Posted by
The Dutchmeister on Tuesday, August 26, 2008 12:00:00 AM
All of my readers know how I feel about the subject of fatherlessness. Therefore, it is refreshing whenever a woman admits that when children grow up in fatherless homes, it's not always the dad's fault. I gotta give columnist S. Renee Mitchell props for being big enough to admit what modern-day feminists won't and what fathers' advocates like Glenn Sacks have been saying from the beginning: Sometimes, it's the fault of the mothers. After you read this article, you'll agree as I do with Sacks and say "I couldn't have said it better myself."
The Oregonian, Wednesday, August 20, 2008
What I will miss most is my sons' laughter. Next best: hugs and kisses just before bedtime.
This afternoon, my 12-year-old twins fly back to Detroit, Mich., to resume living with their father and stepmother. Our one-year co-parenting experiment turned into a pledge to keep them through high school.
I never thought mothering would be this complicated. Or that I'd have to deliver my homemade nurturing through a postal carrier.
But this is my way of making amends for contributing to the epidemic of children being raised by single parents. I've come to realize: Fatherlessness can sometimes be a result of the mother's choices.
When I made the decision to divorce my children's father and move to Portland when our twins were age 2, I thought I was the only parent my sons, Alex and Zavier, would ever need. I was mistaken.
No matter how much love I poured into my children's hearts, my sons were starving with "father hunger" for the man named Lee, who named them and held them when they were just a few seconds old.
So, about a year ago, I had an epiphany. I decided to let go of what went wrong in the marriage and I shipped my boys off to Detroit, where they were born, to experience puberty through their father's eyes.
Click on the title of the article to read the rest. Thanks to Glenn Sacks for posting it on his blog, and thanks to Ms. Mitchell for her honesty and candor.