What's A "Good Father" In The Black Community?

There seems to be some discrepancy on this topic. Let's clear it up!

Being a parent is a difficult task for us all.

This is true regardless of gender or whether you are a custodial or non-custodial parent. Nevertheless, most of the responsibilities are placed on the shoulders of women across the board.

In the past, I've been quite critical of Black fathers, particularly, and with good reason. As someone who was raised by a married-single mother, has known plenty of single mothers, and is technically one myself. I've also done enough research and spoken to enough men and women online to determine the collective attitude toward parenting in the Black community.

The bottom line? Women are responsible for most child-rearing and must be grateful for anything a father chooses to do, whether it's big, small, unhelpful, or even detrimental.

As a mother, single or not, you are constantly reminded how many Black children have no fathers in their lives, and therefore, you should just appreciate the fact that the man is trying.

I'm over it.

Going along with this rhetoric is why the bar for Black dads is in hell. Rather than holding them accountable for every child they create, as a community, we often come together to make excuses for the lack of involvement and tell women to try harder to cover the slack.

Fine and dandy.

But how is it that these are the same men asserting themselves as "the most involved fathers" in America?

But before we dive into the ins and outs of the "study" that has Black fathers hollering about parental supremacy, let's get into what brought us here, to begin with.

This Facebook post:

As you can see, this post is about a mom who asked her child's father to buy school clothes for their child. In return, he showed up with…wait for it…one week's worth of clothes! Personally, I find it appalling. Yes, it's possible that he's going to bring more clothes later on, but for the sake of this post, let's take it at face value and say this is all he's buying for the year and analyze this as such.

First, as you can see, the people in the comments are less than enthused. However, if you take the time to read the comments, they are primarily on the father's side. This is without any further information or context.

Here are some of the comments:

Now, I’m no rocket scientist, but the collective bar for these so-called super dads is extremely low. Also, based on the comments, this is the case because most have either gotten less from their children's fathers, saw others who received less, or grew up with less than this themselves.

Either way, wouldn't we trust the custodial parent's judgment — you know, the parent who has been doing most of the work alone over the dad's or anyone who doesn't know the situation?

Look, as a mom who has raised two 7-year-olds, I can say that 7-year-olds are hell on clothes. They stain, chew, write on, and wear holes into them rather quickly. (Also, I remember being around that age when my mother had to replace my pants regularly because I used to run and slide on my knees on the gym floor. No matter how many times she told me to stop, I just didn’t. Hey, it was fun…) So, if this is really all he’s buying, I would have to agree that this isn’t nearly enough to get her through the year.

Either way, my real question is, why is everyone acting like he's doing her a favor by caring for his own child? Is it not his child as well? Imagine if every time a Black mom did anything, the whole community told men to get on their hands and knees and be grateful for it. (Which, at this point, they should!) How do you think fathers and the community would react? They would likely tell her it's her job, so shut up and get to work, right? So, why all the coddling for grown men parenting children who didn't ask to be here?

Back to the Black Father Study

Black men have been bragging about being the "most involved fathers" for years. However, interestingly enough, most people haven't read the study or taken the time to consider its implications.

Here are some limitations you should be aware of:

• 70% of Black fathers who live with their children were more likely to have bathed, dressed, changed, eaten with, helped with homework, helped their child(ren) use the bathroom daily, etc. This says nothing about how often they are helping and has nothing to do with the fathers who don't live with their child(ren).
• They also asked the fathers themselves how good of a father they were in general. How convenient.
• This information was obtained via survey. Although they did include men and women, the study does say, "This report is mainly limited to the data collected from the sample of 3,928 men who are fathers." In other words, the majority of the data used to make these claims was obtained from fathers who volunteered to participate in a study where they were asked how often they help with their own children. Call me crazy, but I've never known a deadbeat who admits to being a deadbeat. Usually, they will tell you they're the best dads ever and that they only stopped being a good father because of something their mom did to them.
• They only surveyed a total of 1,485 absent fathers or those who do not live with their children, even though those fathers are more representative of the collective than the present ones. That is 410 fathers of children ages five and under and 1,075 children ages 5–18.
• Fathers with non-co-residential children were likelier not to have done any of the activities within the past month.
• The study only included fathers aged 15–44 and suggests that fathers over 45 were likely to be even less involved, especially those who have children under the age of 5 who they didn't live with.
• It also had no data on whether the fathers were more involved with some children than others. For instance, if a father had multiple children in multiple households but was more engaged with the child, they lived with, which is relatively common. It also doesn't account for fathers who simply have favorites and may spend more time and energy with one than all others. According to the survey, most men favored their younger children.
• The study also included step-fathers/adopted fathers and men who live with children they have no relation to.
• Some men responded "don't know" or flat-out refused to answer if they participated in certain activities.

What does this mean? Well, I won't waste time sifting through the details, but this study is unreliable at best. Also, the bar for fathers is low across the board. So, being "the most involved fathers" was literally never a flex. Also, please understand that the men in this survey are "the good ones" as far as our community is concerned.

Yet and still, this is the study they use whenever you point out that the Black male collective isn't pulling their fair share when it comes to raising their children.

Back to the Facebook Post

So, taking this back to the Facebook post, do you think this might be why many Black men and women call a mom "ungrateful" for pointing out that her child's father isn't pulling his weight? Yes, I do realize that no parent is perfect, and we all go through things, but women don't get the luxury of doing the bare minimum and expecting someone else to pick up the slack.

More importantly, how is this attitude helping anything? I've been hearing Black people coddle and whisper about the lack of parental involvement from Black males for as long as I can remember. And you know what? Not much has changed.

Much like women, men know how babies are made and have access to contraception. So, unwanted pregnancies are entirely avoidable. Aside from that, why is it that the entire community thinks it's OK for men to repeatedly bring children into this world while providing them with only the bare minimum?

So, in this case, I'm not even coming down on this dad, per se. I mean, I have no clue about his situation, what he's done in the past, or what he's planning to do in the future. But I can say that the Black community doesn't expect much out of the world's greatest dads.

Even more appalling is that they chastise women for expecting more, rather than the men for not pulling their weight. Mind you; these are the same people who also shame women for being single mothers in the first place. Let that sink in…

The Bottom Line

As stated, the bar for Black fathers, and fathers in general, is in hell. This is something that many women are well aware of. Nevertheless, responding in this fashion implies you are OK with the status quo, which is also acceptable. But then why is everyone complaining about single mothers ruining the community when they're the only ones actually doing the work?

And if absent fathers are the reason so many children make poor life choices, at what point are we, as a collective, going to address them instead of blaming the women raising them with very little help? Also, why is it OK for fathers to pick and choose how and when they help but not OK for moms to let them know when they're not doing enough?

What's a good Black father to you?

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