the father. Mr Obama said as much in his Father's Day address, speaking of the burdens single parenthood had imposed on his mother, of "the hole in your heart when you don't have a male figure in the home who can guide you and lead you", of his own resolve to break the cycle and his determination "that if I could be anything in life, I would be a good father to my children".

Too few share his determination and too few understand that the solution is not more money in benefits but more responsibility.

Young men now fathering children and then abandoning them need to get the message that it is more staunch to hold down a job, raise a family in a loving environment and develop a stake in the community, than it is to strut around wearing a patch and beating people up. Gang culture, with its warped sense of belonging, is a poor substitute for a true family, but that is what many young Maori in particular are left with.

Outspoken black advocate Al Sharpton predicts parts of the US black community will attack Mr Obama for "airing dirty laundry" and say he is beating up on the victims. But he also told the New York Times that not discussing it is not going to make it go away, and Mr Obama's comments were "courageous and important".

What New Zealand needs is for its leaders to be as courageous as Mr Obama, and to speak as plainly. Then its absentee fathers might begin to realise that real men don't run away.



Dear Editor

The message, Real Men Don't Run, is a good one, but fails to appreciate the 'real' situation. Granted some males run away from commitments to relationships. But so do many women. Using DPB statistics tells us nothing about who ran.

Ever since the state assumed the financial role of the absent father, the single mother industry has boomed. Many women choose single motherhood by leaving a relationship or having a child outside of one. The trend is towards the second scenario. Her choice is very much influenced by the promise of indefinite taxpayer support. Her decision made, the man is often left with little but an eighteen year child support bill.

It was entirely predictable that the DPB would change the balance of power in parenting relationships. There is little more important than fatherhood but too many of both sexes discount it and are 'sanctioned' by a benefit.

Unfortunately society cannot have it both ways. If we genuinely want fathers back in their children's lives as the norm, the DPB has to go. It was created at a time when women were not as well-educated, had fewer work skills and barriers to their advancement were greater. It is now time to revisit this policy.

Lindsay Mitchell
ACT Hutt South Candidate