What makes a father? That is the question I asked in a post earlier today, and it is one that Douglas L., a management consultant in Pennsylvania, has been asking for several months now. He is a father. He became one last October when his daughter was born. The baby’s mother was a woman with whom he had what he describes as a “casual” relationship.

“We never dated in the traditional sense,” he explained in an e-mail message. “There were no plans for us to be a couple after our child was born. While I did live with her during the pregnancy, it was mostly to provide her with support and demonstrate that I will be an involved father.”

That is very much what he wants to be. But, he says, everything about law and custom discourages that. Yes, there is likely another side to his story. But that side, of the woman who decides to have and raise a child on her own is one we often hear. His, of a man who is trying his best to stay in his daughter’s life, is one we don’t hear often enough.

Also true is the fact that uncommitted sex is what created this particular mess in the first place. I expect that is what many of you will have to say. But take a step beyond that. The reality is there is a baby girl out there whose father wants to “man up” as he phrases it, and whose mother does not want his presence, for whatever reason. What is a father, a legal system or a society to do?

A Father’s Role

By Douglas L.

As I approach my first Father’s Day, I am still trying to define my role as a father. As with parenting, there are no laws, rules or guidelines to help me, as a father, define and act upon my role. As I have come to learn, the reason for this is ambivalence is because my role is defined by an entity that I can neither control nor influence. So what is this controlling entity? Society? No. Religion? Nope. Biology? Please. The answer . . . the mother of my child.

After I learned that I was going to be a father on March 11, 2009, I wrote a letter to my unborn child promising him/her that I would be the father that I always dreamed I would. To be kind, loving, nurturing, teaching, encouraging, so on and so forth. I embraced my role as “protector” of the mother and my unborn child. I made sure that she ate properly, exercised and did not overexert herself. I went to all the doctors appointments, read the books on baby development and resigned myself to shopping for baby items.

During the pregnancy, the mother and I agreed that breast milk was the way to go. I had done enough research to know that it was the best form of food and most importantly, for me at least, it was cheap. The only other agreements we made were the baby’s name, that the mom would have a natural childbirth, and that she would bring our child to work with her. Other than that, we decided to take things as they come.

The last trimester was particularly trying for the mother. She had difficulty breathing, had a gestational diabetes scare and gained a lot of weight. I look upon this helplessly knowing that there was little that I could do outside of being as supportive as I could. On Oct. 19, 2009, two days after our baby shower, her mother, who was concerned about her hacking and inability to breathe, brought the mother to the emergency room. Diagnosis – an enlarged thyroid that had pressed against her windpipe to the point it was the size of cocktail straw. The windpipe is normally about one-quarter-inch wide.

So we were given a choice of which day we wanted to have thyroid surgery – Wednesday or Thursday. And one other choice — have a C-section or try to wait. Our baby was 35 weeks and 6 days old; we opted for the C-section and surgery for that Thursday.

I am a confident, some would say arrogant, individual. I had no worries that I could take care of both mother and baby after the two surgeries. I did that by focusing on the things I could control – making sure our daughter was loved, nurtured and secure, letting the doctors take care of the medicine.

Our daughter, E. was born at 9:22 a.m. Then, while the thyroid surgery went forward, I followed her bassinet up to the nursery, gave her her first kiss and hug, took her first photos and bottle. I also received my first shock. The name on E.’s cart had the mother’s last name, not mine. It was the law, the nurse said, dismissively. Not a good start to defining the role of a father, I think.

I spent the day in the nursery with E., until the mother was moved to her recovery room on the surgical recovery floor. When the nurses gave their okay, I brought E. down to meet her mother. Knowing that the first meeting between parent and child is special, I stepped back and to let the mother hold and bond with E. I also brought the formula so that mom could feed E. That was the beginning of the end of my understanding of my role as a father.

The first roadblock was the lactation consultant; the bottle I had given E. that morning was the last time I would feed my daughter. Next was the paperwork. The nurse handed me two forms for my signature, and she handed the mother eight. Mine were the acknowledgment of paternity form and a document asking about my background – age, educational level, profession, my cultural status (I don’t like the term “race”). That was it.

The mother’s paperwork included health care information, legal notice of her rights and responsibilities, assistance to secure child support, the birth-certificate form that did not need my signature. Including my name on the birth certificate is optional; it’s contingent on my signing the acknowledgment of paternity form and waiting 60 days before it would take effect.

Our child was born in Pennsylvania, where a man is called a “putative father” until that 60-day time period elapses. And that “acknowledgment of paternity form” does not really give me any rights, just the responsibility of financial support. Well, it does say, “… the father should have all rights and duties regarding the child as if he had been married to the mother at the time of the child’s birth,” but in the months afterward I have not found an attorney who can explain to me that that means. Apparently, a father’s rights are undefined and can mean whatever you want it to mean for your purposes.

For the rest of the hospital stay, the mother took over parental duties, with the hospital’s staff’s encouragement. My role was bystander, doing what the mother needed me to do. In the span of two days, I went from providing and caring for my child to being a replaceable helper. I could do nothing unless supervised by or invited to by the mother. I could not even take my child for a walk in the hall, which is secured, without the mother’s approval. This is not a positive development.

I plowed ahead, setting up the mother’s house with a nursery. The mother informed me she was moving to her mother’s house to recuperate. Just like that, she can decide where we live without consulting me or having a discussion with me. My role, pack up the stuff and move it to her mother’s house.

You can guess the rest. I tried to assert what I believed my role as a father should be – a primary figure in E.’s life rather than a secondary figure. The beginning of the end was on a nice fall day and I wanted to take the baby for a walk. She had recently been nursed so that was not an issue; however, the mother felt that she needed to be there with us. As if I were going to do something inappropriate or could not handle a situation. So she came along, and eventually elbowed me to take control of the stroller. What then could I do? If I responded physically, off to jail I would go. If I let her have the stroller without incident, I would cede my rights to make decisions for my daughter. I reluctantly chose option No. 2.

Not longer afterward I moved out. I filed for joint custody, because our child needs both of us equally. We can’t be equal if I have “wait” for the mother to “decide” when I can see my daughter.

I understood that I was a disadvantage. Because E. was nursing, equal custody was physically impossible right away. But in a way that’s irrelevant because the system is anything but immediate. I filed for joint custody on Dec. 15, 2009, and was given a hearing for May 24, 2010. In that time I saw E. only 16 times for a total of 67 hours.

Now back to my original question, who defines the role of a father? Society says that it is the mother. Her influence begins from the time she announces that she is pregnant. She determines if the father goes to her prenatal appointments. She controls whether he is actively involved in talking to, rubbing, and supporting the child while in the womb. Once the child is born, she is the one who determines the type and amount of activity the father has with the child.

And the law? Only one state specifically says that an unmarried mother has sole legal and physical custody of a child; most other states operate under the same paradigm, but they don’t state it outright. Every state is concerned that men pay child support, with no provisions put in place to help us, to allow us, to support our children emotionally or socially.

What should men do in the face of this ambiguity? Should we stay or leave? I am trying to stay. The proposal the mother gave to the court mediator says I can spend Tuesdays, Thursdays and every other Saturday with her, from 5 to 7 p.m., until E. has finished breastfeeding. It also says that the mother should be present during those hours.

I am going to make a counter proposal. I’m not yet sure what it should say.