Essential Dads. Dr. Jennifer M. Randles
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provide for it. But now I’m working and back on track to take care of the baby. The abortion fucked us both up. I still dream about that baby. Now I’m working, and I don’t want someone else raising this kid. A good dad’s first priority is safety. I want my daughter to dream, to have a life, and I’m trying to make that life right.
Rodrigo, still deeply disturbed over the abortion, articulated a particular pro-life stance—that is, that having a life meant having the means to dream. Doing right by his daughter, and really giving her life, would mean providing her with opportunities for upward mobility.
Some fathers were not as critical of illegal activities if those activities enabled them to provide children with these kinds of opportunities. For them, provision was less about things and more about intent. Owen, a twenty-year-old multiracial father of three, noted that “being a good dad has nothing to with money, but with the intention behind the actions you do. If you’re selling drugs to help put food inside your family’s mouths, not to sit there and buy big chains and a car with big old rims and stuff like that, if it’s to help pay for gas or electric bills, then that’s the definition of a good dad. You’re going about it the wrong way, but it’s still the definition of a good dad, someone doing what he needs to do for his family.” For these fathers, being there as providers had many components. Parsing them in these ways was a powerful form of symbolic boundary work that entailed drawing distinct lines between responsible fathers who did whatever was necessary to promote upward mobility for children and those who only cared about themselves. It was about giving their children missing social and economic advantages, which included money, but also knowledge, good values, and a father to keep them on the right paths in school and work. Being a responsible dad also meant providing prosperity by protecting children from the circumstances and choices fathers believed had derailed their own lives and plans for advancement. Enrolling in DADS was their attempt to change their children’s life chances and to break their link in the intergenerational cycle of poverty. For many, doing so meant providing, first and foremost, a father himself—one who need not be successful by conventional breadwinning standards to have value and worth as a parent.
PROVIDING A FATHER
Most men described fully “being there” as a provision of the self. This was particularly important for those who did not have consistent contact with their own fathers or saw them as mere financial providers. A father who provided of himself was one who gave his children time and attention, but also the cognitive and spiritual components of involvement. Fathers spoke often of providing their children prayers and positive thoughts and feelings. Ricky, a twenty-two-year-old Black father of one, put this most pointedly when he told me that being a good father and provider meant: “just being around. That’s it. You can be the brokest, the dumbest, the ugliest, the cutest, the baddest, the goodest. I don’t care, just be around your child. I’m around my child every second I can. I ain’t never had the big stuff, and all I wanted from my father was for him to say, ‘Hey, son.’ I think about my kid every second, every hour, every day, every week, every month, every year. He’s on my mind. How I think and feel is what makes me a good dad.” Ricky regretted that he saw his son, William, only on the occasional weekend and that his low earnings prevented him from buying more. That he thought about William the rest of the time and bought what his meager means would allow, however, made him feel like a good father and provider. The program’s emphasis on the importance of paternal presence, despite low earnings, reinforced men’s beliefs that responsible fatherhood is not necessarily about providing money, which is often out of fathers’ control. Rather, they told me, it is about doing the best one can, especially by making personal sacrifices on behalf of their children.
Randy, a twenty-nine-year-old Black father of three, talked about being there in this way and explained that taking care of his kids entailed “spending time with them, buying what I can, trying to hang out when I can, and just talking to them about life. I ain’t really got no money, but I do what I can.” Homeless and often hungry, Randy proudly confided to me that he used some of his food stamps to buy milk for his children and sold the rest to get his daughter diapers and wipes. He skipped many meals to do so. He provided for his children, he reasoned, using the currency of his own comfort and well-being. To Ricky, Randy, and others, responsible fathering emerged from these kinds of “doing what I can” sacrifices. In acknowledging that they gave their children relatively little compared to better-off fathers, they also highlighted that what they gave was a greater portion of the very little they had, usually at the expense of meeting their own basic needs. This emphasis on selflessness and the idea that children need fathers’ presence as much as they need money was one way men claimed identities as worthy fathers who provided value to their children’s lives. To echo Ricky, even the “brokest” and “baddest” fathers had a lot to offer by just being proximate to their kids.
From fathers’ perspectives, time and presence were the most valued assets they, and only they, could offer their children. Jonathan, a twenty-three-year-old Latino father of two, communicated this when he told me: “If you can imagine a kid, and you just send them money and keep a roof over their head, and they’re just there growing up on their own, they have some of what they need, but they’re missing out on you. How would they know right from wrong?” Other kids may have more money and things, Jonathan noted, but his children were “more privileged” than those with breadwinning-only rich fathers. He believed that such kids were impoverished in terms of what really matters—a father who loves and values them enough to be around and spend his precious time with them.
In drawing symbolic boundaries between themselves and other fathers who provided only money, albeit a lot more than they could, fathers in DADS stressed how money could not replace the value of fathers’ time, attention, and wisdom. Anyone, they rationalized, could provide money and things, but only fathers could provide a guiding paternal presence, rendering them uniquely important. Tomas, a thirty-three-year-old Latino father of three, learned this through DADS and life experience: “Don’t just tell them go outside and play, but actually try to get involved. A lot of dads aren’t active anymore. Go to a park, just play with the child, and just be there for them. The most important thing is time. You may not have a lot of money to take them to fancy places or to the mall, but if you can spend time, that would be an invaluable kind of thing you can’t replace. I’m learning from [DADS] not to just say, ‘Here’s ten dollars, where do you want to go spend it?’ ” Estranged from his two older children whom he saw only occasionally when they were young, he was trying to be a better parent with his youngest by spending time, not just money. Tomas hoped spending this time would prevent his younger child from resenting him like his older siblings did.
His classmate Maxwell, a twenty-one-year-old Black father of one, also emphasized time when describing what fathers were specifically equipped to give their children: “Being a good dad is stopping what you’re doing to spend time with your son, to teach him things, like talking, to read him books, to teach him the ABCs, and to teach him to cope. I do my money part as a father, the clothes, the diapers, the wipes, and everything, but buying diapers, clothes, and food is something that anybody can do for him. I’m the one who has to spend time and teach my son. Anybody can buy something. That’s just money. That’s not a father.” Men reasoned that they, and they alone, could give children confidence by proving that their fathers loved them enough to be and stay around.
By stressing this message, DADS helped men overcome the insecurities of being failed financial providers. Many told me that they came to the program believing they were lacking as fathers because of their inability to earn a lot of money. Harris, an eighteen-year-old Black father of one, described this feeling of inadequacy:
I came in believing I don’t have a lot to offer, but I was going to make sure I’m in my kid’s life. I don’t have a big house and a lot of toys to give my son. All I can give him is love and quality time and show him I really care about him. . . . I don’t have a spot. I don’t have a house. I don’t really have anything. But I now know I was worrying about the wrong things, about how I was going to provide for him, instead of being a father. That’s how my dad was, a financial father spoiling me with money, not with time.
Through DADS Harris was learning to challenge benchmarks of good fathering that depended on privilege. With dreams of taking his son fishing and being more than