South African Study says families shouldn’t aim to have dads living at home

Jul 15, 2018 by Jill

from LifeSite:

A father living at home with his wife to raise their children should not be considered normal, according to a report on fatherhood in South Africa.

“A father living with his biological children on a daily basis should not be seen as a norm to which all families should aspire since it is simply not feasible or desirable in all cases,” declares the State of South Africa’s Fathers 2018 report.

It was published by Sonke Gender Justice, an activist organization promoting LGBTQ and women’s rights in South Africa, and that country’s Human Sciences Research Council.

“There are many types of fathers and many types of fatherhood in [South Africa],” the Sonke Gender Justice organization maintains on its website.

“There are biological fathers, social fathers, gay fathers, straight fathers, young fathers, older fathers. We have self-identified fatherhood, ascribed fatherhood, long-distance fatherhood and proximal fatherhood, to name only a few.”

The report’s authors go so far as to claim it can be a form of prejudice – of classism – to focus on absent fathers.

“The statistic of children’s co-residence with biological fathers is only one measure of the relationship between fathers and children. It is an important measure when considering dual-income, heterosexual, nuclear families since it is likely that children in these families may not be exposed to other sources of fathering,” the report notes.

“But applying this measure to all South African families not only overlooks the social fathering that happens, but presents a negative view of extended families, which are mostly Black.”

Read here