Child Support
The
traditional model of the masculine presence within the family as the provider
has been embraced vastly throughout innumerable cultures and traditions. Yet
within a comparatively short time frame within history, this role has been
resisted and altered through economic, legal and moral attitudes with a noticeable pressure now placed on
women in the familial setting to provide emotional, spiritual and now economic support for her
dependant young.
While the attainment of
equal employment and educational opportunities for women was sought to improve
choice, social standing, protection (from abuse within the home and wider
society) and to support ambition and social failings, the emphasis on the
modern female has become that of ever growing responsibilities and ever
diminishing support. The modern mother may now in the face of the ruins of her
relationship find herself as the sole source of emotional and physical support
for her children, with the male presence within the life of the child too often
reduced to a faceless cash source only. The stigma of the modern mother is that
should she find herself emotionally or physically taxed by the unequal
distribution of the labour of daily child rearing she all too often faces criticism
while the absent male is commended for the faceless ‘child support’. Surely the
deserting of the post of father, once a socially endorsed entry into manhood,
should reflect not on the mother, but indicate the disillusion of the masculine
role within the family.
One may argue that the
pursuit of activities external to the home (through the hunter and gatherer
roles seen in historical man) and the subsequent reduction in the provision of
emotional security to the infant through these activities - the masculine
presence is through neglect and social alleviation of paternal
responsibilities, rendering itself obsolete. The deconstruction of the family
unit and reduction of the male presence in the child rearing process is
reducing the role of man to a commercial enterprise in reproductive processes
or a source of financial income only - where in some traditional roles the
father may adapt the belief that to provide financial support and ‘putting food
on the table’ is the full extent of his role- distancing himself from the
active engagement in the role of child rearing inclusive of communication,
discipline and moral implementation of the cultural code within the traditions
of the family unit has led to further social inequalities than is measurable.
The equality of partnership sought by early campaigners for female rights has
been undermined by the mistake that the woman who can do it all, must, with the
must being reduced from exemption to normality and those women who demand the
equal and fair distribution of the labour of child rearing derided as
‘struggling mothers’.
Yet the loss of the
traditional male role is not so easily solved simply by the laying of blame of
modern man. The attitude of some men who feel minimal social pressure to
provide greater input in the raising of their young, appears also to be fuelled
by some women who resist the masculine presence within the child rearing
process, having adapted the ‘i can, i will, i must’ attitude that to allow the
father figure within the lives of their children is a slight on their mothering
skills or in the same way some men may take the failure of their relationship
with their spouse as a failure in their chance to raise their children, some
women may also confuse the failure of their relationship with their spouse with
the ability for their partner to adequately and successfully contribute to the
raising of the child.
Whilst the template of
masculinity has undergone a seismic shift in a remarkably short period of time,
leaving many men and women in a state of bemusement of the validity of roles
which until 40 years ago were common place, the family unit must come to a
place of understanding that the provision of material goods are of secondary
importance to the provision of protection, emotional stability and guidance
from both parents. The need for warmth and bonding between child and parent
remains a static need in a culture of fluid parenting rights and
responsibilities.
Johannon Davis
The Philosophy Takeaway 'Gender' Issue 38
