by Anna Machin
Simon, dad to Daisy (six) and Bill (five)
Until very recently, the prospect of becoming a father was remote for the majority of gay men. The attitude of society to gay adoption and the limit on access to assisted fertility, combined with the erroneous belief that children were best raised in the bosom of the heterosexual nuclear family, meant that, for many men, realizing their sexuality meant coming to terms with never being a parent. However, in some countries, as attitudes have changed and hurdles have been removed, it is now a very real possibility for gay men to become parents – having originally abandoned the fathering identity, they need to pick it back up, dust it off and assume it. Adrian’s journey is typical:
I have always wanted children. I remember telling my friend when I was fourteen or fifteen that I was gay [and that] the biggest issue for me was, ‘Oh god, gay people don’t have children.’ That was always a big black cloud over my head. And then, as you get older, you realize that it is a possibility, actually. So, I have always had a very strong pull towards being a parent. I think . . . early on it was a bit like, ‘I can’t leave this earth without another part of me on it! I can’t just die out!’ But now that is not part of it.
Adrian, dad to Judy (seven)
For the gay fathers I have worked with, adopting the ‘dad’ identity was sometimes difficult, as there are few examples or models of gay parenting to follow and many find it difficult to reconcile their identity with that of the overtly heterosexual persona of the father. Combined with this, announcing to the world that you are going to be a parent does not necessarily come with the overwhelmingly positive response that heterosexual couples have come to expect.
But the gay father does have one massive advantage in the identity stakes, as compared to a heterosexual man: his role is less bound by gender. In the heterosexual relationship, society has decreed there is a mother and a father and these roles, and all that society associates with them, are defined by gender. But in the gay parenting relationship, roles are much more fluid, and the part someone plays can be decided based on what someone is good at or prefers, rather than gender. Within the UK, the number of gay fathers is still very small but those who I have interviewed have used this flexibility to construct their own roles. For Simon and his husband Calum, this has meant following a traditional heterosexual model, where Calum is the main full-time wage-earner and Simon has enthusiastically adopted, in his words, the ‘mum’s role’:
I feel like – obviously, it is all culture and gender stuff, but – I feel like a mum because I am the stay-at-homer. And I pick them up, and they come to me in the night. I am the one they usually come to for nurture and comfort and every little thing. I feel like a mum.
Simon, dad to Daisy (six) and Bill (five)
In contrast, Adrian and Noah have exploited the freedom of their non-gendered situation to be true co-parents, unaffected by any cultural norms regarding the division of labour or the promotion of mum as the primary parent.
We have gone through the process together. We brought her home . . . and we got settled on our own. It was very much us together on a level, getting to know that baby. It wasn’t like, ‘Oh, you have had nine months of bonding with her in your belly and I feel a bit on the outside.’
Adrian, dad to Judy (seven)
For the modern gay Western father, the flexibility afforded by the newness of gay parenting can make becoming an involved dad considerably easier. Without centuries of culture and tradition, gay fathers can define their role anew.
* * *
It is an undeniable fact that becoming a father changes you. But these changes begin long before you get to hold your newborn in your arms. As your partner’s pregnancy progresses, evolution has seen to it that your hormone levels synchronize with those of your partner and your personalities align; and as you touch, talk and sing to the bump, the powerful bonding hormones oxytocin and dopamine begin their job of motivating you to form an attachment to your unborn child – a job made much easier by your powerful imagination. Just before birth, your testosterone level falls and your personality alters, your drive to be extraverted, to look outside the family for stimulation, declines and your openness to new experiences and close social interactions increases. You are being primed to father and to do so from within a team with your partner – a team that has shared goals and a shared vision about what they want their family to be. You are being prepared to become a dad.
And the real-world implications of all this science are these: if you are sitting out the nine months of pregnancy, then there is an opportunity to be seized. The work you put into bonding with your baby now will see you reap the rewards a thousand-fold once your baby is born. So however silly it may feel, try and have a conversation with the bump; talk to it, sing to it, touch it. Read it the complete works of Chaucer if that is your thing, just let it hear your voice. Try to imagine who is in there. What will they be like, look like? What will you do together and what sort of father will you be? Take the time now to have a conversation, uninterrupted by the demands of a newborn, with your partner, your family and friends about what life post-baby will be like and how you might fit into it. It is normal to be worried about the changes that are coming, but if worry becomes anxiety then talk about your thoughts and fears to those closest to you, or the health and social care professionals who are there to support you, or seek out the anonymous support of an online forum. There is a list of helpful links at the end of this book. Remember that looking after yourself now means that you will be fully available once your baby is here to dedicate yourself to your new role, your new family and your new life.
CHAPTER THREE
The Importance of Being Dad
It’s Not Just About Biology
The Nāyar are a high-ranking caste from the Kerala region of India. Before puberty, a girl is married to an older man of the same or higher caste and then swiftly divorced. When the girl reaches childbearing age, she takes a number of lovers, any of whom could be the biological fathers of her children. However, while the girl designates these men as ‘visiting husbands’, the men regard the relationship as little more than that of concubine and client. As a consequence, they accept no responsibility for their progeny and, to ensure legitimacy, the children are deemed by the family to be those of the ex-husband. However, as he made for the hills long ago, a male relative of the woman – usually her mother’s brother – accepts the position of ‘social father’ and takes on the role of teacher and protector. What could possibly explain this – to Western eyes, very unusual – arrangement?
The Nāyar are matrilineal. That is, power and inheritance travel down the female line, albeit still in the hands of the matriline’s male members. Being a high-ranking caste, the Nāyar are concerned that their position is not diminished by the haemorrhaging of wealth and power to another lineage, as represented by the biological father’s family. So, their society has devised this wonderful system that ensures biological dad provides his genes and is then removed from the picture, and that all children – themselves a valuable asset to the family due to future marriage endowments and labour – remain within the control of the matriline but still have a vital father figure in their lives.
Fathers are an essential component of all human cultures. By this I am not referring to their role in reproduction – you don’t need a book to tell you they are essential for the creation of human life – but their role within the family and wider society. Within the West, we privilege the position of the biological father and find it difficult to comprehend anyone else occupying this special role. But unlike mothers, whose role is largely dictated by the strictures of their biology – they are necessary to at least carry the developing baby, if not feed it – the identity of the best person to step into the fathering role is considerably more fluid. This means that in many societies the role of the father is not necessarily tied to biological relatedness, nor is it necessarily limited to one man. It is the multiple influences of history, ideology, culture and la
w mixed with the evolutionary imperative to ensure the survival of one’s genes that defines who the father is. The result of this rather complicated combination of factors is that the role of the father is wonderfully diverse around the globe.
In this chapter, I want to take a tour of the world’s fathers, to learn who gets to carry the coveted title of ‘dad’. You may ask why the lives of fathers around the world should matter to us in the West. Wouldn’t our time be better spent supervising homework, cleaning the fridge or catching up on that boxset rather than taking on board the experiences of men in some remote tribe in the Congo? Be assured, your time will be well spent. There are two reasons why our paternal cousins should be of interest to us. Firstly, fatherhood in the West is not the monolithic behaviour that we at first believe it to be. Yes, we have absorbed the nuclear family message and now picture it as our norm, but there have always been significant exceptions to this norm – look at step- and adoptive families. And as societies become more liberal and assisted fertility techniques ever more advanced, who answers to the name ‘dad’ is becoming ever more diverse. As a consequence, there is much that fathers from other cultures can teach us both in attitude and behaviour. Secondly, it is to provide reassurance. In many cultures, our obsession with biological relatedness would provoke profound confusion. In these societies, dad is the guy who steps up and gets the job done, and whether or not he has a genetic relationship with the child is really of little consequence. If you fulfil the role of the father, then you get the name and the valuable recognition of your society. For the increasing number of men who may not have a biological link to their child, I hope that these lessons from your fellow ‘social’ fathers are of help.
Over the millennia that have passed since human fatherhood evolved, our ancestors have had to endure many changes in their environment and fortunes that have threatened their survival. They have battled with sabre-toothed cats, endured extremes of temperature change as ice ages swept across the globe, travelled across unexplored and inhospitable lands and battled for supremacy with competing species of hominin. This placed immense pressure on ancestral parents as they fought to protect their children from these new climatic, predatory and environmental threats. Our ancestors survived, and humans have thrived, because we were able to respond to these threats by adapting our behaviour, our culture and, uniquely, our environment. Indeed, we are still doing so today, and because mum is bound up in the energetic exertions of pregnancy and childbirth, it is the father’s behaviour that must change swiftly to adapt to these challenges and ensure the survival of his family. And at times this can mean that the best man to be ‘dad’ is not necessarily the one who was there at conception.
Consider the Western father living in the UK, Europe or North America today. If he is typical, he will be keen to be as involved with his children as is possible, his goal the status of true co-parent. He wants to be there to support, teach, nurture and practically care for his child alongside his partner. But why has he chosen this role? Maybe he has adopted it for a personal reason, because he wants to actively reject the more distant parenting of his father. Or because he has been strongly influenced by the constant media focus on the celebrity dad; the David Beckhams and Brad Pitts of this world seem capable of balancing considerable professional success with model good looks and impeccable fathering skills. It is certainly the case that this move towards co-parenting is due in part to a change in society’s beliefs about fathering, driven by a growing understanding of the key influence fathers have on their children’s development. But this is far from being the whole story. Colin’s experience might give you a hint:
I had two weeks’ paternity leave and I think you should get a lot more than that, because it doesn’t just stop after two weeks. Your partner still needs your help, your baby still needs your help as well, so I think men should have more time off work for paternity leave . . . Because Julie had a spinal leak, we had a tough time and I was thrown in at the deep end for two weeks because she couldn’t do very much, so I was doing everything and then, when I went back to work, she was thrown in at the deep end and I was like, ‘Where’s my child?’ I was used to doing everything and she wasn’t there.
Colin, dad to Freya (six months)
When my mother gave birth to me in the 1970s, it was usual for a mother to remain in hospital for at least a week after birth, regardless of how straightforward her experience had been. A high midwife-to-mother ratio meant that she would be fully supported in learning to breastfeed and care for her newborn, and her baby would be taken to the nursery every night to enable her to build up her sleep reserves before returning home. Today, the picture is very different. In the UK, a straightforward birth often results in mum and baby being discharged on the same day as delivery. Not for them the gentle introduction to motherhood. Due to the need to move for work, many of us now don’t live near our parents and extended family, meaning they are not available to fill the void left by the absence of midwife care. As a result, the only person who can step in and help care for the baby while mum is recovering is dad. Can you hear an echo from 500,000 years ago? Dad has again had to rely on the potential for flexibility in his role to meet the needs of his new family, to step into the breach and ensure his child survives and thrives.
Survival really is the key focus for fathers, and we will talk about how this is achieved throughout a child’s life later on. But at the very basic level, a parent’s job is to focus on the survival of their genes from the moment of conception, and human fathers are no different. In the West, it is generally the biological dad who steps up when such survival is threatened, but in other countries the very real risk that the biological father may not survive to see his children grow has led to a very different solution to the fathering conundrum.
The Aché of Paraguay in South America are distinguished in the anthropological world by two main characteristics. Firstly, they are a hugely violent society who are almost permanently at war with their neighbours. Secondly, they exhibit a relatively rare form of fathering that results in children having more than one dad. Relatively common in South America but absent elsewhere, this method of parenting means that a child doesn’t just have a single biological dad but has a number of ‘social’ fathers as well. A social father is one who takes on the role of the father, and everything that implies, in a child’s life, but isn’t involved in the act of conception. So, he can be genetically related – say, mum or dad’s brother or uncle – but is not the biological father. Within the Aché society, both men and women are encouraged to be promiscuous, and it is often the case that a woman will sleep with all the brothers of a single family, among many others. Importantly, the Aché do not believe that conception is a single event, but one that lasts for a significant period before a child is born. For them, the biological father is the man who had sex with the mother the closest to the point at which she stopped having periods – or the point at which they recognize that ‘the blood has ceased to flow’. However, every man who has had sex with the mother in the year before the child is born is also deemed to be a father. Adults within the community will distinguish between all these different men so they know how the land lies – it’s rather like keeping track of a very complicated scenario in a daytime soap – but significantly the child will refer to them all by the same term. The labels different men adopt indicate their role in the process of conception – the miare is the ‘one who put it in’ (our biological dad), the peroare the ‘one who mixed it’, the momboare the ‘one who spilled it out’ and the bykuare the ‘one who provided its essence’. It is a truly collaborative act. Initially, the man identified as the biological father (the miare) will be expected to adopt the role of the primary father, although how this role plays out is very different from the West. Not for him the focus on care and emotional engagement that characterizes the modern Western father. Rather, the overriding responsibility for this dad is to prevent his family being killed in the frequent intertribal raids that blight his vill
age. The consequence of such a role choice is that he is at significant risk of dying and leaving his children fatherless.
The rate of mortality among Aché men is astonishingly high, and children who do not have a father are left unprotected and at a significant risk of being killed by invading tribes. Conquering males do not want the burden of raising another man’s child and infanticide is common. It is with this very real threat of death that the need for more than one father becomes clear. For it is with the death of the primary father that the secondary or social fathers step up to take on the fathering role and protect the children. Research by social anthropologists Kim Hill and Magdalena Hurtado – who spent many years living alongside the Aché – found that children who have secondary fathers have an 85 per cent chance of survival, compared to only 70 per cent for those children who simply have a single dad. This is a significant difference. On average children will have two fathers, but it is not unknown for a single child to have ten. So, the Aché do not have an ideological belief in free love, but rather their focus on promiscuity is a pragmatic survival tactic. By confusing paternity, men are encouraged to protect the tribe’s children on the off chance that they are the biological father. And the man who has the most potential for being the real biological father puts up with sharing his partner with many men – an act apparently in direct opposition to the evolutionary drive to ensure paternity – because in a war-torn world it gives his genes the best chance of survival.