I wrote this back in November for 365gay.com, but never crossposted. A recent article in the Bangor Daily News, by Diane Schetky, clinical professor of psychiatry at the Maine Medical Center, reminded me about it. Schetky makes the same point that I did, which is that children are not necessarily harmed by growing up without fathers in their lives, and that anyone who thinks otherwise should look at our current president.
I am thrilled that Barack Obama will be the first president my five-year-old son remembers. I am proud to explain to him that Obama is our leader, and that he represents the best values of our nation: hope, inclusion, and a commitment to making our country, and the world, a better place for all people.
Pundits have written much about the significance of Obama’s win for racial diversity and acceptance, and rightly so. For me, however, Obama also represents a triumph for non-traditional families.
Obama was raised by his mother from the age of two, when his father left them. His mother remarried when Obama was six, but he only lived with his stepfather until he was 10. After that, he was raised by his mother and his maternal grandparents. The right wing has long claimed that children do best with both a mother and a father; Barack Obama belies that claim.
This is not to say that it is acceptable for men to remove themselves from their children’s lives. Obama himself has called for fathers to take more responsibility for their families. The fact, however, that a child—a male child, even—can grow up without a father and rise to the highest office in the land means there are more factors at play than just the presence of someone called “dad.”
Fathers can be of great benefit to children, but the lack of one is not necessarily a tragedy.
Obama is not the first president to grow up without a father. Andrew Jackson and Rutherford Hayes’ fathers died just before their sons were born. Andrew Johnson was three when his father died, and James Garfield was one. Herbert Hoover was orphaned at 9.
Obama enters the Oval Office, though, at a time when the debate about the “right” type of family has reached a new level of vitriol. The fact that his family is multiracial and non-traditional, however, is a testament to the fact that there is more to raising a child than matching some “ideal” family structure.
It makes me sick, therefore, to know that in this historic election, Arkansas voters chose to ban unmarried couples – by definition including same-sex couples – from fostering or adopting children. How many children of same-sex couples will wake up today in Arkansas wondering if they will be taken away from their parents? (Existing adoptions will stand—but it is easy to see why a child might wonder.)
It makes me sick to think of all the children waking up today in California to learn that their parents’ marriages are?what? Null and void? In limbo? Still recognized, but only because of a fluke of timing, whereas their friend’s parents down the street can never wed?
What of the children in Arizona and Florida who woke up to learn the majority of voters in the state fear their parents so much that they were not content with making their marriages illegal, but had to make them unconstitutional as well? What of the children in other states who will hear the national news and wonder if their neighbors will soon try to disallow their families?
The Family Equality Council has put together a guide for “Talking to Your Children About Election ‘08.” It is worth a read for those struggling to explain the above issues to your children. The disappointing part of this election is that we have to do so.
John McCain, in his concession speech, said, “A century ago, President Theodore Roosevelt’s invitation of Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House was taken as an outrage in many quarters. America today is a world away from the cruel and prideful bigotry of that time.”
No, not a world away. The targets of bigotry may have shifted, but the underlying fear, ignorance, and hate is the same. The results of the anti-LGBT ballot measures prove that.
What keeps me from despair right now is knowing that we have made progress. An increasing number of LGBT officials and allies are taking office. A new Democratic majority in the New York State Senate means there is a chance the Empire State could enact marriage equality in the legislature, the first state to do so without a court order. New Jersey is another likely state. President-elect Obama makes the passage of LGBT-inclusive hate-crimes legislation, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), and identical federal benefits for same-sex couples real possibilities.
As Obama said in his acceptance speech, “For that is the true genius of America—that America can change. Our union can be perfected. And what we have already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.”
That is why I let me son stay up far past his bedtime to watch Obama win. That is the message I want to him to hear. That even in the face of defeat, there is always hope. Hope that someday (with a nod to Dr. King) we will be judged not by the structure of our families, but by the values we teach our children.