June 16, 2014 • 50 mins
More men than ever before are raising kids as single dads. To celebrate Father's Day, Cristen and Caroline trace how single fatherhood has become the new normal and spotlight how and why society treats single dads differently from single moms.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from house Supports
dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Caroline
and I'm Kristin. And in celebration of Father's Day, we
are connecting this episode with the episode we did for
Mother's Day on single moms. And so today we want
(00:25):
to talk to you about single dads because we can't
leave out that very important portion of the population. So
we want to celebrate dads. And today we're looking at
those of you who are going it alone. Yeah, and
it's a good time to be talking about single dads,
not just because Father's Day was yesterday, but because single
(00:46):
dads are on the rise and they're making a lot
of headlines. For instance, in July two, the Pure Search
Center reported that a record eight percent of households with
minor children in the US are now headed by a
single father, which is up from just over one percent
in nineteen sixty. Yeah, and Pew talks about how that's
(01:08):
a ninefold increase since nineteen sixty, from less than three
hundred thousand to more than two point six million in
twenty eleven, and for a comparison, the number of single
mother households increased more than just fourfold during that time period,
up to eight point six million in twenty eleven from
one point nine million in nineteen sixty. And single dads
(01:30):
have also increased as a percentage of all single parents.
In nineteen sixty, about fourteen percent of single parent households
were headed by dads. Today, that's almost one quarter percent,
and then for another percent in two thousand eleven, and
single dad's made up eighteen point three percent of custodial parents,
which is when a person has full time solo custody
(01:54):
of the kids. And this isn't just a demographic change
happening in the US. Canadian neighbors as well are also
seeing the rise of single dads. According to the two
thousand eleven Canadian Census, there was an eight percent jump
in the number of single parent homes and of those,
you have a sixteen point two percent increase in single
(02:17):
dad led households in two thousand eleven, which outpaced the
former increase of fourteen from two thousand one to two
thousand six. So that is a lot of percents to
say that we have been on a steady climb in
the number of single dad led households. Yeah, and you
know if you listen to our single mom episode, which
(02:38):
I know you did. I hope so. But there are
a lot of factors going into the rise and single
dads that also accompany the rise in single moms. For instance,
in general, there's just been an increase in the share
of non marital births in general. And so that's why
it's important when we mentioned the custodial parents earlier, because
there are a lot of different types. As will explain
(03:00):
further in a minute, there are a lot of different
types of single parents. It's not just people who have
solo custody. There's also people who are divorced or widowed, etcetera, etcetera. Yeah,
and and to get an idea of how that share
of the non marital births as they're called so clinically
has increased. Um according to the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention, forty point seven percent of all US births
(03:24):
now in the United States are two unmarried women. But again,
even though those women are unmarried, that doesn't necessarily mean
they don't have a partner or you know, like we said,
there are many different types of single parents, right, and
speaking of divorce, the rates have leveled off, but they're
still higher than they were in the nineteen sixties and seventies,
(03:47):
which means more single parents. And there's also issues around
the legal system. Some experts suggest that changes in the
legal system and laws in various states have led to
more opportunities for fathers to gain at least partial custody
of children in the event of a breakup. A lot
of that has to do with the way that we
(04:07):
perceive fathers in general, and the way we perceive single
fathers in particular, but also the way that they see themselves. Right,
the public perception of single fatherhood and simply the role
of a dad in a family and and his role
with child rearing has evolved so much, particularly in the
past forty or fifty years, because you know, we've seen
(04:31):
these household and gender roles for men shifting since the
nineteen sixties, away from that idea that that you know,
dad's just go to work and they bring home the
bacon and that's kind of it, whereas mom takes care
of the kids and so on. For instance, mad Men.
Not to completely fictionalize this conversation, but you know, Don
Draper gets a divorce from Betty spoiler alert, and the
(04:54):
kids live with Betty and then they come every now
and then to visit him. Because back then it was
more of the e idea that, you know, a full
time single dad. That would be kind of nutty. Yeah,
that would be nutty. But now now we're not so
opposed to the idea. The the idea that guys might
be single dads and or get soul custody in the
event of a divorce doesn't seem totally alien and it's
(05:17):
it's funny though, to go back and look at just
the histrionics that surrounded men being the caregivers for children. Uh.
The Atlantic had a great post looking at postcards that
were going around targeting men fathers in particular during the
suffrage movement. There was no gray area. It was like
a zero sum game where either the man was at
(05:39):
home and he was making the money and he was
in control and the wife was home taking care of
the kids, or, as they feared would happen if women
gain the vote, the women would put on pants and
march right out of the home and start working and
the men would be left to attend to the children. Yeah.
One of the tropes from that time was something called
the suffragette Madonna, and it's this hilarious image of this
(06:03):
befuddled guy, this dad looking character, holding a baby and
he's you know, he's in like a suit, but he
also has a halo around his head because oh, well,
his wife won the right to vote, so now he's
got to be home taking care of the baby. And
that was at that time such a radical idea in
(06:24):
terms of, you know, the gender roles then that it was,
I mean, it was one of the major platforms arguing
against giving women the vote because well, if you do that,
slippery slope to men having to be involved fathers, Yeah,
and I know who wants who wants that fathers anyway, So,
(06:47):
like we said, now the public is really starting to
acknowledge men as more than just breadwinners. They're also caregivers too.
And the New York Times did a piece on single
dad's by choice. We all, you know, we talked about
single moms by choice in our last episode, but talking
about how these guys nowadays who were becoming dads, their
new dads come from the generations who really believed in feminism,
(07:11):
preached equal rights and civil rights, and so they grew
up believing in gender equality and they talked to David Klow,
who's a psychotherapist who runs men's groups at the Family
Institute at Northwestern University, and he said, there's a new
sense of masculinity that incorporates being a single father, accomplished
and successful in the business world, but also very loving
(07:32):
and caring. Yeah, and if you look at time youth data,
you see that even today, Yes, moms tend to spend
even whether they're working or if they're you know, full
time stay at home moms, no matter what the situation is,
women tend to spend more time caring for the kids.
But fathers are spending more time with their children than
(07:54):
ever before. So, for instance, the Pure Research Center found
that in two thousand eleven, ads were spending seven hours
a week on childcare and ten hours a week on housework,
which is half of what mothers do. But that's still
hugely from nive when dad's did only two and a
half hours a week of childcare and four hours of housework. Yeah,
(08:18):
and I mean people kind of fully expect that now
they expect more from their from their from their dads.
I mean, society does more. From the Pew Research Center,
they found that the public beliefs that a father's greatest
role is to provide values to his children, followed by
emotional support, discipline, and income support, which really isn't that
(08:39):
far off from what the values that they ascribed to mothers,
women needing to do. Yeah, and speaking of madmen, you
can see this kind of shift to in our public
perception of the important role of fathers with their kids,
in how dads are portrayed in advertising. Um, there was
a now somewhat infamous uh Huggies diaper campaign a few
(09:02):
years back that portrayed dad's having to change a diaper
as like the ultimate test of these diapers like amazing
qualities because of a dud can do it, then anybody
can do it. And they ended up having to pull
the campaign because a lot of guys took offense at
that of like, excuse me, involved father, here, I can
(09:23):
change a diaper. You know, this is this is a
new generation we're talking about now, these guys who were
who were scared of changing diapers. Yeah. I feel like
we're definitely in a time period where we're getting more
and more pushback against ads and marketing that just depicts
men as dopey and uninvolved and uninterested and all they
(09:44):
do is make the money and I don't know how
to take out their garbage. Yeah, you actually see ads
now of dad's driving the kids places, or dad's doing
the laundry or doing the dishes. Right, Yes, that it's
not just mom at home doing it while the dad
does other things. Right, And as far as I mean,
as far as perceptions go, they're also very important when
(10:05):
it comes to actual court situations divorce custody, because men
used to assume that there was no way that they
would get custody of their kids in a divorce, so
they were generally just less likely to fight to get it,
whether they were fighting the courts or just the mom.
And this is coming from an article that The Atlantic
did in February talking about this this rise and single dads. Yeah,
(10:29):
this child custody issue is a huge factor. Like we
said in this increasing you know a number of guys
who are fighting for custody for their kids or just
getting custody for their kids because sometimes, as as the
Atlantic author was talking about, it can be easier to
just give someone soul custody, and sometimes the mom doesn't
(10:50):
want to have soul custody of the kids. But it
took a long time for the courts to wrap their
heads around this notion that dads can be equally good
parents to kids as mothers can be, because for a
long time, the knee jerk assumption was, oh, well, mothers
are more fit for raising kids, so custody is going
(11:12):
to go with the mom. Even in cases if you
have say an unwed, unwed couple and they split up,
but they've got you know, she has the kid, and
she meets someone else, they want to get married, and
then he, you know, the new guy, wants to adopt
the kid. The court would be like, Okay, yeah, that's fine,
because the unwed father, you know, he's like just kind
(11:34):
of over there doing his stuff, and like the kid
needs to stay with the mom no matter what. But
then in nine two you have the case Stanley v.
Illinois that really started to you know, started this domino
effect of granting father's more custody rights, because this was
the first time the court considered the custodial rights of
unmarried biological fathers. And it was this case of Joan
(11:59):
and Peter's Fanley, who lived together for eighteen years, they
had three kids together, never got married. Joan died and
the state automatically gave the kids. It made the kids
like wardens of the state because they just assumed while
Peter Stanley, you're, you know, this unwed father, certainly you
(12:19):
can't be, you know, fit to raise children. He ended
up fighting it and it went all the way up
to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court, under the
equal Protection Clause in the fourteenth Amendment, granted him custody
of his kids, basically saying that they should only be
taken away on proof of being unfit or neglectful. And
(12:42):
this was really interpreted as a ruling of gender equality
and was applied in a lot of other different custodial cases.
But even still, I mean, that was ninety two, and
it still took a long time for states to gradually
move away from that automatically siding with the biological mother. So,
(13:05):
for example, the Stanley versus Illinois ruling helped invalidate a
provision in the New York domestic relations law that gave
unwed mothers but not fathers, the right to adopt their kids.
So talk about, you know, an equality issue right there.
So that was definitely a step in the right direction,
because you know, fathers should be able to I think
(13:25):
I have a say in that kind of legal matter. Well,
it doesn't even make sense to me, Like me now
is a thirty year old woman. It doesn't even make
sense to me that you're the father and you're not
the first choice on like being able to adopt kids
or get Yeah, I don't know, it doesn't make any sense.
But really the ball got rolling in the early two
(13:46):
thousand's when many states began adopting legislation providing for joint
physical custody and which is different than just joint legal custody.
These policies were supposed to encourage basically both parents to
spend equal time with the kid, but interestingly, it seemed
to spark a rise in single dads and and the
(14:06):
perfect example that they give is from a study in
the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies. In it looked at
the state of Oregon, which became one of the first
states to formally enact joint parenting legislation. Before this happened,
Oregon's custody law had favored joint legal custody, so the
(14:27):
parents both have a say and decisions made about the child,
but not joint physical custody. After the new law, Oregon
courts defaulted to joint parenting, encouraging the child to spend
half her time with dad and half with mom. But
in Oregon, after this law, it ended up swaying way
(14:47):
more towards dad's Why what's going on? Because the changing
laws are actually empowering dads to ask for more. It's
not that like Oregon puts this law and effect and
all of a sudden, all these deadbeat mom are like,
finally I'm free. It's just that dad's perceptions of themselves,
of the way things should be, of the way things
(15:09):
can be, are starting to change. And so previously, you know,
decades and decades before, dad's just assumed like, Okay, well
I'm just gonna see him on the weekends, or I'll
see him every other weekend or whatever, when really they're
now starting to think, and they're backed by the courts
and starting to think, oh, I can take more responsibility.
I want to take more responsibility, and I'm going to
(15:30):
ask for it. Yeah, And not to say that it's
always illegal and cheap cake walk to get custody rights.
If you are, you know, a father, and I'm sure
that we'll hear from some dads out there who have
or maybe are going through these kinds of custody issues,
because there are still plenty of courts that do tend
(15:51):
to side more with the mom. But there's definitely been
so much progress since that Stanley v. Illinois. Um just vision,
I mean, and even the fact Caroline that, in contrast
to our episode on Single Moms where we trace the
history back centuries, I mean, the history at least legally
speaking in the US kind of just starts in the seventies.
(16:15):
I mean, that speaks to how significant of a change
this is. Yeah, that goes beyond assuming, that goes beyond
assuming that like, oh, women are the better parents and
mothers and kids should be with that that's the belief system.
That's just like you believe that that's the way things are.
And so I it makes sense then in that context
that it took so long to change. But now, like
(16:36):
I said, being I can't imagine. Yeah, well, it's like
you're saying, that reminds me of one of the sources
we were reading talking about how our ideas of motherhood
and fatherhood in a lot of ways sort of like
gender is very much a construct, Like influenced by culture
and time and media, etcetera. So the good thing is
(16:59):
I feel like there are constructed our fatherhood construct has
has only developed in a more positive way. And speaking
again of single dads in particular, who who are these guys, Caroline,
who are these fellas? Yes, so that report that Pew
released looking at the rise and single fathers, um it
(17:21):
is worth specifying who they were looking at. So fathers
in that Pew report are fifteen years or older. They
are the head of their household. They are living with
their own minor children, whether those children are biological stepchildren
or adopted. Pew excluded fathers who are living in a
household headed by someone else, and fathers whose children are
not living with them, And they broke down why these
(17:45):
guys are single fathers. About half are separated, divorced, widowed,
or never married and are living without a cohabitating partner. However,
some forty one are living with a non marital partner.
So again there's that whole like murky area where Okay,
you're technically legally a single dad, but you might have
somebody living with you. Only seven percent are married still
(18:09):
but living apart from their spouse with custody of the kids.
And when we compare father's heading household solo versus fathers
in two parent households, we do see similar patterns as
we talked about in the single Moms episode, because single
dads do tend to be younger, a little bit less educated,
less financially well off, and less likely to be white,
(18:31):
and also less likely to be in full time jobs.
So this also brings up, then you know, this issue
of parental resources, and we'll get into some more comparisons
in a minute. We definitely want to look at single
moms versus single dads. There are a lot of statistics
out there that we want to throw at you, but
we'll get right into that after a quick break. So
(18:57):
we just talked about how single fathers and single moms
share some demographic similarities, but there are also some differences
worth noting aside from the fact that single fathers tend
to be men, single mothers tend to be women. Beyond that,
single fathers are more likely than single mothers to be
(19:18):
living with a cohabitating partner, far likelier actually forty versus sixtent,
but those cohabitating guys tend to be younger. Single dads
who are over forty typically live with just the kids
Allah Louis c K who yes, we will talk about
a little bit more later in the podcast. And also
(19:39):
compared to single moms, single dads are more likely to
be white and are more likely to own their own home.
Two thirds of single dads own their own home, while
two thirds of single moms rent and generally, single dads
are older than single moms. Of them are under forty
compared to sixty of single moms, whereas forty seven percent
(20:00):
of them are over forty compared to thirty eight percent
of single moms. So there are some interesting demographic breakdowns.
I mean, obviously you know, single dad, same as single
mom moms are not a monolithic group, but there are
some some standout differences, particularly when it comes to this
(20:21):
income issue. Because single fathers, even though they tend to
have less money, make less money, tend to uh they're
less likely to be in a full time job than
married fathers, but compared to single mothers, they tend to
have higher incomes and are far less likely to be
living at or below the poverty line versus forty percent
(20:44):
of single moms living below the poverty line, which again
brings up another contrast to our single moms issue, where
we spent a lot of time talking about government resources
and kind of bridging the gap for single moms you
need more assistance, whereas Caroline, I've saw very little of
the same kind of information targeted to dad's Yeah, exactly, Um.
(21:06):
And when you look at how much money these guys
are bringing home every year, um, the average amount for
a single dad household of three is a lot less
than that of a married fathers. So the single dads
tend to bring home about forty dollars a year, whereas
married fathers tend to bring home about seventy thousand on average.
But even though that's a lot lower than married fathers,
(21:28):
it's more than single moms who bring home and a
median adjusted annual income for that three person household of
only twenty six dollars. So how do these demographic differences
dad v Mom? How does all this shake out for
the kids? Are their differences between single dad and single
mom parenting? Um? A lot of the studies that we
(21:51):
looked at found that really, when all the data shakes out,
there's not a huge difference because when it comes to parenting,
as is the same case if you talk about LGBT
parenting and how sexual orientation influences child outcomes, it's not
(22:12):
so much gender sexual orientation those kinds of factors that
influence child outcomes, but rather this issue of resources. Right, Yeah,
And so if you look at school, for instance, there
have been a lot of studies on how kids of
single parents fair at school, and a lot of studies
have mainly shown that it's not the dad versus mom,
(22:33):
man versus woman factor. It's more the socioeconomic factors and
kind of having just one parents. So like when I
was growing up, you know, I had mom there who
was cooking dinner and making sure I got dressed. I
had dad to help me with my math homework. You know,
there was always one parent available to help drive me
somewhere while the other took care of I don't know,
(22:53):
bills or work or whatever they had to do. Whether
you're a man or a woman, if you're a single parent,
I think, is any single are it could attest? Where's
the other person to go help you do things? Like
they talked to one single dad I think in the
New York Times, who said, you know, as a single parent,
if you if it's ten o'clock at night and you're
five year olds in bed and you realize you don't
have any milk for the next day. Who's going to
(23:15):
go out and get the milk? But anyway, I digress,
So dogs should be better trained. Cats cat get that milk.
Get a cat to go out and get it, Yes,
and they're perfect. Um. So there was a study in
the Journal of Family Issues from that looked at data
from the National Longitudinal Study, and so I realized that
(23:38):
that's very dated, but there's still trends that are very relevant.
They found that children from single father and single mother
families perform about the same at school, but both are
outperformed by children from two parent families. So when you
look more closely at dad versus mom, they said, the
lack of economic resources explains the school difficulties of kids
(23:58):
from single mother families. And yes, that's from a long
time ago, but it still makes sense in considering single
moms makes so much less than single dads. And they
found also that a lack of interpersonal parental resources provides
a more accurate description for why children from single father
families do poorly in school. But maybe that's changing as
(24:19):
our views of single dads now and their views of
themselves change. Yeah, And sort of along these same lines,
there was a more recent study that came out in
two thousand ten in the Journal of Marriage and Family
which found that while there might be some small differences
in parenting behavior behaviors of single mothers and single fathers,
(24:40):
these differences are often sensitive to demographic disparities and don't
really translate to academic deficits for children in either family type.
So it's not like, oh, well, if Susie is gonna
go live with dad, then her grades are gonna plummet,
so Susie should live with with mom instead. Like, as
long as Susie's mom and dad are both is engaged
(25:00):
as they can be, she will do all right. Yeah,
the kids will be all right. The kids and the
kids are all right. Um. But there are benefits of
dealing with dads, some psychologists and sociologist would argue, and
one of those factors is play. W Brad Wilcox, who's
a sociologist at u v A and studies marriage and families,
(25:21):
said that dads are actually more likely to rough house
play than moms, which is a style of play that
helps teach kids to control their bodies and their emotions.
And I'm thinking, I'm like, my dad never rough house
with me. But then again, I don't know. He was
forty when they had me, so maybe he was done
with the rough housing. Yeah. I was the last after
(25:42):
a lot of kids, So I remember some rough house
play when I was small, but I think by the
time I got like a little bit older, he was
probably worn out. No Dad, there was Dad was constantly
reinforcing how much is back hurt? So there was no
there were no more piggyback rides. But um, as far
as play exploration and all that stuff goes, fathers are
also more likely to encourage their kids to embrace risk,
(26:04):
both on the playground and in life. This influences, Wilcox says,
the ambitions of children over the long run. Yeah, there
have been so many studies in recent years really digging
into the role of fatherhood and how it, you know,
interacts with child outcomes, because I think for so long
people have just been focusing on moms and they found
(26:26):
all of these these findings that aren't terribly surprising, such
as you know, the thing about the rough house play,
which makes sense because you know, maybe guys are a
little more just rough house in their play. I know
that my brothers were more rough house and my sisters were.
And then if you look at you know, dads who
believe in gender equality, no big surprise that their daughters
(26:47):
tend to have higher career ambitions compared to dads who
have more sexist beliefs. And in fact, though this is important,
dad's gender beliefs were more influential on their daughters than
their mom's beliefs. I'm that I think that's incredibly important,
and I think it's interesting because I mean, you know,
the whole the whole thing about oh we marry our
(27:08):
dads or we look for men who are like our dad's. Well,
if your dad is more likely to support gender equality,
believe in feminism and kind of instill those values in you,
that says a lot. And that kind of paternal investment
in terms of rough house play or talking about gender
equality or disciplining whatever it might be. That involvement also
(27:30):
translates to better outcomes for kids in school as well.
We just touched on school, but the National Center for
Education Statistics has also found that father's involvement in school
is associated with a higher likelihood of students getting mostly a's.
And that's true not just for two parent families, but
also in dad only households. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's
(27:54):
really important to point out that it's in both types
of families and the circumstance that it is that fatherly involvement.
Knowing that your dad is invested, that you're more likely
to get all a's. Um. There's also the involvement in school.
Students living in father only families are the most likely
of all students to have highly involved fathers. Forty of
(28:15):
such students have fathers who are highly involved in their schools.
So whether that's volunteering, being on the p t A,
you know, coaching the soccer team, Well, that makes sense
because they have they don't have a room BA who
can go to you know, the PTA meetings, and single
dads are actually likelier than step dads, biological fathers with
(28:35):
a stepmother in the home and two parent households the
to biological parent households to attend parent teacher conferences, school meetings,
school events, and volunteer. So single dads in a lot
of ways are knocking it out of the park. Yeah.
I mean it makes sense because I just wonder if
you know we're falling back on those social norms and expectations,
(28:56):
gender expectations when in two parent households, the the mom
sees his control of the PTA responsibilities, whereas the dad's like,
I'll just let you do that. Yeah, yeah, I think
it's so easy. And I'm now staring off into anecdote
for a moment um. It's kind of easy in a
heterosexual couple to just fall back on sort of the
(29:20):
traditional gender roles that might have been modeled for us,
because in my family, mom, you know, my mom cooked
dinner and did the dishes, and my dad worked in
mode the lawn, and I now see in the patterns
of my own life, I just need your kind of well,
I'll go to the grocery store, you stay home and
change the light bulbs. Did this happen like two days ago, maybe, Caroline,
(29:43):
it just happened. Well, then, I mean, it's beyond anecdote.
We we talked about this in our Egalitarian Household episode,
looking at straight couples versus gay couples, or same sex
versus opposite sex couples, and how even the most like
super feminist women right women's rights progressive couples once they
get married, it's like, oh, I'm the man, you're the woman. Well,
(30:04):
and especially to when it comes to that child rearing.
When we decided the statistic a few minutes ago about
how even though dads are doing more than ever before,
moms are still doing twice as much. Um. But there
are some single dads who are doing it for themselves
and by their own choice. We talked about single moms
(30:26):
by choice in our Single Mom's episode. These are women
who are sort of going out of their way because
they want to be moms that they don't want to
have the traditional they don't want to find somebody, you know,
and have to go through all of that. They're just like, oh,
well I will adopt, I will get you know, in vitro,
I will have a baby because I just want to
(30:46):
be a mom. And there are more and more guys
who are doing this. Example, Ricky Martin of Living Levita
Loca Fame adopted twins not too long ago and he
intends to raise them as a single Yeah, he's a
single dad by choice, living Levita Loca. He has Living
Levita dad. Yeah. The different kind of Loca these days, right, Um. Yeah,
(31:10):
the new York Times, NPR, ABC News, they all looked
into this whole rise of single father thing, but also
the rise of single fathers by choice, and the New
York Times reported that surrogacy agencies, adoption agencies, and father
support groups are all reporting that they're seeing more single
fathers by choice. A lot of these guys happened to
(31:32):
be gay, but the number of straight guys looking to
go it alone are on the increase. To Yeah, there
was a statistic in that New York Times article that
jumped out to me. Uh. They cited two thousand eight
data from the National Center for Health Statistics which found
that men age eighteen to forty four are twice as
likely as women of the same age group to have
(31:52):
adopted a child. Now, that's partially explained by men being
likelier to adopt step children, but the report also found
that seventy three thousand never married men had also adopted
a child, and that group includes those who are single
fathers by choice. Right, And you know, this whole time,
we've been talking a lot about changes in society, changes
(32:15):
in perception of what's possible. And Steve Majors, who's the
communications director for the Same Sex advocacy group Family Equality
Counsel says it's the same thing for gayman. He says
that a lot of young gay men once believed that
living in openly gay life meant not having children, that
you were either straight, or that you were closeted and
(32:36):
then you had a family, or that you were just
gay and single with no kids. But now, as you said,
we're seeing this rise in different technology and whether that's IVF,
whether they're adopting, but we're seeing alongside the rise of
same sex marriage, we're also seeing a rise in gay
men pioneering the use of reproductive technology to have kids.
(32:56):
And we're also seeing a legal evolution as well, in
addition into what we were talking about in terms of
men being able to get child custody, but also legal
doors being opened for gay men to adopt children, because
there are still some states that have bands against that
um but those dominoes are also starting to fall right
(33:19):
and there's people out there doing their part to combat
those misconceptions. Brian Testier started up four one one four Dad,
a hotline for prospective single fathers, and Testier was talking
about how both gay and straight guys reach out to
him a lot about the topic, and many believe that
they can't adopt on their own. Many think that it's
not even possible that legally you have to have some
(33:40):
type of partner going into it with you. Yeah. And
it was interesting when ABC News was reporting on this,
they talked to some agency professionals who said that if
a child has been in say an abusive situation with
his or her biological mother, or has special needs, that
a single dad in part killer can be a really
(34:01):
stabilizing factor. I mean, I think we a lot of
times we hear about stories about how difficult it is
for men to adopt, particularly now actually straight men, because
they kind of get like a side, I like, well,
why would you want to adopt a child on your own?
But they can actually be attractive candidates for you know,
for kids, right, And they pointed out another advantage of
(34:24):
single adoptive dads, and that is that many adopt older boys,
which is a group that's historically been difficult to place
in homes for adoption. And speaking of adoption of having
kids in the same way as there are trade offs
any time you become a parent, no matter what your
family structure looks like. Same goes for single dads right
(34:48):
when you're looking at the financial aspects. For instance, um,
women tend to struggle after a divorce with making ends meet.
That's that's their main financial struggle. But for men for
a divorce who gained custody of the kids, it's their
careers that can end up kind of a mess if
you look at it from one perspective or simply different.
(35:09):
I mean, it makes sense that you've got to sacrifice something.
And with this change in society that we're seeing out
of more men becoming single, dads were also and they're
also going to have to get used to the fact
that maybe your career path has to change. A lot
of women have changed their career paths, you know from
otherhood before. Yeah, talking about the quote unquote mommy off
(35:29):
ramp that many women start to hit around our age,
Caroline of that question of like, well, do I want
to have a kid? Do I want to have you know,
keep blazing for with my career? Can I do both?
How can I make that happen? That kind of leaning
sort of stuff. And it was kind of funny, not funny,
but a little chuckle worthy when I read an anecdote
(35:52):
from one of these single dads talking about how frustrating
it is for him when he has to leave work
to take care of his kids. Sometimes it gets to
stinky from his co workers because they think, oh, well,
shouldn't mom be doing that? And it's simply though, the
same kinds of issues that working moms have been dealing
with since moms began working. Right. Yeah, there was a
(36:14):
two thousand eight story that CNN Money did and they
talked to this guy named Dave King who got custody
of his kids, four of them, and had to leave
the job that basically had him on a direct career
path to earning five thousand a year. But was it podcasting, Yeah, podcasting, um,
(36:34):
And he you know, he's like, I love my kids
more than anything. I'm you know, I want to make
them happy. But he said, I have to fight my
own anger and frustration when I think about the opportunities
I had that were lost because they were palpable. He
saw it right there in his future and then he
had to move and give it up to like have
custody of his kids. And all I could think was think,
(36:55):
think of all the women. Yeah, that's the only bone
that I have to pick with one of two bones.
We'll get to the second bone and a second This
bone that I have to pick with these kinds of
stories is that it's this novel idea of making some
kind of financial sacrifice for having kids. It's as though
this decision has never had to been made by like, oh,
(37:18):
I don't know, like fifty one of the population. But
also though one note on him, it wasn't just the
issue of taking a job that you know, didn't pay
him half a million dollar in podcast for royalties, but
that the divorce and custody battle that ensued also costs
around a quarter of a million dollars. Like we said earlier,
(37:41):
that you know, the it's not always a simple easy
kick walk to working out these kinds of custody issues
and becoming a single dad. It can also cost a
pretty penny on top of you know, having to like
clothe and feed them and all that. And then you
look at the stats that when two parents divorced and
the dad gets custody, it's not nearly as common for
(38:03):
the the ex wife to have to pay any sort
of child support to the dad, whereas you know, it's
very typical for the dad to have to pay for
for the mom yeah, I mean, there's definitely still a
lot of imbalance in the legal system in terms of
how that works out. Um, there's also some imbalance too.
It seems like when it comes to dating and remarriage
(38:26):
after becoming a single dad. It seems like from our
single Mom's episode, a lot of women who are single
moms remains single. I mean, probably half the reason why
is because they don't even have time to date. But
it seems like single dad's and I don't want to
say have an easier time of it, but are likelier
to seek it out. Yeah, well that goes back to
(38:49):
the whole I feel like we've talked about this in
different ways on the podcast, but you know, even when
you're talking about marriage or whatever, that men are much
more uncomfortable with being on their own, whereas a woman,
you know, if she if her husband dies, for instance,
like she's more likely to turn to her support up
of friends and be okay, and so she's maybe not
(39:10):
as eager to get back out there and get another partner,
whereas a man who is widowed is more likely to
go out in search of a partner rather than friends.
Or to put it another way, armand Broad who's The
author of the Single Father, A Dad's Guy to Parenting
without a Partner says that single fathers have a tendency,
more more so than single moms to feel incomplete without
a partner in the house, so they risk rushing into
(39:32):
a new relationship that may not be right. Well, and
one interesting survey finding related to that is that when
single dads do date, they seem to prefer dating women
who also have children because there's that assumption that, well,
they're going to be a little more understanding of their
fatherly commitments that they might have to make, and also
(39:54):
probably gets over the hurdle of telling a woman you're
on a date with it, Oh, by the way, I
have kids. Probably makes that a little bit easier if
she can also respond or he can respond, oh, yeah,
I also have children. Because that is especially now that
we are you know, of this age that we are at, Caroline,
it's you know, if we were both like out in
(40:14):
the dating pool, it would not be a wild notion
for us to end up on a date with someone
who is divorced and or has children, right, yeah, And
there were there were some advice columns out there about
how do you deal with that? How do you either
how do you as a woman data single dad or
how do you as a single dad date people out there? Um,
(40:36):
because a lot of times there was one column I
read where the woman was just like, you know, I
couldn't handle it because there was a part of me
that realized that his kid was always going to be
his number one priority. And so that is something that
also has to be considered well. And speaking of single
dads and dating, and I mentioned Louis c K earlier
(40:56):
in the podcast. I mean, he has an entire show
pretty much about dating as a single dad, and it's
not just about dating, But he came to mind with
all of this research, not just because um, he's hilarious
and I'm a huge Louisy K fan and he is
a single dad of two adorable daughters, but he jumped
(41:18):
out in my mind in terms of you know, we
talked a lot about the perception of single dads and
reading these trend pieces on single dads, and particularly single
dads by choice, they are treated so much differently in
a lot of ways than single moms are. Because for
someone like Louis c K, like we love him because
he is hilarious and is very insightful, etcetera, etcetera. But
(41:41):
I think we also love him too because we particut.
And I'm just saying like, we like, culturally really gravitate
to this idea of, you know, the sacrificial single dad,
who is you know, doing it on his own, Whereas
it seems like when we talk about single moms. And
maybe it's just because as there's such an awful historical
(42:01):
legacy of single moms being thrown under the bus, but
I feel like even today, single moms get a bit
of a short end of the stick. Right. In one
of the New York Times pieces we read, the main
picture with the story is of a man in a
nice suit in his office with a playpen next to him,
and there's choice on his desk, and he is awesome.
(42:23):
That's great, He's so great. But think about the side
eye that a woman in the same position would get.
A woman coming to work and having a playpin there
with toys and a baby, like obviously she's not dedicated
to her job or whatever, Whereas it seems like that
the social perception is that a man who has a
playpen in his office is so dedicated. Yeah, and there's
(42:46):
also that whole selfishness, perception of single moms by choice,
where they're often painted as you know, just like I
don't know, being almost like narcissists for their decisions, or
as we think it's like really cool. And not to
say that invested single dads aren't laudable and really cool.
(43:07):
I'm just saying I wish that we could a cultural
conversation about single moms could be elevated in a similar
way to single dads, because yes, we need to encourage
men to be active and involved fathers. Study after studies
shows that that makes such a huge positive difference in
kids lives. But I just wonder why we tend to
(43:30):
hold more esteem it seems for single dads and single moms. Well,
I think that goes back to just cultural expectations. I
wonder if it also goes back to Cramer Versus Cramer,
the nineteen seventy three drama starring Dustin Hoffman about how
he you know, en Meryl Streep. His wife ends up leaving,
(43:51):
he has the kid alone. It's his whole journey of
him learning how to be a father. And I mean
it's really good and it's very poignant and all of that,
but Meryl Streep is painted as this awful, selfish, deadbeat mom,
and in a way she kind of is because she
abandons her family. Yes, but I feel like we still
have that creamer versus creamer, like Dustin Hoffman like running
(44:13):
through the rainy streets of New York to get his
son kind of ideal of the single dad, which again
it's not bad, but it's like, why are they heroes
and single moms aren't heroines? Yeah, I mean, I think
you nailed it on the head talking about just like
the cultural legacy, the cultural nastiness with which women were
(44:36):
single moms have always been treated and its single dads
are so by comparison, rare. But with this trend, with
this rise in single fathers, I really think we're going
to see a shift. I mean, if we're already seeing
it with people getting mad about diaper advertisements, I think
that there is some real movement here. Not that I
(44:57):
want to talk about movement and diapers in the same sentence,
but it I mean, I think that as things become
more normal like this, it's going to be less like
every single single dad as a hero and every single
single mom is you know, somebody to be pitied. I
think there. I think we're going to see over the
next maybe I'll be dead, but over the course of
several generations, we're going to see like more acceptance of
(45:20):
just people being people. Yeah. I mean again, the most
striking difference between researching for this episode and researching for
the single Mom's episode is that the the legacy of
the unward mother goes so far back in time, and
for this one we had to do some digging and
(45:40):
right on back too. I mean, there's some stuff before that,
but it's mostly like just the panic of even the
idea of men raising kids. So happy fathers say, though,
happy elated Father's Day to all the single and not
single dad's out there. Um, we're very much pro single fathers,
(46:00):
and yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing how this trend
continues to develop. But now single dads and folks who
are being raised or have been raised by single dads,
we especially want to hear from you on this topic.
Mom Stuff at how stuff works dot com is our
new email address, or you can also tweet us at
mom Stuff podcast or send us a message over on Facebook.
(46:24):
And we've got a couple of messages to share with
you right now. So I've got to let her hear
from Brenda. In response to our episode The Widowhood Effect,
she writes, in two thousand and eight, I lost my
husband Kevin to a rare cancer. I was twenty four
and he was thirty six. It was devastating and I
(46:44):
felt completely alone and abandoned. We had been married only
a year and a half and had gone through so
much together, a long distance relationship, with me in Pennsylvania
and him in Manitoba, US immigration, financial woes, and just
when we were getting on our feet, the cancer hit.
It was all so very fast, and I felt like
an outcast. I knew no young widows. They were all
(47:06):
my grandmother's age. This past March, I released my first
book titled EBB from the Shoreline, Finding Cancer and Courage,
about our love and cancer story. I want others impacted
by cancer and caregivers to find hope in these big
struggles of life. There's also one organization in particular that
has helped me immensely in my loss, Soaring Spirits International,
(47:27):
which host Camp Widow. I've spoken at several of their
camps on blogging through grief, traveling alone, and also offer
writing intensive connecting with widows in person at their camps
has been crucial in my healing process, so we just
wanted to share that information for any widows that might
be listening. Again. That's called Soaring Spirits International, which hosts
(47:50):
Camp Widow. And thanks so much for writing Brenda. Well,
I have a letter here from Emily that's actually responding
to a couple of different episodes we did. She said
that I had to take a moment from drawing backgrounds
for animation to send this email. It seems crazy how
relevant some of your recent podcasts have been in my life.
I used to work as a game tester for Disney Interactive.
(48:11):
While I was there, the girls on the floor were
very small in numbers, but all of the higher up
jobs were held by strong, amazing women. I had the
pleasure of meeting one of Disney Animations legends, Floyd Norman.
He was one of the first black artists to work
in Disney. He knew Walt Disney personally, and when I
heard stories from him and honestly made me rethink Walt
Disney being racist or sexist. I feel nerd ashamed for
(48:33):
not being aware of any of the other women at
Disney uname besides Mary Blair I work at a small
animation studio right now and do comic book work on
the side. I'm not a member of the union, so
that could account for low numbers. I've never really taken
my gender into consideration. I just do what I love.
When it comes to the job of animation. It seems
most of the time jobs get called animation when they're
actually more like background art or storyboarding. Also, when I
(48:56):
was at Cartoon Network, my producer was a woman and
went on to basically run the studio that makes Robot Chicken,
So there's a plus for women in animation. With my
comic work, personally, I've never experienced sexism. In fact, I've
gotten nothing but respect. I'm sure that's not always the case.
For one thing, I never dressed up in cosplay personally,
I see it as unprofessional for an artist to do so.
(49:16):
I thought I might recommend a few very feminist friendly comics.
To name a few off the top of my head,
Strangers in Paradise by Terry Moore, Saga by Brian Cavon,
pretty much Anything by Greg Ricca, and Well Sandman by
Neil Game, and of course, so thank you so much, Emily.
It's incredible how much your life is falling into line
with our podcast. Yes, it sounds like we are psychically
(49:40):
podcastically connected and to get podcastically connected with us so
you couldn't find all of our social media links, all
of our blog posts, videos, and all five hundred plus
podcast episodes over at stuff Mom Never Told You dot com.
(50:00):
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
how stuff Works dot com
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from house Supports
dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Caroline
and I'm Kristin. And in celebration of Father's Day, we
are connecting this episode with the episode we did for
Mother's Day on single moms. And so today we want
(00:25):
to talk to you about single dads because we can't
leave out that very important portion of the population. So
we want to celebrate dads. And today we're looking at
those of you who are going it alone. Yeah, and
it's a good time to be talking about single dads,
not just because Father's Day was yesterday, but because single
(00:46):
dads are on the rise and they're making a lot
of headlines. For instance, in July two, the Pure Search
Center reported that a record eight percent of households with
minor children in the US are now headed by a
single father, which is up from just over one percent
in nineteen sixty. Yeah, and Pew talks about how that's
(01:08):
a ninefold increase since nineteen sixty, from less than three
hundred thousand to more than two point six million in
twenty eleven, and for a comparison, the number of single
mother households increased more than just fourfold during that time period,
up to eight point six million in twenty eleven from
one point nine million in nineteen sixty. And single dads
(01:30):
have also increased as a percentage of all single parents.
In nineteen sixty, about fourteen percent of single parent households
were headed by dads. Today, that's almost one quarter percent,
and then for another percent in two thousand eleven, and
single dad's made up eighteen point three percent of custodial parents,
which is when a person has full time solo custody
(01:54):
of the kids. And this isn't just a demographic change
happening in the US. Canadian neighbors as well are also
seeing the rise of single dads. According to the two
thousand eleven Canadian Census, there was an eight percent jump
in the number of single parent homes and of those,
you have a sixteen point two percent increase in single
(02:17):
dad led households in two thousand eleven, which outpaced the
former increase of fourteen from two thousand one to two
thousand six. So that is a lot of percents to
say that we have been on a steady climb in
the number of single dad led households. Yeah, and you
know if you listen to our single mom episode, which
(02:38):
I know you did. I hope so. But there are
a lot of factors going into the rise and single
dads that also accompany the rise in single moms. For instance,
in general, there's just been an increase in the share
of non marital births in general. And so that's why
it's important when we mentioned the custodial parents earlier, because
there are a lot of different types. As will explain
(03:00):
further in a minute, there are a lot of different
types of single parents. It's not just people who have
solo custody. There's also people who are divorced or widowed, etcetera, etcetera. Yeah,
and and to get an idea of how that share
of the non marital births as they're called so clinically
has increased. Um according to the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention, forty point seven percent of all US births
(03:24):
now in the United States are two unmarried women. But again,
even though those women are unmarried, that doesn't necessarily mean
they don't have a partner or you know, like we said,
there are many different types of single parents, right, and
speaking of divorce, the rates have leveled off, but they're
still higher than they were in the nineteen sixties and seventies,
(03:47):
which means more single parents. And there's also issues around
the legal system. Some experts suggest that changes in the
legal system and laws in various states have led to
more opportunities for fathers to gain at least partial custody
of children in the event of a breakup. A lot
of that has to do with the way that we
(04:07):
perceive fathers in general, and the way we perceive single
fathers in particular, but also the way that they see themselves. Right,
the public perception of single fatherhood and simply the role
of a dad in a family and and his role
with child rearing has evolved so much, particularly in the
past forty or fifty years, because you know, we've seen
(04:31):
these household and gender roles for men shifting since the
nineteen sixties, away from that idea that that you know,
dad's just go to work and they bring home the
bacon and that's kind of it, whereas mom takes care
of the kids and so on. For instance, mad Men.
Not to completely fictionalize this conversation, but you know, Don
Draper gets a divorce from Betty spoiler alert, and the
(04:54):
kids live with Betty and then they come every now
and then to visit him. Because back then it was
more of the e idea that, you know, a full
time single dad. That would be kind of nutty. Yeah,
that would be nutty. But now now we're not so
opposed to the idea. The the idea that guys might
be single dads and or get soul custody in the
event of a divorce doesn't seem totally alien and it's
(05:17):
it's funny though, to go back and look at just
the histrionics that surrounded men being the caregivers for children. Uh.
The Atlantic had a great post looking at postcards that
were going around targeting men fathers in particular during the
suffrage movement. There was no gray area. It was like
a zero sum game where either the man was at
(05:39):
home and he was making the money and he was
in control and the wife was home taking care of
the kids, or, as they feared would happen if women
gain the vote, the women would put on pants and
march right out of the home and start working and
the men would be left to attend to the children. Yeah.
One of the tropes from that time was something called
the suffragette Madonna, and it's this hilarious image of this
(06:03):
befuddled guy, this dad looking character, holding a baby and
he's you know, he's in like a suit, but he
also has a halo around his head because oh, well,
his wife won the right to vote, so now he's
got to be home taking care of the baby. And
that was at that time such a radical idea in
(06:24):
terms of, you know, the gender roles then that it was,
I mean, it was one of the major platforms arguing
against giving women the vote because well, if you do that,
slippery slope to men having to be involved fathers, Yeah,
and I know who wants who wants that fathers anyway, So,
(06:47):
like we said, now the public is really starting to
acknowledge men as more than just breadwinners. They're also caregivers too.
And the New York Times did a piece on single
dad's by choice. We all, you know, we talked about
single moms by choice in our last episode, but talking
about how these guys nowadays who were becoming dads, their
new dads come from the generations who really believed in feminism,
(07:11):
preached equal rights and civil rights, and so they grew
up believing in gender equality and they talked to David Klow,
who's a psychotherapist who runs men's groups at the Family
Institute at Northwestern University, and he said, there's a new
sense of masculinity that incorporates being a single father, accomplished
and successful in the business world, but also very loving
(07:32):
and caring. Yeah, and if you look at time youth data,
you see that even today, Yes, moms tend to spend
even whether they're working or if they're you know, full
time stay at home moms, no matter what the situation is,
women tend to spend more time caring for the kids.
But fathers are spending more time with their children than
(07:54):
ever before. So, for instance, the Pure Research Center found
that in two thousand eleven, ads were spending seven hours
a week on childcare and ten hours a week on housework,
which is half of what mothers do. But that's still
hugely from nive when dad's did only two and a
half hours a week of childcare and four hours of housework. Yeah,
(08:18):
and I mean people kind of fully expect that now
they expect more from their from their from their dads.
I mean, society does more. From the Pew Research Center,
they found that the public beliefs that a father's greatest
role is to provide values to his children, followed by
emotional support, discipline, and income support, which really isn't that
(08:39):
far off from what the values that they ascribed to mothers,
women needing to do. Yeah, and speaking of madmen, you
can see this kind of shift to in our public
perception of the important role of fathers with their kids,
in how dads are portrayed in advertising. Um, there was
a now somewhat infamous uh Huggies diaper campaign a few
(09:02):
years back that portrayed dad's having to change a diaper
as like the ultimate test of these diapers like amazing
qualities because of a dud can do it, then anybody
can do it. And they ended up having to pull
the campaign because a lot of guys took offense at
that of like, excuse me, involved father, here, I can
(09:23):
change a diaper. You know, this is this is a
new generation we're talking about now, these guys who were
who were scared of changing diapers. Yeah. I feel like
we're definitely in a time period where we're getting more
and more pushback against ads and marketing that just depicts
men as dopey and uninvolved and uninterested and all they
(09:44):
do is make the money and I don't know how
to take out their garbage. Yeah, you actually see ads
now of dad's driving the kids places, or dad's doing
the laundry or doing the dishes. Right, Yes, that it's
not just mom at home doing it while the dad
does other things. Right, And as far as I mean,
as far as perceptions go, they're also very important when
(10:05):
it comes to actual court situations divorce custody, because men
used to assume that there was no way that they
would get custody of their kids in a divorce, so
they were generally just less likely to fight to get it,
whether they were fighting the courts or just the mom.
And this is coming from an article that The Atlantic
did in February talking about this this rise and single dads. Yeah,
(10:29):
this child custody issue is a huge factor. Like we
said in this increasing you know a number of guys
who are fighting for custody for their kids or just
getting custody for their kids because sometimes, as as the
Atlantic author was talking about, it can be easier to
just give someone soul custody, and sometimes the mom doesn't
(10:50):
want to have soul custody of the kids. But it
took a long time for the courts to wrap their
heads around this notion that dads can be equally good
parents to kids as mothers can be, because for a
long time, the knee jerk assumption was, oh, well, mothers
are more fit for raising kids, so custody is going
(11:12):
to go with the mom. Even in cases if you
have say an unwed, unwed couple and they split up,
but they've got you know, she has the kid, and
she meets someone else, they want to get married, and
then he, you know, the new guy, wants to adopt
the kid. The court would be like, Okay, yeah, that's fine,
because the unwed father, you know, he's like just kind
(11:34):
of over there doing his stuff, and like the kid
needs to stay with the mom no matter what. But
then in nine two you have the case Stanley v.
Illinois that really started to you know, started this domino
effect of granting father's more custody rights, because this was
the first time the court considered the custodial rights of
unmarried biological fathers. And it was this case of Joan
(11:59):
and Peter's Fanley, who lived together for eighteen years, they
had three kids together, never got married. Joan died and
the state automatically gave the kids. It made the kids
like wardens of the state because they just assumed while
Peter Stanley, you're, you know, this unwed father, certainly you
(12:19):
can't be, you know, fit to raise children. He ended
up fighting it and it went all the way up
to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court, under the
equal Protection Clause in the fourteenth Amendment, granted him custody
of his kids, basically saying that they should only be
taken away on proof of being unfit or neglectful. And
(12:42):
this was really interpreted as a ruling of gender equality
and was applied in a lot of other different custodial cases.
But even still, I mean, that was ninety two, and
it still took a long time for states to gradually
move away from that automatically siding with the biological mother. So,
(13:05):
for example, the Stanley versus Illinois ruling helped invalidate a
provision in the New York domestic relations law that gave
unwed mothers but not fathers, the right to adopt their kids.
So talk about, you know, an equality issue right there.
So that was definitely a step in the right direction,
because you know, fathers should be able to I think
(13:25):
I have a say in that kind of legal matter. Well,
it doesn't even make sense to me, Like me now
is a thirty year old woman. It doesn't even make
sense to me that you're the father and you're not
the first choice on like being able to adopt kids
or get Yeah, I don't know, it doesn't make any sense.
But really the ball got rolling in the early two
(13:46):
thousand's when many states began adopting legislation providing for joint
physical custody and which is different than just joint legal custody.
These policies were supposed to encourage basically both parents to
spend equal time with the kid, but interestingly, it seemed
to spark a rise in single dads and and the
(14:06):
perfect example that they give is from a study in
the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies. In it looked at
the state of Oregon, which became one of the first
states to formally enact joint parenting legislation. Before this happened,
Oregon's custody law had favored joint legal custody, so the
(14:27):
parents both have a say and decisions made about the child,
but not joint physical custody. After the new law, Oregon
courts defaulted to joint parenting, encouraging the child to spend
half her time with dad and half with mom. But
in Oregon, after this law, it ended up swaying way
(14:47):
more towards dad's Why what's going on? Because the changing
laws are actually empowering dads to ask for more. It's
not that like Oregon puts this law and effect and
all of a sudden, all these deadbeat mom are like,
finally I'm free. It's just that dad's perceptions of themselves,
of the way things should be, of the way things
(15:09):
can be, are starting to change. And so previously, you know,
decades and decades before, dad's just assumed like, Okay, well
I'm just gonna see him on the weekends, or I'll
see him every other weekend or whatever, when really they're
now starting to think, and they're backed by the courts
and starting to think, oh, I can take more responsibility.
I want to take more responsibility, and I'm going to
(15:30):
ask for it. Yeah, And not to say that it's
always illegal and cheap cake walk to get custody rights.
If you are, you know, a father, and I'm sure
that we'll hear from some dads out there who have
or maybe are going through these kinds of custody issues,
because there are still plenty of courts that do tend
(15:51):
to side more with the mom. But there's definitely been
so much progress since that Stanley v. Illinois. Um just vision,
I mean, and even the fact Caroline that, in contrast
to our episode on Single Moms where we trace the
history back centuries, I mean, the history at least legally
speaking in the US kind of just starts in the seventies.
(16:15):
I mean, that speaks to how significant of a change
this is. Yeah, that goes beyond assuming, that goes beyond
assuming that like, oh, women are the better parents and
mothers and kids should be with that that's the belief system.
That's just like you believe that that's the way things are.
And so I it makes sense then in that context
that it took so long to change. But now, like
(16:36):
I said, being I can't imagine. Yeah, well, it's like
you're saying, that reminds me of one of the sources
we were reading talking about how our ideas of motherhood
and fatherhood in a lot of ways sort of like
gender is very much a construct, Like influenced by culture
and time and media, etcetera. So the good thing is
(16:59):
I feel like there are constructed our fatherhood construct has
has only developed in a more positive way. And speaking
again of single dads in particular, who who are these guys, Caroline,
who are these fellas? Yes, so that report that Pew
released looking at the rise and single fathers, um it
(17:21):
is worth specifying who they were looking at. So fathers
in that Pew report are fifteen years or older. They
are the head of their household. They are living with
their own minor children, whether those children are biological stepchildren
or adopted. Pew excluded fathers who are living in a
household headed by someone else, and fathers whose children are
not living with them, And they broke down why these
(17:45):
guys are single fathers. About half are separated, divorced, widowed,
or never married and are living without a cohabitating partner. However,
some forty one are living with a non marital partner.
So again there's that whole like murky area where Okay,
you're technically legally a single dad, but you might have
somebody living with you. Only seven percent are married still
(18:09):
but living apart from their spouse with custody of the kids.
And when we compare father's heading household solo versus fathers
in two parent households, we do see similar patterns as
we talked about in the single Moms episode, because single
dads do tend to be younger, a little bit less educated,
less financially well off, and less likely to be white,
(18:31):
and also less likely to be in full time jobs.
So this also brings up, then you know, this issue
of parental resources, and we'll get into some more comparisons
in a minute. We definitely want to look at single
moms versus single dads. There are a lot of statistics
out there that we want to throw at you, but
we'll get right into that after a quick break. So
(18:57):
we just talked about how single fathers and single moms
share some demographic similarities, but there are also some differences
worth noting aside from the fact that single fathers tend
to be men, single mothers tend to be women. Beyond that,
single fathers are more likely than single mothers to be
(19:18):
living with a cohabitating partner, far likelier actually forty versus sixtent,
but those cohabitating guys tend to be younger. Single dads
who are over forty typically live with just the kids
Allah Louis c K who yes, we will talk about
a little bit more later in the podcast. And also
(19:39):
compared to single moms, single dads are more likely to
be white and are more likely to own their own home.
Two thirds of single dads own their own home, while
two thirds of single moms rent and generally, single dads
are older than single moms. Of them are under forty
compared to sixty of single moms, whereas forty seven percent
(20:00):
of them are over forty compared to thirty eight percent
of single moms. So there are some interesting demographic breakdowns.
I mean, obviously you know, single dad, same as single
mom moms are not a monolithic group, but there are
some some standout differences, particularly when it comes to this
(20:21):
income issue. Because single fathers, even though they tend to
have less money, make less money, tend to uh they're
less likely to be in a full time job than
married fathers, but compared to single mothers, they tend to
have higher incomes and are far less likely to be
living at or below the poverty line versus forty percent
(20:44):
of single moms living below the poverty line, which again
brings up another contrast to our single moms issue, where
we spent a lot of time talking about government resources
and kind of bridging the gap for single moms you
need more assistance, whereas Caroline, I've saw very little of
the same kind of information targeted to dad's Yeah, exactly, Um.
(21:06):
And when you look at how much money these guys
are bringing home every year, um, the average amount for
a single dad household of three is a lot less
than that of a married fathers. So the single dads
tend to bring home about forty dollars a year, whereas
married fathers tend to bring home about seventy thousand on average.
But even though that's a lot lower than married fathers,
(21:28):
it's more than single moms who bring home and a
median adjusted annual income for that three person household of
only twenty six dollars. So how do these demographic differences
dad v Mom? How does all this shake out for
the kids? Are their differences between single dad and single
mom parenting? Um? A lot of the studies that we
(21:51):
looked at found that really, when all the data shakes out,
there's not a huge difference because when it comes to parenting,
as is the same case if you talk about LGBT
parenting and how sexual orientation influences child outcomes, it's not
(22:12):
so much gender sexual orientation those kinds of factors that
influence child outcomes, but rather this issue of resources. Right, Yeah,
And so if you look at school, for instance, there
have been a lot of studies on how kids of
single parents fair at school, and a lot of studies
have mainly shown that it's not the dad versus mom,
(22:33):
man versus woman factor. It's more the socioeconomic factors and
kind of having just one parents. So like when I
was growing up, you know, I had mom there who
was cooking dinner and making sure I got dressed. I
had dad to help me with my math homework. You know,
there was always one parent available to help drive me
somewhere while the other took care of I don't know,
(22:53):
bills or work or whatever they had to do. Whether
you're a man or a woman, if you're a single parent,
I think, is any single are it could attest? Where's
the other person to go help you do things? Like
they talked to one single dad I think in the
New York Times, who said, you know, as a single parent,
if you if it's ten o'clock at night and you're
five year olds in bed and you realize you don't
have any milk for the next day. Who's going to
(23:15):
go out and get the milk? But anyway, I digress,
So dogs should be better trained. Cats cat get that milk.
Get a cat to go out and get it, Yes,
and they're perfect. Um. So there was a study in
the Journal of Family Issues from that looked at data
from the National Longitudinal Study, and so I realized that
(23:38):
that's very dated, but there's still trends that are very relevant.
They found that children from single father and single mother
families perform about the same at school, but both are
outperformed by children from two parent families. So when you
look more closely at dad versus mom, they said, the
lack of economic resources explains the school difficulties of kids
(23:58):
from single mother families. And yes, that's from a long
time ago, but it still makes sense in considering single
moms makes so much less than single dads. And they
found also that a lack of interpersonal parental resources provides
a more accurate description for why children from single father
families do poorly in school. But maybe that's changing as
(24:19):
our views of single dads now and their views of
themselves change. Yeah, And sort of along these same lines,
there was a more recent study that came out in
two thousand ten in the Journal of Marriage and Family
which found that while there might be some small differences
in parenting behavior behaviors of single mothers and single fathers,
(24:40):
these differences are often sensitive to demographic disparities and don't
really translate to academic deficits for children in either family type.
So it's not like, oh, well, if Susie is gonna
go live with dad, then her grades are gonna plummet,
so Susie should live with with mom instead. Like, as
long as Susie's mom and dad are both is engaged
(25:00):
as they can be, she will do all right. Yeah,
the kids will be all right. The kids and the
kids are all right. Um. But there are benefits of
dealing with dads, some psychologists and sociologist would argue, and
one of those factors is play. W Brad Wilcox, who's
a sociologist at u v A and studies marriage and families,
(25:21):
said that dads are actually more likely to rough house
play than moms, which is a style of play that
helps teach kids to control their bodies and their emotions.
And I'm thinking, I'm like, my dad never rough house
with me. But then again, I don't know. He was
forty when they had me, so maybe he was done
with the rough housing. Yeah. I was the last after
(25:42):
a lot of kids, So I remember some rough house
play when I was small, but I think by the
time I got like a little bit older, he was
probably worn out. No Dad, there was Dad was constantly
reinforcing how much is back hurt? So there was no
there were no more piggyback rides. But um, as far
as play exploration and all that stuff goes, fathers are
also more likely to encourage their kids to embrace risk,
(26:04):
both on the playground and in life. This influences, Wilcox says,
the ambitions of children over the long run. Yeah, there
have been so many studies in recent years really digging
into the role of fatherhood and how it, you know,
interacts with child outcomes, because I think for so long
people have just been focusing on moms and they found
(26:26):
all of these these findings that aren't terribly surprising, such
as you know, the thing about the rough house play,
which makes sense because you know, maybe guys are a
little more just rough house in their play. I know
that my brothers were more rough house and my sisters were.
And then if you look at you know, dads who
believe in gender equality, no big surprise that their daughters
(26:47):
tend to have higher career ambitions compared to dads who
have more sexist beliefs. And in fact, though this is important,
dad's gender beliefs were more influential on their daughters than
their mom's beliefs. I'm that I think that's incredibly important,
and I think it's interesting because I mean, you know,
the whole the whole thing about oh we marry our
(27:08):
dads or we look for men who are like our dad's. Well,
if your dad is more likely to support gender equality,
believe in feminism and kind of instill those values in you,
that says a lot. And that kind of paternal investment
in terms of rough house play or talking about gender
equality or disciplining whatever it might be. That involvement also
(27:30):
translates to better outcomes for kids in school as well.
We just touched on school, but the National Center for
Education Statistics has also found that father's involvement in school
is associated with a higher likelihood of students getting mostly a's.
And that's true not just for two parent families, but
also in dad only households. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's
(27:54):
really important to point out that it's in both types
of families and the circumstance that it is that fatherly involvement.
Knowing that your dad is invested, that you're more likely
to get all a's. Um. There's also the involvement in school.
Students living in father only families are the most likely
of all students to have highly involved fathers. Forty of
(28:15):
such students have fathers who are highly involved in their schools.
So whether that's volunteering, being on the p t A,
you know, coaching the soccer team, Well, that makes sense
because they have they don't have a room BA who
can go to you know, the PTA meetings, and single
dads are actually likelier than step dads, biological fathers with
(28:35):
a stepmother in the home and two parent households the
to biological parent households to attend parent teacher conferences, school meetings,
school events, and volunteer. So single dads in a lot
of ways are knocking it out of the park. Yeah.
I mean it makes sense because I just wonder if
you know we're falling back on those social norms and expectations,
(28:56):
gender expectations when in two parent households, the the mom
sees his control of the PTA responsibilities, whereas the dad's like,
I'll just let you do that. Yeah, yeah, I think
it's so easy. And I'm now staring off into anecdote
for a moment um. It's kind of easy in a
heterosexual couple to just fall back on sort of the
(29:20):
traditional gender roles that might have been modeled for us,
because in my family, mom, you know, my mom cooked
dinner and did the dishes, and my dad worked in
mode the lawn, and I now see in the patterns
of my own life, I just need your kind of well,
I'll go to the grocery store, you stay home and
change the light bulbs. Did this happen like two days ago, maybe, Caroline,
(29:43):
it just happened. Well, then, I mean, it's beyond anecdote.
We we talked about this in our Egalitarian Household episode,
looking at straight couples versus gay couples, or same sex
versus opposite sex couples, and how even the most like
super feminist women right women's rights progressive couples once they
get married, it's like, oh, I'm the man, you're the woman. Well,
(30:04):
and especially to when it comes to that child rearing.
When we decided the statistic a few minutes ago about
how even though dads are doing more than ever before,
moms are still doing twice as much. Um. But there
are some single dads who are doing it for themselves
and by their own choice. We talked about single moms
(30:26):
by choice in our Single Mom's episode. These are women
who are sort of going out of their way because
they want to be moms that they don't want to
have the traditional they don't want to find somebody, you know,
and have to go through all of that. They're just like, oh,
well I will adopt, I will get you know, in vitro,
I will have a baby because I just want to
(30:46):
be a mom. And there are more and more guys
who are doing this. Example, Ricky Martin of Living Levita
Loca Fame adopted twins not too long ago and he
intends to raise them as a single Yeah, he's a
single dad by choice, living Levita Loca. He has Living
Levita dad. Yeah. The different kind of Loca these days, right, Um. Yeah,
(31:10):
the new York Times, NPR, ABC News, they all looked
into this whole rise of single father thing, but also
the rise of single fathers by choice, and the New
York Times reported that surrogacy agencies, adoption agencies, and father
support groups are all reporting that they're seeing more single
fathers by choice. A lot of these guys happened to
(31:32):
be gay, but the number of straight guys looking to
go it alone are on the increase. To Yeah, there
was a statistic in that New York Times article that
jumped out to me. Uh. They cited two thousand eight
data from the National Center for Health Statistics which found
that men age eighteen to forty four are twice as
likely as women of the same age group to have
(31:52):
adopted a child. Now, that's partially explained by men being
likelier to adopt step children, but the report also found
that seventy three thousand never married men had also adopted
a child, and that group includes those who are single
fathers by choice. Right, And you know, this whole time,
we've been talking a lot about changes in society, changes
(32:15):
in perception of what's possible. And Steve Majors, who's the
communications director for the Same Sex advocacy group Family Equality
Counsel says it's the same thing for gayman. He says
that a lot of young gay men once believed that
living in openly gay life meant not having children, that
you were either straight, or that you were closeted and
(32:36):
then you had a family, or that you were just
gay and single with no kids. But now, as you said,
we're seeing this rise in different technology and whether that's IVF,
whether they're adopting, but we're seeing alongside the rise of
same sex marriage, we're also seeing a rise in gay
men pioneering the use of reproductive technology to have kids.
(32:56):
And we're also seeing a legal evolution as well, in
addition into what we were talking about in terms of
men being able to get child custody, but also legal
doors being opened for gay men to adopt children, because
there are still some states that have bands against that
um but those dominoes are also starting to fall right
(33:19):
and there's people out there doing their part to combat
those misconceptions. Brian Testier started up four one one four Dad,
a hotline for prospective single fathers, and Testier was talking
about how both gay and straight guys reach out to
him a lot about the topic, and many believe that
they can't adopt on their own. Many think that it's
not even possible that legally you have to have some
(33:40):
type of partner going into it with you. Yeah. And
it was interesting when ABC News was reporting on this,
they talked to some agency professionals who said that if
a child has been in say an abusive situation with
his or her biological mother, or has special needs, that
a single dad in part killer can be a really
(34:01):
stabilizing factor. I mean, I think we a lot of
times we hear about stories about how difficult it is
for men to adopt, particularly now actually straight men, because
they kind of get like a side, I like, well,
why would you want to adopt a child on your own?
But they can actually be attractive candidates for you know,
for kids, right, And they pointed out another advantage of
(34:24):
single adoptive dads, and that is that many adopt older boys,
which is a group that's historically been difficult to place
in homes for adoption. And speaking of adoption of having
kids in the same way as there are trade offs
any time you become a parent, no matter what your
family structure looks like. Same goes for single dads right
(34:48):
when you're looking at the financial aspects. For instance, um,
women tend to struggle after a divorce with making ends meet.
That's that's their main financial struggle. But for men for
a divorce who gained custody of the kids, it's their
careers that can end up kind of a mess if
you look at it from one perspective or simply different.
(35:09):
I mean, it makes sense that you've got to sacrifice something.
And with this change in society that we're seeing out
of more men becoming single, dads were also and they're
also going to have to get used to the fact
that maybe your career path has to change. A lot
of women have changed their career paths, you know from
otherhood before. Yeah, talking about the quote unquote mommy off
(35:29):
ramp that many women start to hit around our age,
Caroline of that question of like, well, do I want
to have a kid? Do I want to have you know,
keep blazing for with my career? Can I do both?
How can I make that happen? That kind of leaning
sort of stuff. And it was kind of funny, not funny,
but a little chuckle worthy when I read an anecdote
(35:52):
from one of these single dads talking about how frustrating
it is for him when he has to leave work
to take care of his kids. Sometimes it gets to
stinky from his co workers because they think, oh, well,
shouldn't mom be doing that? And it's simply though, the
same kinds of issues that working moms have been dealing
with since moms began working. Right. Yeah, there was a
(36:14):
two thousand eight story that CNN Money did and they
talked to this guy named Dave King who got custody
of his kids, four of them, and had to leave
the job that basically had him on a direct career
path to earning five thousand a year. But was it podcasting, Yeah, podcasting, um,
(36:34):
And he you know, he's like, I love my kids
more than anything. I'm you know, I want to make
them happy. But he said, I have to fight my
own anger and frustration when I think about the opportunities
I had that were lost because they were palpable. He
saw it right there in his future and then he
had to move and give it up to like have
custody of his kids. And all I could think was think,
(36:55):
think of all the women. Yeah, that's the only bone
that I have to pick with one of two bones.
We'll get to the second bone and a second This
bone that I have to pick with these kinds of
stories is that it's this novel idea of making some
kind of financial sacrifice for having kids. It's as though
this decision has never had to been made by like, oh,
(37:18):
I don't know, like fifty one of the population. But
also though one note on him, it wasn't just the
issue of taking a job that you know, didn't pay
him half a million dollar in podcast for royalties, but
that the divorce and custody battle that ensued also costs
around a quarter of a million dollars. Like we said earlier,
(37:41):
that you know, the it's not always a simple easy
kick walk to working out these kinds of custody issues
and becoming a single dad. It can also cost a
pretty penny on top of you know, having to like
clothe and feed them and all that. And then you
look at the stats that when two parents divorced and
the dad gets custody, it's not nearly as common for
(38:03):
the the ex wife to have to pay any sort
of child support to the dad, whereas you know, it's
very typical for the dad to have to pay for
for the mom yeah, I mean, there's definitely still a
lot of imbalance in the legal system in terms of
how that works out. Um, there's also some imbalance too.
It seems like when it comes to dating and remarriage
(38:26):
after becoming a single dad. It seems like from our
single Mom's episode, a lot of women who are single
moms remains single. I mean, probably half the reason why
is because they don't even have time to date. But
it seems like single dad's and I don't want to
say have an easier time of it, but are likelier
to seek it out. Yeah, well that goes back to
(38:49):
the whole I feel like we've talked about this in
different ways on the podcast, but you know, even when
you're talking about marriage or whatever, that men are much
more uncomfortable with being on their own, whereas a woman,
you know, if she if her husband dies, for instance,
like she's more likely to turn to her support up
of friends and be okay, and so she's maybe not
(39:10):
as eager to get back out there and get another partner,
whereas a man who is widowed is more likely to
go out in search of a partner rather than friends.
Or to put it another way, armand Broad who's The
author of the Single Father, A Dad's Guy to Parenting
without a Partner says that single fathers have a tendency,
more more so than single moms to feel incomplete without
a partner in the house, so they risk rushing into
(39:32):
a new relationship that may not be right. Well, and
one interesting survey finding related to that is that when
single dads do date, they seem to prefer dating women
who also have children because there's that assumption that, well,
they're going to be a little more understanding of their
fatherly commitments that they might have to make, and also
(39:54):
probably gets over the hurdle of telling a woman you're
on a date with it, Oh, by the way, I
have kids. Probably makes that a little bit easier if
she can also respond or he can respond, oh, yeah,
I also have children. Because that is especially now that
we are you know, of this age that we are at, Caroline,
it's you know, if we were both like out in
(40:14):
the dating pool, it would not be a wild notion
for us to end up on a date with someone
who is divorced and or has children, right, yeah, And
there were there were some advice columns out there about
how do you deal with that? How do you either
how do you as a woman data single dad or
how do you as a single dad date people out there? Um,
(40:36):
because a lot of times there was one column I
read where the woman was just like, you know, I
couldn't handle it because there was a part of me
that realized that his kid was always going to be
his number one priority. And so that is something that
also has to be considered well. And speaking of single
dads and dating, and I mentioned Louis c K earlier
(40:56):
in the podcast. I mean, he has an entire show
pretty much about dating as a single dad, and it's
not just about dating, But he came to mind with
all of this research, not just because um, he's hilarious
and I'm a huge Louisy K fan and he is
a single dad of two adorable daughters, but he jumped
(41:18):
out in my mind in terms of you know, we
talked a lot about the perception of single dads and
reading these trend pieces on single dads, and particularly single
dads by choice, they are treated so much differently in
a lot of ways than single moms are. Because for
someone like Louis c K, like we love him because
he is hilarious and is very insightful, etcetera, etcetera. But
(41:41):
I think we also love him too because we particut.
And I'm just saying like, we like, culturally really gravitate
to this idea of, you know, the sacrificial single dad,
who is you know, doing it on his own, Whereas
it seems like when we talk about single moms. And
maybe it's just because as there's such an awful historical
(42:01):
legacy of single moms being thrown under the bus, but
I feel like even today, single moms get a bit
of a short end of the stick. Right. In one
of the New York Times pieces we read, the main
picture with the story is of a man in a
nice suit in his office with a playpen next to him,
and there's choice on his desk, and he is awesome.
(42:23):
That's great, He's so great. But think about the side
eye that a woman in the same position would get.
A woman coming to work and having a playpin there
with toys and a baby, like obviously she's not dedicated
to her job or whatever, Whereas it seems like that
the social perception is that a man who has a
playpen in his office is so dedicated. Yeah, and there's
(42:46):
also that whole selfishness, perception of single moms by choice,
where they're often painted as you know, just like I
don't know, being almost like narcissists for their decisions, or
as we think it's like really cool. And not to
say that invested single dads aren't laudable and really cool.
(43:07):
I'm just saying I wish that we could a cultural
conversation about single moms could be elevated in a similar
way to single dads, because yes, we need to encourage
men to be active and involved fathers. Study after studies
shows that that makes such a huge positive difference in
kids lives. But I just wonder why we tend to
(43:30):
hold more esteem it seems for single dads and single moms. Well,
I think that goes back to just cultural expectations. I
wonder if it also goes back to Cramer Versus Cramer,
the nineteen seventy three drama starring Dustin Hoffman about how
he you know, en Meryl Streep. His wife ends up leaving,
(43:51):
he has the kid alone. It's his whole journey of
him learning how to be a father. And I mean
it's really good and it's very poignant and all of that,
but Meryl Streep is painted as this awful, selfish, deadbeat mom,
and in a way she kind of is because she
abandons her family. Yes, but I feel like we still
have that creamer versus creamer, like Dustin Hoffman like running
(44:13):
through the rainy streets of New York to get his
son kind of ideal of the single dad, which again
it's not bad, but it's like, why are they heroes
and single moms aren't heroines? Yeah, I mean, I think
you nailed it on the head talking about just like
the cultural legacy, the cultural nastiness with which women were
(44:36):
single moms have always been treated and its single dads
are so by comparison, rare. But with this trend, with
this rise in single fathers, I really think we're going
to see a shift. I mean, if we're already seeing
it with people getting mad about diaper advertisements, I think
that there is some real movement here. Not that I
(44:57):
want to talk about movement and diapers in the same sentence,
but it I mean, I think that as things become
more normal like this, it's going to be less like
every single single dad as a hero and every single
single mom is you know, somebody to be pitied. I
think there. I think we're going to see over the
next maybe I'll be dead, but over the course of
several generations, we're going to see like more acceptance of
(45:20):
just people being people. Yeah. I mean again, the most
striking difference between researching for this episode and researching for
the single Mom's episode is that the the legacy of
the unward mother goes so far back in time, and
for this one we had to do some digging and
(45:40):
right on back too. I mean, there's some stuff before that,
but it's mostly like just the panic of even the
idea of men raising kids. So happy fathers say, though,
happy elated Father's Day to all the single and not
single dad's out there. Um, we're very much pro single fathers,
(46:00):
and yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing how this trend
continues to develop. But now single dads and folks who
are being raised or have been raised by single dads,
we especially want to hear from you on this topic.
Mom Stuff at how stuff works dot com is our
new email address, or you can also tweet us at
mom Stuff podcast or send us a message over on Facebook.
(46:24):
And we've got a couple of messages to share with
you right now. So I've got to let her hear
from Brenda. In response to our episode The Widowhood Effect,
she writes, in two thousand and eight, I lost my
husband Kevin to a rare cancer. I was twenty four
and he was thirty six. It was devastating and I
(46:44):
felt completely alone and abandoned. We had been married only
a year and a half and had gone through so
much together, a long distance relationship, with me in Pennsylvania
and him in Manitoba, US immigration, financial woes, and just
when we were getting on our feet, the cancer hit.
It was all so very fast, and I felt like
an outcast. I knew no young widows. They were all
(47:06):
my grandmother's age. This past March, I released my first
book titled EBB from the Shoreline, Finding Cancer and Courage,
about our love and cancer story. I want others impacted
by cancer and caregivers to find hope in these big
struggles of life. There's also one organization in particular that
has helped me immensely in my loss, Soaring Spirits International,
(47:27):
which host Camp Widow. I've spoken at several of their
camps on blogging through grief, traveling alone, and also offer
writing intensive connecting with widows in person at their camps
has been crucial in my healing process, so we just
wanted to share that information for any widows that might
be listening. Again. That's called Soaring Spirits International, which hosts
(47:50):
Camp Widow. And thanks so much for writing Brenda. Well,
I have a letter here from Emily that's actually responding
to a couple of different episodes we did. She said
that I had to take a moment from drawing backgrounds
for animation to send this email. It seems crazy how
relevant some of your recent podcasts have been in my life.
I used to work as a game tester for Disney Interactive.
(48:11):
While I was there, the girls on the floor were
very small in numbers, but all of the higher up
jobs were held by strong, amazing women. I had the
pleasure of meeting one of Disney Animations legends, Floyd Norman.
He was one of the first black artists to work
in Disney. He knew Walt Disney personally, and when I
heard stories from him and honestly made me rethink Walt
Disney being racist or sexist. I feel nerd ashamed for
(48:33):
not being aware of any of the other women at
Disney uname besides Mary Blair I work at a small
animation studio right now and do comic book work on
the side. I'm not a member of the union, so
that could account for low numbers. I've never really taken
my gender into consideration. I just do what I love.
When it comes to the job of animation. It seems
most of the time jobs get called animation when they're
actually more like background art or storyboarding. Also, when I
(48:56):
was at Cartoon Network, my producer was a woman and
went on to basically run the studio that makes Robot Chicken,
So there's a plus for women in animation. With my
comic work, personally, I've never experienced sexism. In fact, I've
gotten nothing but respect. I'm sure that's not always the case.
For one thing, I never dressed up in cosplay personally,
I see it as unprofessional for an artist to do so.
(49:16):
I thought I might recommend a few very feminist friendly comics.
To name a few off the top of my head,
Strangers in Paradise by Terry Moore, Saga by Brian Cavon,
pretty much Anything by Greg Ricca, and Well Sandman by
Neil Game, and of course, so thank you so much, Emily.
It's incredible how much your life is falling into line
with our podcast. Yes, it sounds like we are psychically
(49:40):
podcastically connected and to get podcastically connected with us so
you couldn't find all of our social media links, all
of our blog posts, videos, and all five hundred plus
podcast episodes over at stuff Mom Never Told You dot com.
(50:00):
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
how stuff Works dot com
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