Sunday, February 14, 1999
MEN AND PARENTING
Editor -- Regarding Joan Ryan's column on Sunday, February 7. Every time there is a new study released on the practices of parents in intact families, it shows us that fathers are performing a greater and greater share of the caregiver functions. While some people may not like this trend, there is no sign it will let up.Mary Ann Mason asks us to ignore this reality, and wants the state to enforce the one-parent paradigm onto all divorcing families. This would be a pathologically misguided policy.
There is no question that Mason is completely sincere in what she believes: that the father-child relationship has so little value that logistical convenience ought to take precedence over preserving that relationship. I hope that people who had great fathers, as well as people who wish they had had great fathers, will one day find her brand of gender bigotry as offensive as we now find racial bigotry.