Dr. Jennifer M. Randles - Essential Dads: The Inequalities and Politics of Fathering

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Essential Dads

The publisher and the University of California Press Foundation gratefully acknowledge the generous support of the Barbara S. Isgur Endowment Fund in Public Affairs.

Essential Dads

THE INEQUALITIES AND POLITICS OF FATHERING

Jennifer M. Randles

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

University of California Press

Oakland, California

2020 by Jennifer Randles

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Randles, Jennifer M., author.

Title: Essential dads : the inequalities and politics of fathering / Jennifer M. Randles.

Description: Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2020] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020014438 (print) | LCCN 2020014439 (ebook) | ISBN 9780520335226 (cloth) | ISBN 9780520335233 (paperback) | ISBN 9780520974388 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: FatherhoodUnited StatesCase studies. | Fatherhood responsibility movementUnited StatesCase studies. | ParentingUnited StatesCase studies. | Equality.

Classification: LCC HQ756 .R355 2020 (print) | LCC HQ756 (ebook) | DDC 306.874/20973dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020014438

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020014439

Manufactured in the United States of America

29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For my dad,

Bennie Randles,

who always knew the importance of being there.

Contents

Knowing What a Father Is

I dont want him to grow up like I grew up. I want my son to have everything. I dont want him to be a have-not, explained Christopher. Father to three-year-old Chris Jr., Christopher, a twenty-two-year-old Black man, was feeling unsteady but hopeful when we met. He was searching for a place to live, looking for a job, and planning how to get back together with Chris Jr.s mother, Monique. No matter how bad me and his mom disagree, or how bad other things get, I still try to be there for him because youve only got one dad. There are only two ways to keep me from being there for my son, if Im in jail or dead.

Christopher knew the heartache of the first and had come dangerously close to the second. A former gang member who left school after the eleventh grade, Christopher was raised by his paternal grandmother in one of the poorest neighborhoods in America. When he was born, his parents struggled with homelessness and addiction. With his mother in prison, Christophers father tried to care for him, but there was not enough money for both milk and diapers. He relinquished custody when Christopher was three months old, becoming less involved as his son grew older. With a sigh of resignation, Christopher praised his grandmother while expressing longing for a close relationship with his father:

She was an amazing parent, stuck it through no matter what. I got the clothes and food I needed. I might not have had the name brands, but I was never hungry.... I always said growing up that I will never be like my dad. I want [Chris Jr.] to know what a father is. I want him to be able to say, My dad was there. I feel like Im trying to make up for my dads flaws in my relationship with my son, to make sure he doesnt grow up and question, What happened to my dad? Im here because I want to do better, as a father and a man in general, to get it together, to be able to support my family like a man should. Because thats how I was raised. Grandma didnt teach me to be a slouch.

Incarcerated the year before for selling drugs, Christopher knew he had to find a safer way to make the money needed to support his family, one that did not involve always looking over my shoulder and fearing the ultimate separation from his son. He confided to me, Im not going to lie. The thought of doing it again has crossed my mind. But every time it does, I just push it back and think of when I had to talk to my son from across the glass on his birthday. Christopher still felt the sorrow of that isolation. It broke my heart. Im not an emotional person, but I cried. My son was crying, asking why he couldnt come to the other side. I couldnt answer. I knew right then, no more.

That decision led him to enroll in DADS, a government-funded responsible fatherhood program that provided high school completion classes, paid job training, and fathering and relationship skills education. Government promotion of responsible fatherhood, which began with the 1996 U.S. Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, also known as welfare reform, has targeted economically vulnerable men like Christopher whose social and financial struggles hinder their fathering aspirations. The U.S. government defines responsible fatherhood as being present in a childs life, actively contributing to a childs healthy development, sharing economic responsibilities, and cooperating with a childs mother in addressing the full range of a childs and familys needs.priority to see his son every day and viewed DADS as an opportunity to get back on [his] feet after spending Chris Jr.s third birthday in jail.

When I asked if DADS helped him do that, he was optimistic but ambivalent. The program offered a safe way to earn $400 a month and an opportunity to finish his diploma, as well as peers and teachers who understood his struggles and treated him with respect. He wanted to prove to his grandmother and Monique that he was committed to being a better dad than his own had been and that he was a real man who, despite having little money to offer, could role-model hard work, perseverance, and integrity for his son. Christopher described his time in DADS as a way of ensuring that Chris Jr. would have more, especially a father he knew and admired:

They give you the right mind frame of being able to do things. I felt good about that [DADS] certificate at the end of the day. I might not have a job, but I got up every day, I went to this class, and I attempted to do something better, to be something better.... I was doing something with myself instead of just running the street trying to make a couple dollars. I was actually trying to be a productive part of society.... We went from being on this block every day to making it to class every day. It became a priority for us, to prove our parenting.

However, as our interview continued, Christopher admitted having doubts about how much his participation in DADS actually changed his life circumstances. We got a certificate; now what? ... How far is two hundred dollars going to go in two weeks when youve got to buy food and clothe yourself? Unless you just plan on going out and hustling with it, what do you expect us to do? With his DADS certificates proudly hung on his sons bedroom wall, Christopher was unsure about what he would do next.

Christophers experience points to why responsible fatherhood policy and ideas about family and poverty that motivate it are controversial. Many view fathers like Christopher as a social problem to be solved. According to this logic, without a dads consistent presence in the homewhat many call father absence or fatherlessnessChristopher had failed to learn how to be a good father from a parent of the same gender who modeled responsible work and family behaviors. With goals to prevent poverty and to promote child well-being, programs like DADS aim to teach men about the importance of fathers and how to meet their paternal obligations. Others criticize this logic as misrepresenting the social and economic factors that shaped Christophers life chances. They argue that a missing paternal presence did not doom him to poverty and incarceration; rather, a society in which poor children of color face racism and other overwhelming obstacles to education and well-paid jobs did.

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