Let’s play a game.
Let’s say there’s a little girl we’ll call Brittany. Now Brittany is in the fourth grade at a school she’s been attending since kindergarten. She’s outgoing and cute, dresses odd at times, can be very funny, is a tad bookwormish, and is most definitively a Taylor Swift fan.
Brittany meets and becomes fast friends with another little girl in her class named Mallory. They both like the TV show Good Luck Charlie and Tap Pet Shop on the iTouch, not to mention Mallory also loves Taylor Swift. They quickly become inseparable pals eating lunch together daily, playing during recess, and drawing pictures of one another under rainbow and butterfly filled skies.
One afternoon Mallory comes running home from school asking her mom and dad if she can have a sleepover at Brittany’s house this weekend. It seems Brittany recently got Just Dance 3 for her Wii and they plan on having a dance party late into the night.
On the surface is this any different from the millions of other little girls who want to have a sleepover with their new best friend? Which in all likelihood means Brittany and Mallory’s parents will talk or meet up for a quick ‘get-to-know’ and it’s off to the races.
Oh, there’s just one small detail I left out.
In this case you’re Mallory’s mom or dad and the sleepover she wants with Brittany, well, it’s going to be at my home – her divorced, unmarried, single father.
So let me ask you this question. What is the very first thought that goes through your mind after realizing the house your daughter wants to spend the night at is that of a single man?
You don’t have to answer that because I already know. It’s something like this…
Oh snap!
And here’s a secret, it would probably be the same for me.
**
Next month marks seven years since my divorce, which is longer than I was married and nether of my kids know any different. That’s seven years of co-parenting on my own. That’s 2,555 days full of diaper changes, potty training episodes, nursing nosebleeds, performing tuck-ins, and reciting bedtime stories. I’ve doctored diaper rashes, attended parent/teacher conferences, and sat through a dozen God-awful elementary school musicals. I’ve read to classrooms, been a teacher’s helper, and ate $2.30 school lunches with a table of seven year olds. There are only two feats I’ve yet to check-off from the parenting manual - breast feeding and giving birth. And that’s only because I don’t come with the necessary accessories.
If the quality of a parent is based in any way on aptitude and performance I’ll be in the Mommy and Daddy Hall of Fame.
So why is it when Mallory asked if she could have a sleepover at my house you looked at your spouse and thought “how are we going to get out of this?”
**
It’s one of the harshest realities I’ve ever faced as an adult – that because I don’t live with a woman I’m somehow less of a parent. In the court of public opinion I’m a dad who’s guilty until proven innocent and even if I am acquitted I still need an ankle bracelet and must check in with my parole officer once a month. Because I failed at a marriage I’m no less inclined to fail as a parent.
Why, and this question is directed at me as much as anyone else, am I prone to feel way more uneasy if my kids are in a home where the person in charge isn’t a woman? Why do I tend to believe it isn’t such a good idea since there isn’t a mom around and therefore must make up some lame excuse for my kids on why they can’t spend the night? Why am I compelled to ask around, run a complete background check and ask for blood and urine samples because the dad isn’t married anymore? And why would I be more relaxed if it were at moms?
The fact isn’t lost on me that my daughter has tons of sleepovers but none of them are at my home. In the last nine years she has only had one friend spend the night and it was a neighbor who lived 200 yards away and her parents had me on speed dial. Sure, she wants friends over but it never seems to materialize. As if by magic the kids are always busy…until the next weekend she’s at her moms.
**
Why are single dads looked upon more critically than any another parent? While single moms are virtually sanctified to the level of Mother Theresa for their seemingly endless supply self-sacrifice single dads are expected to be self-centered, uncooperative, and unreliable - especially as a parent. It’s undeniable that a single father is regarded not primarily as father but as single and thereby is expected to act accordingly. Because we aren’t with a woman why is it assumed that we are prone to have the parenting skills of a green sea turtle? We invariably let our kids watch too much television, drink gallons of soda, and run with knives.
But let’s be completely honest. The actual reason we have a problem with it is that our kids staying with a single dad fills our minds with all sorts of dreadful images that are better left unsaid. And it’s all because he isn’t married or lives with a woman.
I could tell you that I, like most dads, just want the best for my kids and for them to have happy and joyful childhoods; I could also tell you that as a divorced dad I guarantee I work harder to provide that than any married dad ever will. I could also tell you, like all parents, I’m not perfect but unlike most I’ll admit a mistake and try to do better tomorrow. I could say it offends me that you to think a child would be any less safe and secure with me because a woman isn’t under roof. And I could mention that if you got to know me you’d soon realize I, and many other single dads like me, are anything but the deadbeat dads you hear about in the media.
But chances it wouldn’t do any good so instead I’ll just leave you with a remainder-
I’m a single dad not a child molester.
Originally published in 2012