Latest / Stuff Mom Never Told You / SMNTY Classics: Single Dads

Transcript

SMNTY Classics: Single Dads · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: I'm welcome to stuff one never told you, pro ic
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: gonna buy hurry you.
• 0:18
  Speaker 3: And today we are bringing back a classic for Father's Day,
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: which is this weekend as it comes out as always,
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: if for whatever reason Father's Day is a source of
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: pain or just for some reason it is not a
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: happy thing for you or not something you look forward
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: to or even want to think about, totally see you,
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: totally hear you. I thought it was last weekend, to
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: be honest, this weekend totally forgot. But we have done
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: a lot of episodes, you and I Samantha around around this,
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: around fathers and.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Even kind of culturally.
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: We were just talking about like the term daddy, and
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: we've done daddy issues. This is one that we haven't
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: brought back. It is a classic that Kristen and Caroline
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: did who were the previous host slash creator, and it
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: was around single dads. And we've talked a lot before
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: about the differences in how we perceive single dads and
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: single moms.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: But I have been.
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: Reading a bit lately and I would love listenership write
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: in about this about a slow shift and where there
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: are more stay at home dads are more single dads
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: and more instances of that happening and it being slightly
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: more normal as opposed to like, oh wow, he's amazing.
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: I think that's still there. But that's definitely still there
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: in our media, I would say. But I would love
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: to come back and look into that more because that
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: was something that came up a lot during the pandemic
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: and gender roles in terms of very head noorm of
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: sense in terms of who was doing the caretaking and
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: how we A lot of times single moms are just
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: expected to do a bunch more stuff. So I would
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: like to look into single dads. I would like to
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: check in on single dads to see.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: What's up with that, a more updated look.
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: But in the meantime, please enjoy this classic episode.
• 2:32
  Speaker 4: Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from how Stuff
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: worts dot com.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: A little and welcome to the podcast. I'm Caroline and
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: I'm Kristin.
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: And in celebration of Father's Day, we are connecting this
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: episode with the episode we did for Mother's Day on
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: single Moms, and so today we want to talk to
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: you about single dads because we can't leave out that
• 2:58
  Speaker 4: very important portion of the popular So we want to
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: celebrate dads, and today we're looking at those of you
• 3:03
  Speaker 4: who are going it alone.
• 3:05
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and it's a good time to be talking about
• 3:09
  Speaker 5: single dads, not just because Father's Day was yesterday, but
• 3:14
  Speaker 5: because single dads are on the rise and they're making
• 3:18
  Speaker 5: a lot of headlines. For instance, in July twenty thirteen,
• 3:23
  Speaker 5: the Pe Research Center reported that a record eight percent
• 3:26
  Speaker 5: of households with minor children in the US are now
• 3:29
  Speaker 5: headed by a single father, which is up from just
• 3:32
  Speaker 5: over one percent in nineteen sixty.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and Pew talks about how.
• 3:37
  Speaker 6: That's a ninefold increase since nineteen sixty, from less than
• 3:41
  Speaker 6: three hundred thousand to more than two point six million
• 3:44
  Speaker 6: and twenty eleven. And for a comparison, the number of
• 3:47
  Speaker 6: single mother households increased more than just fourfold during that
• 3:51
  Speaker 6: time period, up to eight point six million and twenty
• 3:54
  Speaker 6: eleven from one point nine million in nineteen sixty. And
• 3:59
  Speaker 6: single dads have also increased as a percentage of all
• 4:02
  Speaker 6: single parents. In nineteen sixty, about fourteen percent of single
• 4:05
  Speaker 6: parent households.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: Were headed by dads.
• 4:07
  Speaker 6: Today that's almost one quarter twenty four percent.
• 4:11
  Speaker 5: And then for another percent in twenty eleven, and single
• 4:15
  Speaker 5: dads made up eighteen point three percent of custodial parents,
• 4:19
  Speaker 5: which is when a person has full time solo custody
• 4:23
  Speaker 5: of the kids. And this isn't just a demographic change
• 4:27
  Speaker 5: happening in the US. Our Canadian neighbors as well are
• 4:31
  Speaker 5: also seeing the rise of single dads. According to the
• 4:35
  Speaker 5: twenty eleven Canadian Census, there was an eight percent jump
• 4:40
  Speaker 5: in the number of single parent homes and of those,
• 4:43
  Speaker 5: you have a sixteen point two percent increase in single
• 4:46
  Speaker 5: dad led households in two thousand and eleven, which outpaced
• 4:51
  Speaker 5: the former increase of fourteen percent from two thousand and
• 4:54
  Speaker 5: one to two thousand and six. So that is a
• 4:56
  Speaker 5: lot of percent to say that we have been on
• 5:00
  Speaker 5: a steady climb in the number of single dad led households.
• 5:04
  Speaker 6: Yeah, and you know, if you listen to our single
• 5:06
  Speaker 6: Mom episode, which I know you did, I hope so.
• 5:10
  Speaker 6: But there are a lot of factors going into the
• 5:12
  Speaker 6: rise in single dads that also accompany the rise in
• 5:15
  Speaker 6: single moms. For instance, in general, there's just been an
• 5:19
  Speaker 6: increase in the share of non marital births in general,
• 5:22
  Speaker 6: and so that's why it's important when we mentioned the
• 5:24
  Speaker 6: custodial parents earlier, because there are a lot of different types.
• 5:28
  Speaker 6: As we'll explain further in a minute, there are a
• 5:30
  Speaker 6: lot of different types of single parents.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: It's not just people who have solo custody.
• 5:36
  Speaker 5: There's also people who are divorced or widowed, et cetera,
• 5:38
  Speaker 5: et cetera. Yeah, and to get an idea of how
• 5:42
  Speaker 5: that share of the non marital births as they're called
• 5:44
  Speaker 5: so clinically has increased. According to the Centers for Disease
• 5:49
  Speaker 5: Control and Prevention, forty point seven percent of all US
• 5:53
  Speaker 5: births now in the United States are two unmarried women.
• 5:57
  Speaker 5: But again, even though those women are unmarried, that doesn't
• 6:01
  Speaker 5: necessarily mean they don't have a partner or you know,
• 6:05
  Speaker 5: like we said, there are many different types of single parents.
• 6:09
  Speaker 6: Right, And speaking of divorce, the rates have leveled off,
• 6:13
  Speaker 6: but they're still higher than they were in the nineteen
• 6:15
  Speaker 6: sixties and seventies, which means more single parents.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: And there's also issues around the legal system.
• 6:21
  Speaker 6: Some experts suggest that changes in the legal system and
• 6:24
  Speaker 6: laws in various states have led to more opportunities for
• 6:27
  Speaker 6: fathers to gain at least partial custody of children in
• 6:31
  Speaker 6: the event of a breakup.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: A lot of that has to do with the.
• 6:34
  Speaker 6: Way that we perceive fathers in general, and the way
• 6:39
  Speaker 6: we perceive single fathers in particular, but also the way
• 6:42
  Speaker 6: that they see themselves.
• 6:43
  Speaker 5: Right, the public perception of single fatherhood and simply the
• 6:47
  Speaker 5: role of a dad and a family and his role
• 6:50
  Speaker 5: with child rearing has evolved so much, particularly in the
• 6:56
  Speaker 5: past forty or fifty years, because you know, we've seen
• 7:00
  Speaker 5: these household and gender roles for men shifting since the
• 7:05
  Speaker 5: nineteen sixties, away from that idea that you know, dads
• 7:09
  Speaker 5: just go to work and they bring home the bacon
• 7:11
  Speaker 5: and that's kind of it, whereas mom takes care of
• 7:13
  Speaker 5: the kids and so on.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: For instance, mad Men.
• 7:17
  Speaker 5: Not to completely fictionalize this conversation, but you know, Don
• 7:20
  Speaker 5: Draper gets a divorce from Betty spoiler alert, and the
• 7:23
  Speaker 5: kids live with Betty and then they come every now
• 7:26
  Speaker 5: and then.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: To visit him.
• 7:27
  Speaker 5: Because back then it was more of the idea that,
• 7:30
  Speaker 5: you know, a full time single dad that would be
• 7:33
  Speaker 5: kind of nutty.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that would be nutty. But now now we're not
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: so opposed to the.
• 7:38
  Speaker 6: Idea, the idea that guys might be single dads and
• 7:41
  Speaker 6: or gets soul custody in the event of a divorce
• 7:44
  Speaker 6: doesn't seem totally alien. And it's funny though, to go
• 7:47
  Speaker 6: back and look at just the histrionics that surrounded men
• 7:52
  Speaker 6: being the caregivers for children. The Atlantic had a great
• 7:56
  Speaker 6: post looking at postcards that were going around target getting
• 8:00
  Speaker 6: men fathers in particular during the suffrage movement.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: There was no gray area.
• 8:05
  Speaker 6: It was like a zero sum game where either the
• 8:08
  Speaker 6: man was at home and he was making the money
• 8:10
  Speaker 6: and he was in control and the wife was home
• 8:11
  Speaker 6: taking care of the kids, or as they feared would
• 8:14
  Speaker 6: happen if women gained the vote, the women would put
• 8:17
  Speaker 6: on pants and march right out of the home and
• 8:20
  Speaker 6: start working.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: And the men would be left attend to the children. Yeah.
• 8:24
  Speaker 5: One of the tropes from that time was something called
• 8:26
  Speaker 5: the Suffragette Madonna, and it's this hilarious image of this
• 8:32
  Speaker 5: befuddled guy, this dad looking character, holding a baby and
• 8:38
  Speaker 5: he's you know, he's in like a suit, but he
• 8:40
  Speaker 5: also has a halo around his head because oh, well,
• 8:44
  Speaker 5: his wife won the right to vote, so now he's
• 8:47
  Speaker 5: got to be home taking care of the baby. And
• 8:49
  Speaker 5: that was at that time such a radical idea in
• 8:53
  Speaker 5: terms of, you know, the gender roles then that it was.
• 8:58
  Speaker 5: I mean, it was one of the major platforms arguing
• 9:02
  Speaker 5: against giving women the vote because well, if you do that,
• 9:05
  Speaker 5: slippery slope to men having to be involved fathers.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I know who wants that fathers anyway.
• 9:15
  Speaker 6: So, like we said, now the public is really starting
• 9:18
  Speaker 6: to acknowledge men as more than just breadwinners.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: They're also caregivers too.
• 9:22
  Speaker 6: And the New York Times did a piece on single
• 9:25
  Speaker 6: dads by choice. We talked about single moms by choice
• 9:28
  Speaker 6: in our last episode, but talking about how these guys
• 9:33
  Speaker 6: nowadays who are becoming dads, their new dads come from
• 9:36
  Speaker 6: the generations who really believed in feminism, preached equal rights
• 9:42
  Speaker 6: and civil rights, and so they grew up believing in
• 9:45
  Speaker 6: gender equality. And they talked to David Klow, who's a
• 9:49
  Speaker 6: psychotherapist who runs men's groups at the Family Institute at
• 9:52
  Speaker 6: Northwestern University, and he said, there's a new sense of
• 9:55
  Speaker 6: masculinity that incorporates being a single father, accomplished and successful
• 10:00
  Speaker 6: the business world, but also very.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: Loving and caring.
• 10:03
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and if you look at time use data, you
• 10:06
  Speaker 5: see that even today, yes, moms tend to spend whether
• 10:11
  Speaker 5: they're working or if they're you know, full.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: Time stay at home moms.
• 10:15
  Speaker 5: No matter what the situation is, women tend to spend
• 10:18
  Speaker 5: more time caring for the kids, but fathers are spending
• 10:21
  Speaker 5: more time with their children than ever before. So, for instance,
• 10:26
  Speaker 5: the Pew Research Center found that in twenty eleven, dads
• 10:29
  Speaker 5: were spending seven hours a week on childcare and ten
• 10:32
  Speaker 5: hours a week on housework, which is half of what
• 10:36
  Speaker 5: mothers do. But that's still a huge leap from nineteen
• 10:39
  Speaker 5: sixty five, when dads did only two and a half
• 10:42
  Speaker 5: hours a week of childcare and four hours of housework.
• 10:47
  Speaker 6: Yeah, and I mean people kind of fully expect that
• 10:50
  Speaker 6: now they expect more from their from the from their dads,
• 10:53
  Speaker 6: I mean, society does more. From the Pew Research Center,
• 10:57
  Speaker 6: they found that the public believes that the father's greatest
• 11:00
  Speaker 6: role is to provide values to his children, followed by
• 11:04
  Speaker 6: emotional support, discipline, and income support, which really isn't that
• 11:09
  Speaker 6: far off from what the values that they ascribed to
• 11:11
  Speaker 6: mothers women needing to do.
• 11:13
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and speaking of madmen, you can see this kind
• 11:16
  Speaker 5: of shift too in our public perception of the important
• 11:19
  Speaker 5: role of fathers with their kids. In how dads are
• 11:23
  Speaker 5: portrayed in advertising. There was a now somewhat infamous Huggies
• 11:30
  Speaker 5: diaper campaign a few years back that portrayed dads having
• 11:35
  Speaker 5: to change a diaper as like the ultimate test of
• 11:38
  Speaker 5: these diapers, like amazing qualities because of a dud can.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: Do it, then anybody can do it.
• 11:43
  Speaker 5: And they ended up having to pull the campaign because
• 11:47
  Speaker 5: a lot of guys took offense at that of like,
• 11:49
  Speaker 5: excuse me, involved father, here, I can change a diaper.
• 11:54
  Speaker 5: You know this is this is a new generation we're
• 11:57
  Speaker 5: talking about now, these guys who are scared of changing diapers.
• 12:01
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I feel like we're definitely in a time period
• 12:04
  Speaker 6: where we're getting more and more pushback against ads and
• 12:07
  Speaker 6: marketing that just depicts men as dopey and uninvolved and
• 12:12
  Speaker 6: uninterested and all they do is make the money.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: And I don't know how to take out the garbage.
• 12:18
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you actually see ads now of dads driving the
• 12:21
  Speaker 5: kids places, or dads doing the laundry or doing the dishes.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: Right, Yes, that.
• 12:26
  Speaker 6: It's not just mom at home doing it while the
• 12:28
  Speaker 6: dad does other things. Right, And as far as I mean,
• 12:32
  Speaker 6: as far as perceptions go, they're also very important when
• 12:34
  Speaker 6: it comes to actual court situations divorce, custody, because men
• 12:42
  Speaker 6: used to assume that there was no way that they
• 12:44
  Speaker 6: would get custody of their kids in a divorce, so
• 12:46
  Speaker 6: they were generally just less likely to fight to get it,
• 12:49
  Speaker 6: whether they were fighting the courts or just the mom.
• 12:51
  Speaker 6: And this is coming from an article that The Atlantic
• 12:54
  Speaker 6: did in February twenty fourteen talking about this this rise
• 12:57
  Speaker 6: in single dads.
• 12:59
  Speaker 5: Yeah, this childs the issue is a huge factor. Like
• 13:02
  Speaker 5: we said, in this increasing you know a number of
• 13:07
  Speaker 5: guys who are fighting for custody for their kids or
• 13:10
  Speaker 5: just getting custody for their kids because sometimes, as the
• 13:13
  Speaker 5: Atlantic author was talking about, it can be easier to
• 13:17
  Speaker 5: just give someone soul custody, and sometimes the mom doesn't
• 13:20
  Speaker 5: want to have soul custody of the kids. But it
• 13:23
  Speaker 5: took a long time for the courts to wrap their
• 13:26
  Speaker 5: heads around this notion that dads can be equally good
• 13:31
  Speaker 5: parents to kids as mothers can be, because for a
• 13:34
  Speaker 5: long time, the knee jerk assumption was, oh, well, mothers
• 13:38
  Speaker 5: are more fit for raising kids, So custody is going
• 13:42
  Speaker 5: to go with the mom. Even in cases if you have,
• 13:45
  Speaker 5: say an unwed couple and they split up, but they've
• 13:50
  Speaker 5: got to you know, she has the kid, and she
• 13:52
  Speaker 5: meets someone else.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: They want to get married, and then he, you know,
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: the new guy wants.
• 13:56
  Speaker 5: To adopt the kid. The court would be like, Okay, yeah,
• 14:00
  Speaker 5: it's fine because the unwed father, you know, he's like
• 14:03
  Speaker 5: just kind of over there doing his stuff, and like
• 14:05
  Speaker 5: the kid needs to stay with the mom no matter what.
• 14:08
  Speaker 5: But then in nineteen seventy two you have the case
• 14:11
  Speaker 5: Stanley v. Illinois that really started to you know, start
• 14:15
  Speaker 5: this domino effect of granting fathers more custody rights because
• 14:20
  Speaker 5: this was the first time the court considered the custodial
• 14:23
  Speaker 5: rights of unmarried biological fathers. And it was this case
• 14:28
  Speaker 5: of Joan and Peter Stanley who lived together for eighteen years.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: They had three.
• 14:33
  Speaker 5: Kids together, never got married, Joan died, and the state
• 14:37
  Speaker 5: automatically gave the kids. It made the kids like wardens
• 14:42
  Speaker 5: of the state because they just assumed, well, Peter Stanley, you're,
• 14:46
  Speaker 5: you know, this unwed father certainly can't be, you know,
• 14:50
  Speaker 5: fit to raise children. He ended up fighting it and
• 14:54
  Speaker 5: it went all the way up to the Supreme Court,
• 14:56
  Speaker 5: and the Supreme Court, under the Protection Clause in the
• 15:01
  Speaker 5: Fourteenth Amendment, granted him custody of his kids. Basically, saying
• 15:05
  Speaker 5: that they should only be taken away on proof of
• 15:08
  Speaker 5: being unfit or neglectful. And this was really interpreted as
• 15:14
  Speaker 5: a ruling of gender equality and was applied in a
• 15:17
  Speaker 5: lot of other different custodial cases.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: But even still, I mean, that was nineteen seventy two,
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: and it still took a.
• 15:23
  Speaker 5: Long time for states to gradually move away from that
• 15:30
  Speaker 5: automatically siding with the biological mother. So, for example, the
• 15:35
  Speaker 5: Sanley versus Illinois ruling helped invalidate a provision in the
• 15:39
  Speaker 5: New York domestic relations law that gave unwood mothers but
• 15:42
  Speaker 5: not fathers, the right to adopt their kids. So talk about,
• 15:46
  Speaker 5: you know, an equality issue right there. So there was
• 15:49
  Speaker 5: definitely a step in the right direction because you know,
• 15:52
  Speaker 5: fathers should be able to I think, have a.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: Say in that kind of legal matter.
• 15:57
  Speaker 6: Well, it doesn't even make sense to me, like me now,
• 15:59
  Speaker 6: Andy fourteen, as a thirty year old woman, it doesn't
• 16:02
  Speaker 6: even make sense to me that you're the father and
• 16:05
  Speaker 6: you're not the first choice on like being able to
• 16:09
  Speaker 6: adopt kids or get Yeah, I don't know, it doesn't
• 16:12
  Speaker 6: make any sense. But really, the ball got rolling in
• 16:15
  Speaker 6: the early two thousands when many states began adopting legislation
• 16:19
  Speaker 6: providing for joint physical custody and which is different than
• 16:23
  Speaker 6: just joint legal custody. These policies were supposed to encourage
• 16:26
  Speaker 6: basically both parents to spend equal time with the kid,
• 16:31
  Speaker 6: but interestingly, it seemed to spark a rise in single dads.
• 16:35
  Speaker 6: And the perfect example that they give is from a
• 16:39
  Speaker 6: study in the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies in twenty
• 16:43
  Speaker 6: eleven that looked at the state of Oregon, which in
• 16:45
  Speaker 6: nineteen ninety seven became one of the first states to
• 16:48
  Speaker 6: formally enact joint parenting legislation. Before this happened, Oregon's custody
• 16:53
  Speaker 6: law had favored joint legal custody, so the parents both
• 16:57
  Speaker 6: have a say in decisions made about the child, but
• 17:00
  Speaker 6: not joint physical custody.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: After the new law.
• 17:04
  Speaker 6: Oregon courts defaulted to joint parenting, encouraging the child to
• 17:09
  Speaker 6: spend half her time with dad and half with mom.
• 17:12
  Speaker 6: But in Oregon, after this law, it ended up swaying
• 17:16
  Speaker 6: way more towards dads. Why what's going on Because the
• 17:21
  Speaker 6: changing laws are actually empowering dads to ask for more.
• 17:25
  Speaker 6: It's not that like Oregon puts this law and effect,
• 17:27
  Speaker 6: and all of a sudden, all these deadbeat moms are like, hah,
• 17:30
  Speaker 6: finally I'm free. It's just that dad's perceptions of themselves,
• 17:36
  Speaker 6: of the way things should be, of the way things
• 17:38
  Speaker 6: can be, are starting to change.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: And so previously, you know, decades and decades before, dad's just.
• 17:46
  Speaker 6: Assumed like, Okay, well, I'm just going to see him
• 17:48
  Speaker 6: on the weekends, or I'll see him every other weekend
• 17:50
  Speaker 6: or whatever, when really they're now starting to think, and
• 17:53
  Speaker 6: they're backed by the courts and starting to think, oh,
• 17:56
  Speaker 6: I can take more responsibility. I want to take more responsibility,
• 17:59
  Speaker 6: and I'm going.
• 17:59
  Speaker 5: To ask yeah, and not to say that it's always
• 18:02
  Speaker 5: illegal and cheap cake walk to get custody rights if you.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: Are, you know, a father.
• 18:10
  Speaker 5: And I'm sure that we'll hear from some dads out
• 18:13
  Speaker 5: there who have or maybe are going through these kinds
• 18:17
  Speaker 5: of custody issues, because there are still plenty of courts
• 18:20
  Speaker 5: that do tend to side more with the mom. But
• 18:23
  Speaker 5: there's definitely been so much progress since that Stanley v.
• 18:27
  Speaker 5: Illinois decision, I mean, and even the fact Caroline that
• 18:32
  Speaker 5: in contrast to our episode on Single Moms where we
• 18:35
  Speaker 5: trace the history back centuries I mean the history, at
• 18:39
  Speaker 5: least legally speaking in the US kind of just starts
• 18:43
  Speaker 5: in the seventies. Yeah, I mean that speaks to how
• 18:47
  Speaker 5: significant of a change this is.
• 18:49
  Speaker 6: Yeah, that goes beyond assuming, that goes beyond assuming that like, oh,
• 18:52
  Speaker 6: women are the better parents and mothers and kids should
• 18:55
  Speaker 6: be with that.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: That's a belief system. That's just like you believe that
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: that's the way.
• 19:00
  Speaker 6: And so it makes sense then in that context that
• 19:04
  Speaker 6: it took so long to change. But now, like I said,
• 19:06
  Speaker 6: being in twenty fourteen, I can't imagine.
• 19:09
  Speaker 5: Yeah, well, it's like you saying that reminds me of
• 19:12
  Speaker 5: one of the sources we were reading talking about how
• 19:15
  Speaker 5: our ideas of motherhood and fatherhood in a lot of
• 19:18
  Speaker 5: ways sort of like gender is very much a construct,
• 19:21
  Speaker 5: like influenced by culture.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: And time and the media, et cetera.
• 19:27
  Speaker 5: So the good thing is I feel like that our construct,
• 19:31
  Speaker 5: our fatherhood construct, has only developed in a more positive way.
• 19:36
  Speaker 5: And speaking again of single dads in particular, who who
• 19:40
  Speaker 5: are these guys, Caroline, Who are these these fellas?
• 19:44
  Speaker 6: Yeah, So that twenty thirteen report that Pew release looking
• 19:48
  Speaker 6: at the rise in single fathers, it is worth specifying
• 19:51
  Speaker 6: who they were looking at. So fathers in that Pew
• 19:54
  Speaker 6: report are fifteen years or older, They are the head
• 19:57
  Speaker 6: of their household, They are living with their own own
• 20:00
  Speaker 6: minor children, whether those children are biological step children or adopted.
• 20:04
  Speaker 6: Pugh excluded fathers who are living in a household headed
• 20:08
  Speaker 6: by someone else, and fathers whose children are not living
• 20:11
  Speaker 6: with them, and they broke down why these guys are
• 20:15
  Speaker 6: single fathers. About half fifty two percent are separated, divorced, widowed,
• 20:20
  Speaker 6: or never married, and are living without a cohabitating partner.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: However, some forty one percent are living with a non
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: marital partner.
• 20:28
  Speaker 6: So again there's that whole like murky area where okay,
• 20:32
  Speaker 6: you're technically legally a single dad, but you might have
• 20:34
  Speaker 6: somebody living with you. Only seven percent are married still
• 20:39
  Speaker 6: but living apart from their spouse with custody of the kids.
• 20:42
  Speaker 5: And when we compare fathers heading households solo versus fathers
• 20:47
  Speaker 5: in two parent households, we do see similar patterns as
• 20:51
  Speaker 5: we talked about in the single Mom's episode, because single
• 20:54
  Speaker 5: dads do tend to be younger, a little bit less educated,
• 20:57
  Speaker 5: less financially well off, and less likely to be white,
• 21:01
  Speaker 5: and also less likely to be in full time jobs.
• 21:04
  Speaker 5: So this also brings up than this issue of parental resources,
• 21:09
  Speaker 5: and we'll get into.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: Some more comparisons in a minute.
• 21:12
  Speaker 6: We definitely want to look at single moms versus single dads.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: There are a lot of statistics out there that we
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: want to throw at you, but we'll get right into
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: that after a quick break.
• 21:26
  Speaker 5: So we just talked about how single fathers and single
• 21:29
  Speaker 5: moms share some demographic similarities, but there are also some
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: differences worth noting aside from the fact that single fathers
• 21:38
  Speaker 5: tend to be men, single mothers tend to be women.
• 21:42
  Speaker 5: Beyond that, single fathers are more likely than single mothers
• 21:47
  Speaker 5: to be living with a cohabitating partner, far likelier actually
• 21:51
  Speaker 5: a forty one percent versus sixteen percent, but those cohabitating
• 21:56
  Speaker 5: guys tend to be younger.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: Single dads who are over forty.
• 22:00
  Speaker 5: Typically live with just the kids a La Louis c
• 22:04
  Speaker 5: k who yes, we will talk about a little bit
• 22:06
  Speaker 5: more later in the podcast.
• 22:08
  Speaker 6: And also compared to single moms, single dads are more
• 22:11
  Speaker 6: likely to be white, and they're more likely to.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: Own their own home.
• 22:14
  Speaker 6: Two thirds of single dads own their own home, while
• 22:17
  Speaker 6: two thirds of single moms rent and generally, single dads
• 22:21
  Speaker 6: are older than single moms. Fifty two percent of them
• 22:25
  Speaker 6: are under forty compared to sixty two percent of single moms,
• 22:28
  Speaker 6: whereas forty seven percent of them are over forty compared
• 22:32
  Speaker 6: to thirty eight percent of single moms.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: So there are some.
• 22:35
  Speaker 5: Interesting demographic breakdowns. I mean, obviously, you know, single dads,
• 22:40
  Speaker 5: same as single moms, are not a monolithic group, but
• 22:45
  Speaker 5: there are some standout differences, particularly when.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: It comes to this income issue.
• 22:52
  Speaker 5: Because single fathers, even though they tend to have less money,
• 22:56
  Speaker 5: make less money, tend to they're less likely to be
• 22:59
  Speaker 5: in a full time job than married fathers, but compared
• 23:03
  Speaker 5: to single mothers, they tend to have higher incomes and
• 23:06
  Speaker 5: are far less likely to be living at or below
• 23:09
  Speaker 5: the poverty line twenty four percent versus forty three percent
• 23:13
  Speaker 5: of single moms living below the poverty line, which again
• 23:16
  Speaker 5: brings up another contrast to our single mom's issue, where
• 23:20
  Speaker 5: we spent a lot of time talking about government resources
• 23:23
  Speaker 5: and kind of bridging the gap for single moms who
• 23:26
  Speaker 5: need more assistance, whereas Caroline, I saw very little of
• 23:31
  Speaker 5: the same kind of information targeted to dads. Yeah, exactly,
• 23:36
  Speaker 5: and when you look at how much money these guys
• 23:38
  Speaker 5: are bringing home every year.
• 23:41
  Speaker 6: The average amount for a single dad household of three
• 23:45
  Speaker 6: is a lot less than that of a married father.
• 23:47
  Speaker 6: So the single dads tend to bring home about forty
• 23:50
  Speaker 6: thousand dollars a year, whereas married fathers tend to bring
• 23:53
  Speaker 6: home about seventy thousand on average. But even though that's
• 23:57
  Speaker 6: a lot lower than married fathers, it's more than single
• 23:59
  Speaker 6: mom who bring home a media and adjusted annual income
• 24:04
  Speaker 6: for that three person household of only twenty six thousand dollars.
• 24:07
  Speaker 5: So how do these demographic differences dad v. Mom?
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: How does all this shakeout for the kids?
• 24:15
  Speaker 5: Are there differences between single dad and single mom parenting?
• 24:20
  Speaker 5: A lot of the studies that we looked at found that, really,
• 24:23
  Speaker 5: when all the data shakes out, there's not a huge
• 24:28
  Speaker 5: difference because when it comes to parenting, as is the
• 24:32
  Speaker 5: same case if you talk about LGBT parenting and how
• 24:36
  Speaker 5: sexual orientation influences child outcomes, it's not so much gender
• 24:43
  Speaker 5: sexual orientation those kinds of factors that influence child outcomes,
• 24:47
  Speaker 5: but rather this.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: Issue of resources.
• 24:51
  Speaker 5: Right, Yeah, and so if you look at school, for instance,
• 24:54
  Speaker 5: there have been a lot of studies on how kids
• 24:56
  Speaker 5: of single parents fare at school, and a a lot
• 25:00
  Speaker 5: of studies have mainly shown that it's not the dad
• 25:02
  Speaker 5: versus mom, man versus woman factor. It's more the socioeconomic
• 25:07
  Speaker 5: factors and kind of having just one parent. So like
• 25:11
  Speaker 5: when I was growing up, you know, I had mom
• 25:14
  Speaker 5: there who was cooking dinner and making sure I got dressed.
• 25:16
  Speaker 5: I had dad to help me with my math homework.
• 25:19
  Speaker 5: You know, there was always one parent available to help
• 25:21
  Speaker 5: drive me somewhere while the other took care of I
• 25:23
  Speaker 5: don't know, bills.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: Or work or whatever they had to do.
• 25:26
  Speaker 6: Whether you're a man or a woman, if you're a
• 25:27
  Speaker 6: single parent, I think as any single parent could attest,
• 25:31
  Speaker 6: where's the other person to go help you do some things?
• 25:34
  Speaker 6: Like they talked to one single dad I think in
• 25:36
  Speaker 6: the New York Times who said, you know, as a
• 25:38
  Speaker 6: single parent, if you if it's ten o'clock at night
• 25:41
  Speaker 6: and your five year old's in bed and you realize
• 25:42
  Speaker 6: you don't have any milk for the.
• 25:43
  Speaker 5: Next day, who's going to go out and get the milk?
• 25:46
  Speaker 5: But anyway, I digress, So dogs should be better trained.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: Cats can't get that milk. Get a cat to go
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: out and get milk or a rumba. It's yes, and
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: they're perfect.
• 25:58
  Speaker 6: So there was a study in the Journal of Family
• 26:00
  Speaker 6: Issues from nineteen ninety four that looked at data from
• 26:04
  Speaker 6: the nineteen eighty eight National Longitudinal Study, and so I
• 26:07
  Speaker 6: realized that that's very dated, but there's still trends that
• 26:09
  Speaker 6: are very relevant. They found that children from single father
• 26:12
  Speaker 6: and single mother families perform about the same at school,
• 26:16
  Speaker 6: but both are outperformed by children from two parent families,
• 26:20
  Speaker 6: So when you look more closely at dad versus mom,
• 26:23
  Speaker 6: they said that a lack of economic resources explains.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: The school difficulties of kids from single mother families, And yes,
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: that's from a.
• 26:31
  Speaker 6: Long time ago, but it still makes sense in twenty fourteen,
• 26:33
  Speaker 6: considering single moms makes so much less than single dads.
• 26:37
  Speaker 6: And they found also that a lack of interpersonal parental
• 26:40
  Speaker 6: resources provides a more accurate description for why children from
• 26:44
  Speaker 6: single father families do poorly in school. But maybe that's
• 26:48
  Speaker 6: changing as our views of single dads now and their views.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: Of themselves change.
• 26:54
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and sort of along these same lines, there was
• 26:56
  Speaker 5: a more recent study that came out in twenty ten
• 26:59
  Speaker 5: in the Journal of Men, Marriage and Family, which found
• 27:02
  Speaker 5: that while there might be some small differences in parenting
• 27:06
  Speaker 5: behaviors of single mothers and single fathers, these differences are
• 27:12
  Speaker 5: often sensitive to demographic disparities and don't really translate to
• 27:16
  Speaker 5: academic deficits for children in either family type. So it's
• 27:19
  Speaker 5: not like, oh, well, if Susie's going to go live
• 27:22
  Speaker 5: with dad, then her grades are going to plummet, so
• 27:24
  Speaker 5: Susie should live with mom instead. Like, as long as
• 27:28
  Speaker 5: Susie's mom and dad are both as engaged as.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: They can be, she will do all right. Yeah, the
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: kids will be all right. The kids are all right.
• 27:38
  Speaker 6: But there are benefits of dealing with dads, some psychologists
• 27:42
  Speaker 6: and sociologists would argue, and one of those.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: Factors is play.
• 27:46
  Speaker 6: W Brad Wilcox, who's a sociologist at UVA and studies
• 27:50
  Speaker 6: marriage and families, said that dads are actually more likely
• 27:53
  Speaker 6: to rough house play than moms, which is a style of.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: Play that helps teach kids to control.
• 27:57
  Speaker 6: Their bodies and their emotions. And I'm thinking, I'm like,
• 28:01
  Speaker 6: my dad never rough house with me.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: But then again, I don't know. He was forty when
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: they had me, so maybe he was done with the
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: rough housing.
• 28:10
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I was the last after a lot of kids.
• 28:13
  Speaker 5: So I remember some rough house play when I was small,
• 28:17
  Speaker 5: but I think by the time I got like a
• 28:18
  Speaker 5: little bit older, he was.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: Probably worn out.
• 28:21
  Speaker 6: No, dad was constantly reinforcing how much is back hurt?
• 28:25
  Speaker 6: So there was no there were no more piggyback rides.
• 28:27
  Speaker 6: But as far as play and exploration and all that
• 28:30
  Speaker 6: stuff goes, fathers are also more likely to encourage their
• 28:33
  Speaker 6: kids to embrace risk, both on the playground and in life.
• 28:36
  Speaker 6: This influences will Cox, says, the ambitions of children over
• 28:40
  Speaker 6: the long run.
• 28:41
  Speaker 5: Yeah, there have been so many studies in recent years
• 28:44
  Speaker 5: really digging into the role of fatherhood and how it,
• 28:49
  Speaker 5: you know, interacts with child outcomes, because I think for
• 28:51
  Speaker 5: so long people had just been focusing on moms and
• 28:55
  Speaker 5: they found all of these these findings that aren't terribly surprising, which,
• 29:00
  Speaker 5: as you know, the thing about the rough house play,
• 29:01
  Speaker 5: which makes sense because you know, maybe guys are a
• 29:04
  Speaker 5: little more just rough house in their play. I know
• 29:06
  Speaker 5: that my brothers were more rough house than my sisters were.
• 29:09
  Speaker 5: And then if you look at you know, dads who
• 29:12
  Speaker 5: believe in gender equality, no big surprise that their daughters
• 29:17
  Speaker 5: tend to have higher career ambitions compared to dads who
• 29:20
  Speaker 5: have more sexist beliefs. And in fact, though this is important,
• 29:24
  Speaker 5: dad's gender beliefs were more influential on their daughters than
• 29:29
  Speaker 5: their mom's beliefs.
• 29:31
  Speaker 6: I'm I think that's incredibly important. And I think it's
• 29:34
  Speaker 6: interesting because I mean, you know the whole thing about oh,
• 29:37
  Speaker 6: we marry our dads or we look for men who
• 29:39
  Speaker 6: are like our dads. Well, if your dad is more
• 29:43
  Speaker 6: likely to support gender equality, believe in feminism and kind
• 29:45
  Speaker 6: of instill those values in you, that says a lot.
• 29:48
  Speaker 5: And that kind of paternal investment in terms of rough
• 29:53
  Speaker 5: house play or talking about gender equality or disciplining whatever
• 29:57
  Speaker 5: it might be, that involvement all also translates to better
• 30:02
  Speaker 5: outcomes for kids in school as well. We just touched
• 30:05
  Speaker 5: on school, but the National Center for Education Statistics has
• 30:09
  Speaker 5: also found that father's involvement in school is associated with
• 30:13
  Speaker 5: a higher likelihood of students getting mostly a's.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: And that's true not just for two parent families, but
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: also in dad only households. Yeah.
• 30:23
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I think it's really important to point out that
• 30:25
  Speaker 6: it's in both types of families, in the circumstance that
• 30:28
  Speaker 6: it is that fatherly involvement. Knowing that your dad has
• 30:32
  Speaker 6: invested that you're more likely to get all a's.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: There's also the involvement in schools.
• 30:37
  Speaker 6: Students living in father only families are the most likely
• 30:40
  Speaker 6: of all students to have highly involved fathers. Forty six
• 30:44
  Speaker 6: percent of such students have fathers who are highly involved
• 30:47
  Speaker 6: in their schools. So whether that's volunteering, being on the PTA,
• 30:51
  Speaker 6: you know, coaching the soccer team, well, and that makes
• 30:54
  Speaker 6: sense because they have they don't have a.
• 30:56
  Speaker 5: Roomba who can go to you know, the pace meetings,
• 31:01
  Speaker 5: and single dads are actually likelier than stepdads biological fathers
• 31:05
  Speaker 5: with a stepmother in the home and two parent households,
• 31:09
  Speaker 5: the two biological parent households to attend parent teacher conferences,
• 31:13
  Speaker 5: school meetings, school events, and volunteer. So single dads in
• 31:17
  Speaker 5: a lot of ways are knocking it out of the park.
• 31:19
  Speaker 6: Yeah, And I mean it makes sense because I just
• 31:21
  Speaker 6: wonder if you know, we're falling back on those social
• 31:24
  Speaker 6: norms and expectations, gender expectations when in two parent households,
• 31:29
  Speaker 6: the mom seeses control of the PTA responsibilities, whereas the
• 31:34
  Speaker 6: dad's like, I'll.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: Just let you do that.
• 31:36
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I think it's so easy. And I'm now
• 31:40
  Speaker 5: straying off into anecdote for a moment. It's kind of
• 31:43
  Speaker 5: easy in a heterosexual couple to just fall back on
• 31:49
  Speaker 5: sort of the traditional gender roles that might have been
• 31:51
  Speaker 5: modeled for us, because in my family, mom, you know,
• 31:55
  Speaker 5: my mom cooked dinner and did the dishes, and my
• 31:58
  Speaker 5: dad worked and mowed the lawn. And I now see
• 32:01
  Speaker 5: in the patterns of my own life, I just need
• 32:03
  Speaker 5: your kind of.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: Well, I'll go to the grocery store, you stay home
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: and change the light bulbs.
• 32:09
  Speaker 5: Did this happen like two days ago, maybe, Caroline, it
• 32:13
  Speaker 5: just happens.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: Well, no, And I mean it's beyond anecdote.
• 32:15
  Speaker 6: We talked about this in our Egalitarian Household episode, looking
• 32:19
  Speaker 6: at straight couples versus gay couples, or same sex versus
• 32:22
  Speaker 6: opposite sex couples, and how even the most like super
• 32:26
  Speaker 6: feminist women right women's rights progressive couples, once they get married, it's.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: Like, oh, I'm the man, you're the woman.
• 32:34
  Speaker 5: Well, and especially too when it comes to that child rearing.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, we just cided the statistic a few minutes.
• 32:39
  Speaker 5: Ago about how even though dads are doing more than
• 32:42
  Speaker 5: ever before. Moms are still doing twice as much, but
• 32:47
  Speaker 5: there are some single dads who are doing it for
• 32:50
  Speaker 5: themselves and by their own choice. We talked about single
• 32:56
  Speaker 5: moms by choice in our Single Mom's episode.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: These are men who are sort of going.
• 33:02
  Speaker 5: Out of their way because they want to be moms
• 33:03
  Speaker 5: that they don't want to have the traditional They don't
• 33:06
  Speaker 5: want to find somebody, you know, and have to go
• 33:09
  Speaker 5: through all of that.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: They're just like, oh, well, I will.
• 33:11
  Speaker 5: Adopt, I will get you know, in vitro, I will
• 33:14
  Speaker 5: have a baby because I just want to be a mom.
• 33:17
  Speaker 5: And there are more and more guys who are doing this. Example,
• 33:22
  Speaker 5: Ricky Martin of Living Leavita, Loca Fame adopted twins not
• 33:27
  Speaker 5: too long ago and he intends to raise them as
• 33:29
  Speaker 5: a single dad. Yeah, he's a single dad by choice, right,
• 33:32
  Speaker 5: live in Leavida Loca.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: He is live in Levita Dad. Yeah, different kind of
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: Loca these days, right Yeah.
• 33:40
  Speaker 6: The New York Times, NPR, ABC News, they all looked
• 33:43
  Speaker 6: into this whole rise of single father thing, but also
• 33:47
  Speaker 6: the rise of single fathers by choice, and The New
• 33:50
  Speaker 6: York Times reported that surrogacy.
• 33:52
  Speaker 5: Agencies, adoption agencies, and father support groups are all reporting
• 33:57
  Speaker 5: that they're seeing more single fathers by choice. A lot
• 34:00
  Speaker 5: of these guys happened to be gay, but the number
• 34:03
  Speaker 5: of straight guys looking to go it alone are on
• 34:05
  Speaker 5: the increase too. Yeah, there was a statistic in that
• 34:08
  Speaker 5: New York Times article that jumped out to me. They
• 34:11
  Speaker 5: cited two thousand eight data from the National Center for
• 34:14
  Speaker 5: Health Statistics which found that men age eighteen to forty
• 34:18
  Speaker 5: four are twice as likely as women of the same
• 34:21
  Speaker 5: age group two have adopted a child. Now, that's partially
• 34:25
  Speaker 5: explained by men being likelier to adopt step children, but
• 34:29
  Speaker 5: the report also found that seventy three thousand never married
• 34:33
  Speaker 5: men had also adopted a child, and that group includes
• 34:37
  Speaker 5: those who are single fathers by choice.
• 34:40
  Speaker 6: Right, And you know this whole time, we've been talking
• 34:43
  Speaker 6: a lot about changes in society, changes in perception of
• 34:46
  Speaker 6: what's possible, and Steve Majors, who's the communications director for
• 34:51
  Speaker 6: the same sex advocacy group Family Equality Council, says it's
• 34:54
  Speaker 6: the same thing for gay men.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: He says that a lot of young gay men once.
• 34:58
  Speaker 6: Believed that living in open gay life meant not having children.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: That you were either straight or that you were closeted.
• 35:05
  Speaker 6: And then you had a family, or that you were
• 35:07
  Speaker 6: just gay and single with no kids.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: But now, as you said.
• 35:11
  Speaker 5: We're seeing this rise in different technology and whether that's IVF,
• 35:16
  Speaker 5: whether they're adopting, but we're seeing alongside the rise of
• 35:20
  Speaker 5: same sex marriage, we're also seeing a rise in gay
• 35:22
  Speaker 5: men pioneering the use of reproductive technology to have kids.
• 35:26
  Speaker 5: And we're also seeing a legal evolution as well, in
• 35:29
  Speaker 5: addition to what we were talking about in terms of
• 35:32
  Speaker 5: men being able to get child custody, but also legal
• 35:37
  Speaker 5: doors being opened for gay men to adopt children, because
• 35:41
  Speaker 5: there are still some states that have bands against that,
• 35:46
  Speaker 5: but those dominoes are also starting to fall.
• 35:49
  Speaker 6: Great and there's people out there doing their parts to
• 35:51
  Speaker 6: combat those misconceptions. Brian Tessier started up for one one
• 35:55
  Speaker 6: four Dad, a hotline for prospective single fathers, and Tessier
• 36:00
  Speaker 6: was talking about how both gay and straight guys reach
• 36:02
  Speaker 6: out to him a lot about.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: The topic, and many believe that they can't adopt on
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: their own. Many think that it's not even.
• 36:08
  Speaker 6: Possible that legally you have to have some type of
• 36:10
  Speaker 6: partner going into it with you.
• 36:13
  Speaker 5: Yeah, And it was interesting when ABC News was reporting
• 36:16
  Speaker 5: on this, they talked to some agency professionals who said
• 36:20
  Speaker 5: that if a child has been in, say an abusive
• 36:23
  Speaker 5: situation with his or her biological mother or has special needs,
• 36:28
  Speaker 5: that a single dad in particular can be a really
• 36:31
  Speaker 5: stabilizing factor. I mean, I think a lot of times
• 36:33
  Speaker 5: we hear about stories about how difficult it is for
• 36:36
  Speaker 5: men to adopt, particularly now actually straight men, because they
• 36:40
  Speaker 5: kind of get like a side day of like, well,
• 36:41
  Speaker 5: why would you want to adopt a child on your own?
• 36:45
  Speaker 5: But they can actually be attractive candidates, you know, for kids.
• 36:51
  Speaker 6: Right, And they pointed out another advantage of single adoptive dads,
• 36:56
  Speaker 6: and that is that many adopt older boys, which is
• 36:58
  Speaker 6: a group that's historically and difficult to place in homes
• 37:01
  Speaker 6: for adoption.
• 37:02
  Speaker 5: And speaking of adoption of having kids in the same
• 37:06
  Speaker 5: way as there are trade offs anytime you become a parent,
• 37:11
  Speaker 5: no matter what your family structure looks like. Same goes
• 37:15
  Speaker 5: for single dads. Right when you're looking at the financial aspects.
• 37:20
  Speaker 5: For instance, women tend to struggle after a divorce with
• 37:25
  Speaker 5: making ends meet.
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: That's their main financial struggle.
• 37:28
  Speaker 6: But for men after a divorce who gain custody of
• 37:31
  Speaker 6: the kids, it's their careers that can end up kind
• 37:35
  Speaker 6: of a mess if you look at it from one
• 37:36
  Speaker 6: perspective or simply different. I mean, it makes sense that
• 37:40
  Speaker 6: you've got to sacrifice something. And with this change in
• 37:43
  Speaker 6: society that we're seeing out of more men becoming single dads,
• 37:46
  Speaker 6: we're also and they're also going to have to get
• 37:49
  Speaker 6: used to the fact that maybe your career path has
• 37:51
  Speaker 6: to change, a lot of women have changed their career paths,
• 37:55
  Speaker 6: you know, from motherhood before.
• 37:56
  Speaker 5: Yeah, talking about the quote unquote mommy off ramp that
• 37:59
  Speaker 5: men any women start to hit around our age, Caroline
• 38:04
  Speaker 5: of that question of like, well do I want to
• 38:06
  Speaker 5: have a kid? Do I want to have you know,
• 38:08
  Speaker 5: keep blazing forward with my career? Can I do both?
• 38:11
  Speaker 5: How can I make that happen? That kind of lean in.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: Sort of stuff.
• 38:15
  Speaker 5: And it was kind of funny, not funny, but a
• 38:19
  Speaker 5: little chuckle worthy when I read an anecdote from one
• 38:22
  Speaker 5: of these single dads talking about how frustrating it is
• 38:24
  Speaker 5: for him when he has to leave work to take
• 38:26
  Speaker 5: care of his kids. Sometimes he gets the stink eye
• 38:29
  Speaker 5: from his coworkers because they think, oh, well, shouldn't a
• 38:32
  Speaker 5: mom be doing that? And it's simply though the same
• 38:37
  Speaker 5: kinds of issues that working moms have been dealing with
• 38:40
  Speaker 5: since moms began working. Right. Yeah, there was a two
• 38:44
  Speaker 5: thousand and eight story that CNN Money did and they
• 38:46
  Speaker 5: talked to this guy named Dave King who got custody
• 38:49
  Speaker 5: of his kids, four of them, and had to leave
• 38:52
  Speaker 5: the job that basically had him on a direct career
• 38:55
  Speaker 5: path to earning five hundred thousand a year. Was it podcasting, Yeah,
• 39:01
  Speaker 5: That'spilo podcasting.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: And he, you know, he's like, I love my kids
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: more than anything. I'm you know, I want to make
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: them happy.
• 39:09
  Speaker 6: But he said, I have to fight my own anger
• 39:12
  Speaker 6: and frustration when I think about the opportunities I.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: Had that were lost because they were palpable.
• 39:17
  Speaker 5: He saw it right there in his future, and then
• 39:19
  Speaker 5: he had to move and give it up to like
• 39:21
  Speaker 5: have custody of his kids.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: And all I could think was think, think of all
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: the women.
• 39:27
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that's the only bone that I have to pick
• 39:29
  Speaker 5: with one of two bones.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: We'll get to the second bone and a second. This
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: bone that I.
• 39:34
  Speaker 5: Have to pick with these kinds of stories is that
• 39:36
  Speaker 5: it's this novel idea of making some kind of financial
• 39:41
  Speaker 5: sacrifice for having kids.
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: It's as though this decision has never.
• 39:46
  Speaker 5: Had to be made by like, oh, I don't know,
• 39:48
  Speaker 5: like fifty one percent of the population.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: But also though one note on him, it wasn't just.
• 39:54
  Speaker 5: The issue of taking a job that you know, didn't
• 39:58
  Speaker 5: pay him half a million dollars in podcast royalties, but
• 40:03
  Speaker 5: that the divorce and custody battle that ensued also costs
• 40:08
  Speaker 5: around a quarter of a million dollars. Like we said earlier,
• 40:11
  Speaker 5: that you know, the it's not always a simple easy
• 40:14
  Speaker 5: cakewalk to working out these kinds of custody issues and
• 40:17
  Speaker 5: becoming a single dad. It can also cost a pretty
• 40:20
  Speaker 5: penny on top of you know, having to like clothe
• 40:22
  Speaker 5: and feed them and all that.
• 40:24
  Speaker 6: And then you look at the stats that when two
• 40:27
  Speaker 6: parents divorce and the dad gets custody, it's not nearly
• 40:32
  Speaker 6: as common for the ex wife to have to pay
• 40:34
  Speaker 6: any sort of child support to the dad, whereas you know,
• 40:38
  Speaker 6: it's very typical for the dad to have to pay
• 40:40
  Speaker 6: for the mom.
• 40:41
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, there's definitely still a lot of imbalance
• 40:44
  Speaker 5: in the legal system in terms of how that works out.
• 40:49
  Speaker 5: There's also some imbalance too, it seems like when it
• 40:52
  Speaker 5: comes to dating and remarriage after becoming a single dad.
• 40:58
  Speaker 5: It seems like from our Mom's episode, a lot of
• 41:01
  Speaker 5: women who are single moms remain single. I mean, probably
• 41:05
  Speaker 5: half the reason why is because they don't even have
• 41:07
  Speaker 5: time to date. But it seems like single dads and
• 41:11
  Speaker 5: I don't want to say, have an easier time of it,
• 41:13
  Speaker 5: but are likelier to seek it out.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well that.
• 41:18
  Speaker 6: Goes back to the whole I feel like we've talked
• 41:20
  Speaker 6: about this in different ways on the podcast, but you know,
• 41:23
  Speaker 6: even when you're talking about marriage or whatever, that men
• 41:26
  Speaker 6: are much more uncomfortable with being on their own, whereas
• 41:30
  Speaker 6: a woman, you know, if she if her husband dies,
• 41:33
  Speaker 6: for instance, like she's more likely to turn to her
• 41:36
  Speaker 6: support group of friends and be okay, and so she's
• 41:39
  Speaker 6: maybe not as eager to get back out there and
• 41:41
  Speaker 6: get another partner, whereas a man who is widowed is
• 41:45
  Speaker 6: more likely to go out in search of a partner
• 41:47
  Speaker 6: rather than friends, right, Or to put it another way,
• 41:50
  Speaker 6: Arman Brod, who's the author of The Single Father, A
• 41:52
  Speaker 6: Dad's Guide to Parenting without a Partner, says that single
• 41:55
  Speaker 6: fathers have a tendency, more so than single moms, to
• 41:58
  Speaker 6: feel incomplete without a partner in the house, so they
• 42:01
  Speaker 6: risk rushing into a new relationship that may.
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: Not be right well.
• 42:05
  Speaker 5: And one interesting survey finding related to that is that
• 42:07
  Speaker 5: when single dads do date, they seem to prefer dating
• 42:12
  Speaker 5: women who also have children because there's that assumption that, well,
• 42:17
  Speaker 5: they're going to be a little more understanding of their
• 42:21
  Speaker 5: fatherly commitments that they might have to make, and.
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: Also probably gets over the hurdle of telling a woman
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: you're on a date with it. Oh, by the way,
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: I have kids. Probably makes that a little bit easier
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: if she can.
• 42:31
  Speaker 5: Also respond or he can respond, oh, yeah, I also
• 42:34
  Speaker 5: have children, because that is especially now that we.
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: Are, you know, of this age that we are at, Caroline.
• 42:42
  Speaker 5: It's you know, if we were both like out in
• 42:44
  Speaker 5: the dating pool, it would not be a wild notion
• 42:47
  Speaker 5: for us to end up on a date with someone
• 42:50
  Speaker 5: who is divorced and or has.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: Children, right.
• 42:54
  Speaker 6: Yeah, And there were there were some advice columns out
• 42:56
  Speaker 6: there about how do you deal with that? How do
• 42:58
  Speaker 6: you either how you as a woman dat a single dad,
• 43:01
  Speaker 6: or how do you as a single dad date people
• 43:04
  Speaker 6: out there because a lot of times there was one
• 43:08
  Speaker 6: column I read where the woman was just like, you know,
• 43:11
  Speaker 6: I couldn't handle it because there was a part of
• 43:14
  Speaker 6: me that realized that his kid was always going to
• 43:16
  Speaker 6: be his number one priority, and so that is something
• 43:19
  Speaker 6: that also has to be considered well.
• 43:21
  Speaker 5: And speaking of single dads and dating, I mentioned Luis
• 43:25
  Speaker 5: c K earlier in the podcast. I mean, he has
• 43:27
  Speaker 5: an entire show pretty much about dating as a single dad,
• 43:32
  Speaker 5: and it's not just about dating. But he came to
• 43:36
  Speaker 5: mind with all of this research, not just because he's
• 43:40
  Speaker 5: hilarious and I'm a huge LUISYK fan and he is
• 43:43
  Speaker 5: a single dad of two adorable daughters, but he jumped
• 43:47
  Speaker 5: out in my mind in terms of you know, we
• 43:49
  Speaker 5: talked a lot about the perception of single dads and
• 43:52
  Speaker 5: reading these trend pieces on single dads, and particularly single
• 43:55
  Speaker 5: dads by choice, they are treated so much differently in
• 44:00
  Speaker 5: a lot of ways than single moms are because for
• 44:02
  Speaker 5: someone like Luis c K, like, we love him because
• 44:06
  Speaker 5: he is hilarious and is very insightful, et cetera, et cetera.
• 44:11
  Speaker 5: But I think we also love him too because we portice.
• 44:15
  Speaker 5: And I'm just saying like, we like, culturally really gravitate
• 44:19
  Speaker 5: to this idea of you know, the sacrificial single dad.
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: Who is you know, doing it on his own.
• 44:26
  Speaker 5: Whereas it seems like when we talk about single moms,
• 44:29
  Speaker 5: and maybe it's just because there's such an awful historical
• 44:31
  Speaker 5: legacy of single moms being thrown under the bus, but
• 44:33
  Speaker 5: I feel like even today, single moms.
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: Get a bit of a short end of the stick.
• 44:39
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 44:40
  Speaker 6: In one of the New York Times pieces we read,
• 44:42
  Speaker 6: the main picture with the story is of a man
• 44:45
  Speaker 6: in a nice suit in his office with a playpen
• 44:48
  Speaker 6: next to him, and there's choice.
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: On his desk, and he is awesome. That's great, He's
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: so great.
• 44:55
  Speaker 6: But think about the side eye that a woman in
• 44:58
  Speaker 6: the same position would get. A woman coming to work
• 45:01
  Speaker 6: and having.
• 45:01
  Speaker 5: A playpen there with toys and a baby, like obviously
• 45:04
  Speaker 5: she's not dedicated to her job or whatever, Whereas it
• 45:08
  Speaker 5: seems like that the social perception is that a man
• 45:11
  Speaker 5: who has a playpen in his office is so dedicated. Yeah,
• 45:16
  Speaker 5: And there's also that whole selfishness perception of single moms
• 45:20
  Speaker 5: by choice, where they're often painted as you know, just
• 45:24
  Speaker 5: like I don't know, being almost like narcissists for their decisions,
• 45:29
  Speaker 5: whereas we think it's like really cool and not to
• 45:31
  Speaker 5: say that invested single dads aren't laudable and really cool.
• 45:37
  Speaker 5: I'm just saying I wish that we could a cultural
• 45:40
  Speaker 5: conversation about single moms could be elevated in a similar
• 45:45
  Speaker 5: way to single dads, because yes, we need to encourage
• 45:49
  Speaker 5: men to be active and involved fathers. Study after study
• 45:52
  Speaker 5: shows that that makes such a huge positive difference in kids' lives.
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: But I just wonder.
• 45:58
  Speaker 5: Why we tend to will hold more esteem it seems
• 46:01
  Speaker 5: for single dads and single moms.
• 46:04
  Speaker 6: Well, I think that goes back to just cultural expectations.
• 46:08
  Speaker 5: I wonder if it also goes back to Kramer Versus Kramer,
• 46:11
  Speaker 5: the nineteen seventy three drama starring Dustin Hoffman about how
• 46:16
  Speaker 5: he you know, ends Meryl Streep, his wife ends up
• 46:20
  Speaker 5: believing he has the kid alone. It's this whole journey
• 46:23
  Speaker 5: of him learning how to be a father. And I
• 46:25
  Speaker 5: mean it's really good and it's very poignant and all
• 46:28
  Speaker 5: of that, but Meryl Streep is painted as this awful, selfish,
• 46:33
  Speaker 5: deadbeat mom, and in a way, she kind of is
• 46:35
  Speaker 5: because she abandons her family. Yes, but I feel like
• 46:38
  Speaker 5: we still have that Kramer versus Kramer, like Dustin Hoffman,
• 46:42
  Speaker 5: like running through the rainy streets of New York to
• 46:46
  Speaker 5: get his son kind of ideal of the single dad yeah,
• 46:50
  Speaker 5: which again it's not bad, but it's like, why are
• 46:53
  Speaker 5: they heroes and single moms aren't heroines?
• 46:58
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean I think you nailed it on the
• 47:00
  Speaker 6: talking about just like the cultural legacy, the cultural nastiness
• 47:05
  Speaker 6: with which women were single moms have always been treated
• 47:08
  Speaker 6: and single.
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: Dads are so by comparison, rare.
• 47:12
  Speaker 6: But with this trend, with this rise in single fathers,
• 47:16
  Speaker 6: I really think we're going to see a shift. I mean,
• 47:19
  Speaker 6: if we're already seeing it with people getting mad about
• 47:21
  Speaker 6: diaper advertisements, I think that there is some real movement here.
• 47:26
  Speaker 6: Not that I want to talk about movement and diapers
• 47:28
  Speaker 6: in the same sentence, but I mean, I think that
• 47:31
  Speaker 6: as things become more normal like this, it's going to
• 47:34
  Speaker 6: be less like every single single dad is a hero
• 47:37
  Speaker 6: and every single single mom is you know, somebody.
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: To be pitied. I think there.
• 47:41
  Speaker 6: I think we're going to see over the next maybe
• 47:44
  Speaker 6: I'll be dead, but over the course of several generations,
• 47:47
  Speaker 6: we're going to see like more acceptance of just people
• 47:50
  Speaker 6: being people.
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 47:52
  Speaker 5: I mean, again, the most striking difference between researching for
• 47:57
  Speaker 5: this episode and researching for the single moms. That so
• 48:00
  Speaker 5: is that the legacy of the unw mother goes so
• 48:05
  Speaker 5: far back in time, and for this one, we had
• 48:07
  Speaker 5: to do some digging and right on back to nineteen
• 48:11
  Speaker 5: seventy two. I mean there's some stuff before that, but
• 48:14
  Speaker 5: it's mostly like just the panic of even the idea
• 48:17
  Speaker 5: of men raising kids. So Happy Father's Day, though, happy
• 48:22
  Speaker 5: related Father's Day to all the single and not single
• 48:26
  Speaker 5: dads out there. We're very much pro single fathers, and yeah,
• 48:31
  Speaker 5: I'm looking forward to seeing how this trend continues to develop.
• 48:39
  Speaker 5: But now single dads and folks who are being raised
• 48:42
  Speaker 5: or have been raised by single dads, we especially want
• 48:44
  Speaker 5: to hear from you on this topic.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: Mom Stuff at houstuffworks.
• 48:48
  Speaker 5: Dot com is our new email address, or you can
• 48:52
  Speaker 5: also tweet us at mom Stuff Podcast or send us
• 48:55
  Speaker 5: a message over on Facebook. And we've got a couple
• 48:58
  Speaker 5: messages to share with you right now. So I've got
• 49:04
  Speaker 5: a letter here from Brenda in response to our episode.
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: The Widowhood Effect.
• 49:09
  Speaker 5: She writes, in two thousand and eight, I lost my
• 49:12
  Speaker 5: husband Kevin to a rare cancer.
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: I was twenty four and he was thirty six.
• 49:16
  Speaker 5: It was devastating and I felt completely alone and abandoned.
• 49:19
  Speaker 5: We had been married only a year and a half
• 49:21
  Speaker 5: and had gone through so much together, a long distance
• 49:24
  Speaker 5: relationship with me in Pennsylvania and him in Manitoba, US immigration,
• 49:29
  Speaker 5: financial woes, and just when we were getting on our feet,
• 49:32
  Speaker 5: the cancer hit. It was all so very fast, and
• 49:35
  Speaker 5: I felt like an outcast.
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: I knew no young widows. They were all my grandmother's age.
• 49:40
  Speaker 5: This past March, I released my first book titled EBB
• 49:43
  Speaker 5: from the Shoreline, Finding Cancer and Courage, about our love
• 49:46
  Speaker 5: and cancer story. I want others impacted by cancer and
• 49:49
  Speaker 5: caregivers to find hope in these big.
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: Struggles of life.
• 49:53
  Speaker 5: There's also one organization in particular that has helped me
• 49:56
  Speaker 5: immensely in my loss, Soaring Spirits International, which host Camp Widow.
• 50:02
  Speaker 5: I've spoken at several of their camps on blogging through grief,
• 50:04
  Speaker 5: traveling alone, and also offer writing intensives.
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: Connecting with widows in person.
• 50:10
  Speaker 5: At their camps has been crucial in my healing process,
• 50:13
  Speaker 5: so I just wanted to share that information for any
• 50:16
  Speaker 5: widows that might be listening.
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: Again. That's called Soaring Spirits International.
• 50:22
  Speaker 5: Which hosts Camp Widow. And thanks so much for writing
• 50:25
  Speaker 5: Brenda Well I.
• 50:26
  Speaker 6: Have a letter here from Emily that's actually responding to
• 50:29
  Speaker 6: a couple of different episodes we did.
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: She said, I.
• 50:33
  Speaker 6: Had to take a moment from drawing backgrounds for Animation
• 50:36
  Speaker 6: to send us email. It seems crazy how relevant some
• 50:39
  Speaker 6: of your recent podcasts have been in my life. I
• 50:41
  Speaker 6: used to work as a game tester for Disney Interactive.
• 50:43
  Speaker 6: While I was there, the girls on the floor were
• 50:45
  Speaker 6: very small in numbers, but all of the higher up
• 50:48
  Speaker 6: jobs were held by strong, amazing women. I had the
• 50:51
  Speaker 6: pleasure of meeting one of Disney Animation's legends, Floyd Norman.
• 50:55
  Speaker 6: He was one of the first black artists to work
• 50:57
  Speaker 6: in Disney.
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: He knew Walt Disney.
• 50:59
  Speaker 6: Personally, and I heard stories from him and honestly made
• 51:01
  Speaker 6: me rethink Walt Disney being racist or sexist. I feel
• 51:05
  Speaker 6: nerd ashamed for not being aware of any of the
• 51:07
  Speaker 6: other women at Disney you name.
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: Besides Mary Blair.
• 51:10
  Speaker 6: I work at a small animation studio right now and
• 51:12
  Speaker 6: do comic book work on the side. I'm not a
• 51:14
  Speaker 6: member of the union, so that could account for low numbers.
• 51:17
  Speaker 6: I've never really taken my gender into consideration.
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: I just do what I love. When it comes to
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: the job of animation.
• 51:22
  Speaker 6: It seems most of the time jobs get called animation,
• 51:25
  Speaker 6: whether they're actually more.
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: Like background art or storyboarding.
• 51:28
  Speaker 6: Also, when I was at Cartoon Network, my producer was
• 51:30
  Speaker 6: a woman and went on to basically run the studio
• 51:32
  Speaker 6: that makes Robot Chicken. So there's a plus for women
• 51:35
  Speaker 6: in animation. With my comic work, personally, I've never experienced sexism.
• 51:39
  Speaker 5: In fact, I've got nothing but respect. I'm sure that's
• 51:42
  Speaker 5: not always the case. For one thing, I never dress
• 51:45
  Speaker 5: up in cosplay personally, I see it as unprofessional for
• 51:48
  Speaker 5: an artist to do. So I thought I might recommend
• 51:50
  Speaker 5: a few very feminist friendly comics.
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: To name a few off the top.
• 51:53
  Speaker 6: Of my head, Strangers in Paradise by Terry Moore, Saga
• 51:57
  Speaker 6: by Brian kay Vaughn, pretty much Anything by Greg Recca,
• 52:01
  Speaker 6: and Well Sandmanned by Neil Game.
• 52:03
  Speaker 5: And of course, so thank you so much, Emily. It's
• 52:05
  Speaker 5: incredible how much your life is falling.
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: Into line with our podcast.
• 52:09
  Speaker 5: Yes, sounds like we are psychically podcastically connected, and to
• 52:16
  Speaker 5: get podcastically connected with us, so you can find all
• 52:19
  Speaker 5: of our social media links, all of our blog posts, videos,
• 52:22
  Speaker 5: and all five hundred plus podcast episodes over at stuff
• 52:28
  Speaker 5: mom Never told You dot com. For more on this
• 52:34
  Speaker 5: and thousands of other topics, visit houstuffworks dot com.