Pregnancy
A Single Dad's Story
The stereotype
Ah, stereotypes. Go to the movies these days, or pick up a
copy of People or Time, and it seems that there are exactly three kinds of single fathers. There is the Deadbeat, the sullen thug who makes us feel so
"good"--good because we know we are morally superior to him and the bimbos
with whom he consorts.
The stereotypes lie, of course. Single fatherhood is, in reality, a complex endeavor--probably even more complex than traditional parenting. There is not only the issue of balancing work and kids; there is also the task of negotiating child-rearing with an ex, the vagaries of dating, and the challenge of proving that men aren't all thumbs when it comes to raising kids.
Profile: Tim Sills
For the first 13 years after his marriage broke up in 1984, Tim Sills saw his 3 children only a couple of times each week. In early 1997, though, Sills' middle child, John, was getting Fs, and Sills persuaded his ex that John needed strong male guidance. The 15-year-old eventually moved into his dad's house full-time and raised his GPA from 0.8 to 3.8. Here, Sills, a Portland, Oregon writer/book editor, relates how John's arrival changed everything.
A recipe for responsibility
"The kid moves in, and I have to learn how to cook. I'd been living on peanut butter and beer for years. I didn't even know how to make spaghetti, so I started learning new dishes--hamburgers, scrambled eggs, chicken. I bring him to the thrift store, drop half a paycheck on clothes. I say, "I'll help you with your homework," and it becomes a ritual: every night, we sit down with the books. I knew that he'd turn it around slowly, but I was impatient. For the first time in my life, I was plowing the field for this kid, devoting all my energy to him. I expected some attitude seeds to pop up. But then last fall he brought home this report card on which he'd forged all the grades. I screamed at him--and I shouldn't have. I mean, you have to adjust to a child's pace, and that hasn't been easy. For most of John's life, I've been with him--what?--one-seventh of the time. I'm just now learning his pace, his stride."
Modern-day Dad
"We're finding out who we are together," says Sills. "I used to be a three-beers-a-night guy; now I drink one. Chicks? I'm off the dating circuit these days; I don't want to be out on a date and find out something terrible has happened to my son. Now what matters most is: Am I being a good dad? A lot of it comes down to finding ways to keep life interesting in a dinky family. I don't want us to become like a boring married couple, so we go running on this bluff overlooking the ocean. We buy lizards for John's habitat cages--chameleons, geckos, whatever. And we talk a lot. In a two-person family, the kid doesn't see you interacting with other family members, so I'm always trying to teach him the right way to relate to people, whether it's his brother or a girl he likes in school. I'm like that guy on Kung Fu: "Ah, grasshopper." And I'm trying to work on those feminine qualities he's missing not having a woman around, like compassion."
"He cried once when he didn't make the district championships in wrestling. He lost in overtime, and I let him cry. If it had happened six months earlier, I would've said, 'You're the son of a Vietnam vet; you have to be hard.' But now I knew he had a tender 16-year-old's heart. You're with a kid all the time, and you remember the wonder of being young. And you want your kid to stay 16. You want the sky to be that big forever."
Profile: Richard Hansen
Richard Hansen's wife committed suicide in 1988, shortly after the birth of their fourth son. Ever since, Hansen, a tractor driver who lives in low-income housing in Hillsboro, Oregon, has single-handedly raised four boys, the oldest of whom, 17-year-old Ryan, is an Oregon state boxing champ. Here, with characteristic modesty, Hansen describes the challenges he's faced.
Absorbing pain's punch
"When their mom died, my main goal was just to make sure these guys didn't turn out to be menaces to society," Hansen begins. "But we were living in a really rough neighborhood with a crack house next to us and Ryan was real angry. It got so he'd walk out the door and have to get into a fight.
"I got him into boxing when he was nine, and it mellowed him out real quick. It taught him how to handle his emotions. It gave him discipline because it's so intense. Like this spring, Ryan and his brother were running 3 miles every morning, then working out for 90 minutes in the gym every night, sparring and doing calisthenics and hitting the heavy bag."
"But they were focusing so much on boxing that their grades slid. I got their third quarter report cards, and all four of them were failing. Ryan had gone from Bs to Fs. I blew up--and then I figured out what the problem was. They'd been taking the bus out to the gym, a 90-minute ride. They were supposed to study on the bus, but they didn't. They felt embarrassed; kids would pick fights with them if they studied. So they just slept."
Getting on track
"If there was another parent, maybe she could've driven them to the gym," Hansen continues. "I couldn't. I had to work, and I felt like I'd failed, like I needed to do something drastic. I pulled them from boxing, right away--and it was right before regionals, too. I started making them do their homework every night. I got their school to send me weekly report cards. I signed Ryan up for summer school. He's doing better now. He's been getting Cs and Ds, and he's handing in all his assignments.
But we're just playing catch-up, really. We won't know anything until next year. And if he does pull it around? Well, then maybe I'll hang a heavy bag in the living room. We want to get back into boxing, you know, because it's a family thing. I remember the first time Ryan won the states. He slept on the ride home, and I was just sitting there, driving and thinking, 'That's my kid. I'm proud.'"
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