The 'Daddy' Debate

There are many people out there who are still, in this day and age, uncomfortable with the concept of a single woman raising a child ‘on her own’ (despite the fact that ‘on her own’ more commonly means, ‘with the assistance of loved ones, friends, family members, housemates, and kindly well-meaning strangers’). There are even more who cringe at the thought of a child raised in a household with members of the gay community. We like to scoff dismissively at these well-meaning yet misinformed or perhaps miseducated (yes, I just made that word up) ‘child advocates’, who argue that a child growing up in such an environment will certainly be permanently disabled in some horrible way.

I never thought that I would have fingers pointed at me, not for any of the above reasons, but for potentially psychologically damaging Alistair by not allowing him to call Quiet ‘Daddy’. As a member of various forums that support choosing single motherhood, I half-expected judgment and condemnation based on my choice of living with gay men, regardless of how supportive and understanding the women were about raising Alistair without a ‘traditional’ father. However, I was not prepared for the fiery debate that arose around use, or lack thereof, of the word ‘Dad’.

‘Dad’, derived from the more formal word ‘Father’, can mean many different things to many different people. At a very simple biological level it means to be the creator, or progenitor, the founder of a family line. But after that it gets messy. There are also step-dads, adoptive dads, grandpas-who-act-as-dads. There seems to be a split after the creation definition that can be best summed up by, ‘a man who exercises paternal care, performs the duties of a male parent, assume as one’s own, takes the responsibility of’ (www.dictionary.com). And here is where the argument occurred.

While Quiet has the dubious honor of seeding the garden, he is not the farmer. He’ll be a great farmhand, for sure, but he’s not going to be responsible for the watering and the fertilizing and the sowing and all kinds of other nice metaphors. In other words, he will not exercise paternal care or perform the duties of a male parent (that’s me), he will not assume Alistair as his own (no name on the birth certificate), and he will not take any responsibility (still just me). So while some argue that he should get the title of ‘Dad’ and to do anything else is cruel to Alistair, I disagree. Someone actually wrote that giving Loud and Quiet the title of Uncle ‘grosses me out’. What other title do we give, or take, when we have a familial relationship with a child that is outside the bonds of blood yet is very often stronger? How many of us are Aunties to our friends’ children, and damn proud of it?

I agree that Alistair will long for a man to call Daddy, and I truly hope that someday I will meet that person, not just for him but for me as well. I hope that we can adequately communicate to him the difference between a Father and a Donor, and that he does not resent us or feel unloved or rejected, because there is plenty of love waiting for him (err, or her, god forbid I have a girl and she reads this someday and is like, ‘Omg, I’m fine with the Dad issue, it’s the feelings of inadequacy over not being a boy that I have problems with). I just need to accept that I’m going to be defensive every 5 minutes the whole way through this thing, and for a long time after, that mistakes will certainly be made, and that I’ll just do my best to make the choices I think are right.