I’ve been a high school teacher for nearly a quarter of a century. During that time I’ve seen the effects on children who live without the regular and sustained influence of caring, grown-up men. It is a mess. There is no other way to describe to it. It is a harmful, hurtful, angry mess. Of course, there are happy, well-adjusted children (and adults) who have lived without fathers. But an absent father leaves a special kind of hole in a person’s life.

I decided long ago that I didn’t want children. Sometimes my students ask me why. They assure me that I would have been a “good” father, and that I should get busy solving this problem right away. They assure me that just because I’m over fifty, I can still make up for lost time. I explain to them that being with kids for forty five minutes a day is nothing at all like being a father. I explain to them that being a father requires a lifelong commitment, a willingness to put a child’s best interests first above your own. I explain that unless you are a hundred percent certain that you want a child, you probably shouldn’t have one. I explain that neither my wife nor I ever heard the “bell” go off announcing that we wanted a child.

My students seem to find this puzzling, if not downright “selfish,” the label society reflexively applies to anyone who chooses not to have kids.

My wife and I certainly are selfish, if you define that word as caring about both our own happiness and that of any kid born into this world. We’ve always felt that kids deserve to be the center of their parents’ lives. Their parents should give up things for them— not reluctantly but joyfully. They should want to sit by their sickbeds, and see what their homework looks like, and insist on feeding them healthy things. If they don’t feel this way, then they don’t have “the calling.” There’s no law that says everyone has to have kids. There are already lots of kids, and too many of them aren’t getting the attention they need to grow into fully-developed human beings. My wife and I are able to give attention to kids; they just happen to be other people’s. We’ve tried to be selfish—responsibly selfish.

As Father’s Day approaches, my wish for my male students is that they will grow up to fulfill the responsibilities of parenthood. I hope they do a better job than my generation (many of whom are their parents) did. And if they’re not certain that they want to be fathers, then I would strongly encourage them not to make babies. In this way, too, they will honor both fatherhood and childhood.

 
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