Well after a wild and well-spent weekend, both my kids are home sick.
I’d promised my little girl that Saturday we could go to Thermopolis, Wyoming. Thermopolis as the name suggests, is a town built around natural hot springs. My children’s favorite park has water slides and large pools filled with warm mineral water.
Next day they wanted to go swimming at the local rec center. So a great time was had by all.
Monday morning they’re vomiting, coughing and complaining of headaches. I keep them home from school. The girl installs herself in front of the television, big brother retires to bed with his computer.
How nice to know he’ll have a profession he can practice if he’s ever disabled (said Daddy, voice dripping sarcasm).
These days I’m working out of home so I don’t have to worry about checking up on them constantly.
On the other hand my writing schedule is shot and in the midst of running to the store for ginger ale (settles the stomach) and cucumbers (for my daughter the picky eater) their mother emails with links to articles about a new and ominous enterovirus that’s going around.
“Going around” these days means a total of about a thousand kids over a ten-state area have contracted it, a handful seriously. This is not what I’d call a pandemic but it’s enough for a journalist to view with alarm.
So I’m late with my column, have just made my second trip to the grocery store in 30 minutes and have just noticed that suspicious feeling of stuffiness in the sinuses on one side of my face.
Well here I am, about to spend another not very productive day out of the six months I’ve rationed myself for writing projects and looking up statistics about guys in the same boat.
The first thing I found out was, I was wrong about how many of “us” there are. By “us” I mean single fathers. I had thought 17 percent of single-parent households were headed by single dads.
Nope. According to Pew Research Center, a source I trust because they often come up with results they don’t like, of single-parent households 24 percent are headed by dads.
Out of all households with minor children, single dads head eight percent as of 2011, up from one percent in 1960.
In raw numbers that’s about 2.6 million, up from 300,000 in 1960.
During that same period single-mother households increased from 1.9 million in 1960, to 8.6 million in 2011.
Pew said, “Single fathers are more likely than single mothers to be living with a cohabiting partner (41% versus 16%). Single fathers, on average, have higher incomes than single mothers and are far less likely to be living at or below the poverty line—24% versus 43%. Single fathers are also somewhat less educated than single mothers, older and more likely to be white.”
Well let’s see. Living with a cohabiting partner – no, and it ain’t gonna happen. Any lady I bring home will be thoroughly vetted. Till then there’s a fire wall between my kids and anyone I may date. Any day now. Line forms to the right.
Oh, and did I mention dates have to end early enough for me to tuck my kids in? No coming home at 1 p.m.
Income and poverty line?
Well since I’m currently working at home on a highly speculative literary venture I have no income, so poverty line.
Pfaugh! We don’t act poor or feel poor. Sometimes we’re broke though.
Education? Masters degree.
Older? Check. I could be their grandfather. A fact they tease me about often.
White? Well yes, unless you go by the “one known drop” rule.
So what else do we know about single-dad households?
Virtually nothing.
We know the effects of single-mother headed households. A generation of young men more prone to failure in school and in life in every significant metric: education, prison, drug use, divorce, etc.
This is NOT to denigrate the huge number of single moms doing a great job under difficult circumstances. I know many of them, and as an honorary single mom have been part of their support circles/child care collectives. But there’s not a one of them who wouldn’t tell you they wish it were different.
But single dads are flying blind. As best I can tell there is little to no research as to parenting outcomes. Perhaps because up to recently there hasn’t been a large enough sample size.
How wonderful! My kids and I are participating in cutting-edge research.
Pfffffffffffff! (Bronx cheer.)