Essential Dads. Dr. Jennifer M. Randles
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time spent away from children now because of work or school would ultimately allow them to be better, more involved dads in the future.
One particularly poignant conversation about this was with Emmett, a twenty-four-year-old Black father of one deceased child, who described through tears how participation in the program allowed him to maintain his identity as an involved father. He was grieving the death of his daughter, Shannon, who died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome when she was twenty-eight days old. During our interview eight months after her passing, he expressed deep regret that he did not spend more time with her during her brief life: “I came for [Shannon]. I didn’t come back for myself at all. . . . I continue on the right path to better myself and live, or I go back to what didn’t get me nowhere . . . , making me more depressed. Now I’m here for myself to better myself and possibly for my children in the future. . . . I don’t have her, but I am a spiritual dad. I’m not a dad on this earth, but I’m a father to a child in heaven.” Being in the program allowed fathers like Emmett to claim identities as good dads and providers who showed up to work or school each day and strove for upward mobility for their children. DADS offered men a way of being there when they were unable to see or spend more money on behalf of their children.
Thus, to fathers, being there was not always about direct interaction with children. It could even mean the opposite, in the sense that long stretches of time away from children, especially due to work, indicated commitment to families. The reasons for separation determined if they were “there” or not. Fathers believed they were involved dads even when they were incarcerated or otherwise rarely saw kids. They rationalized that intent mattered more than the level of interaction, especially when they were trying to improve their own lives on behalf of their children. Orlando, a thirty-five-year-old Latino father of five, told me: “Kids need to know their father’s time.” By this, he meant that children knew where their fathers were and when they would see them next. Childhood memories of not knowing when and how much they would see their dads motivated men to prevent this doubt and disappointment for their own children. This is also why men understood participation in program activities as time spent physically away from children, but emotionally and psychologically with them. Knowing a father’s time meant children knew that their dads were safe and doing something for their benefit.
Still, money was central to men’s understandings of responsibility, and many felt demoralized as failed providers when they lacked the means to give their children more. Despite fathers’ efforts to rationalize their relational, rather than just financial, value to children, many still grappled with the breadwinner ideology. Aaron, a twenty-one-year-old multiracial father of three, tried “not to shut myself out of their lives because I’m not providing enough.” His children’s mother would give him a list each month of the items his children needed. He was proud of the times he could afford to buy every item. Yet some months he came up short, prompting him to look for a second job. He too emphasized the importance of being there by “listening, physically and mentally, and understanding my kids’ habits.” But he dreamed of being able to buy anything his children needed or wanted. When their mother gave him that list, he wanted to be able to “tell her, ‘OK, sure, give me a second. I’ll go get the money and bring it right over,’ without even really thinking or worrying how I’m going to make it and help them pay the bills.” A truly responsible father, he concluded, was the kind who could take his child to a store “and say, ‘Pick out anything you want,’ without giving it a second thought. He’s not someone who encourages their child to want less than the best because that is all he can afford.” Like Aaron, many fathers described being there in aspirational terms, as in what they would do if unconstrained by lack of money. These descriptions conjured up images of possible selves who were successful earners and financially comfortable family men. They saw DADS as their only route to making these aspirations a reality.
This is likely why forty-five of the fifty fathers I interviewed told me they believed they were good fathers doing their best to fulfill their parenting responsibilities. Four others told me they were at least moderately good fathers. Only one said unequivocally that he was a bad father. Alas, almost everyone admitted they had doubts about their claims of being good dads, sensing that their actions did not always fully align with their understandings of being there in terms of how much they gave to and saw their children. Fathers blamed themselves for these shortcomings, while simultaneously acknowledging the barriers that prevented them from living up fully to their own definitions of responsible fatherhood. Low wages, geographic distance, homelessness, lack of transportation, custody arrangements, restraining orders, tense relationships with coparents, and addiction, among many other reasons, prevented men from realizing their parenting ambitions. The DADS program was essential in these cases for bridging the gap between men’s paternal identities as involved fathers and their actual behaviors influenced by multiple and often insurmountable barriers. It was a unique situated space where they could redefine being a good provider as not just a parent committed to giving children financial support, but a father who loved them enough to change his life and life chances for their future well-being.
BEING THERE AS BEST THEY CAN
The men’s stories aligned with Edin and Nelson’s finding that marginalized fathers espouse a “doing the best I can” ethos that justifies providing materially only on an as-able basis, often through highly visible or essential items such as expensive sneakers or formula and diapers.19 Given that this rarely covers half the actual costs of raising a child, mothers and others still believe that fathers’ attempts to do what they can often fall far short of enacting the responsible parent role. Fathers’ narratives indicated that they too were acutely aware of these perceived inadequacies and worked hard to develop identities as responsible fathers who reject narrow expectations of financial provision. On the surface, the result is a flexible and vague conception of responsibility whereby “being there” can mean doing anything on behalf of children.
Yet, considering the inequalities that structure the lives of marginalized fathers, being there—even its most essential component of staying alive—was no small feat for the men who found their way to DADS. It entailed resisting the pressure, both economic and social, to participate in illegal underground economies and gang activity, which risks cutting off paternal involvement if a father is incarcerated or, even worse, if he is killed. This resistance often requires fathers to cut off ties with close friends and family members. It also resigns them to the very low-wage sector of the formal labor market where even full-time work rarely earns enough to support a lone individual, much less a family. That these were core concerns of most of the men with whom I spoke revealed the inherent limitations of using definitions of paternal involvement based on white middle-class men as a starting point for political discussions of fathering. These accounts compel the question: What does “responsible fathering” look like when a man must worry that he may not make it to his child’s next birthday?
These findings also showed how government programs enhance marginalized fathers’ abilities to devise parenting scripts that allow them to resolve fundamental identity conflicts resulting from inequality. More broadly, they suggest how definitions of responsible fatherhood focused on time and care can be as problematic as those that emphasize breadwinning. Racism and economic vulnerability do not just undercut the ability of poor fathers of color to provide financially for their children. They prevent many from “being there” according to any definition.
Programs that focus on fathers’ identity regarding issues of breadwinning and caregiving represent a radical shift in how policy intervenes in fathering. Political definitions of good fatherhood in the United States have hinged on economic self-sufficiency and family financial support. In a significant departure from these criteria, responsible fatherhood programs may be one of the most important political and social contexts for developing men’s abilities to assert identities as successful men and fathers who circumvent singular expectations of economic providership.20
Offering fathers a space to connect with similarly situated men allows them to share and confide with others who empathize with what it is like to be on the margins of families and society.21 By increasing men’s sense of belonging and promoting a more inclusive understanding of family, fathering, and masculinity, programs can also be catalysts for changed perceptions of the gendered attributes of parenting.22 They are