INFLUENCE
We are socialized to devalue male and female influence unless it comes from our biological parents. Anything else, we’re told, is deficient. It’s not that kids lack male and female influences, but rather society only values this influence in the context of two parent heterosexual homes.
Many children don’t realize they are lacking a male or female influence until someone else points it out by labeling them deficient. I am reminded of a recent episode of the reality show Basketball Wives wherein Evelyn Lazado suggests that her poor life choices were a result of her not growing up with a father, lacking male influence. I had to ask myself where does this narrative arise? I would suggest that at some point children are taught to feel less than because they lack a parent in the home, and we don’t give them the space to appreciate that influence in other forms such as grand parents or aunts and uncles. A kid can stay with a grandparent, male or female, and society labels them as lacking male and female influence. Where is the father or mother? We write kids off when one or both parents aren’t present in their lives, implying that they can not know masculine or feminine influence. Oftentimes children fulfill the narratives expected of them, and many children act our precisely because we have told them that they lack male or female influence in their lives.
Extended families, biological or self assembled, should be the sites of male and female influence in children’s lives, not just parents. As Toni Morrison wisely stated, “Two parents can’t raise a child any more than one. You need a community — everybody — to raise a child.” My own sister is a single mother raising two children. Society would have you to believe that my niece and nephew lack male influence in their lives because their fathers do not live with their mother, but that is not the case. My father and I both provide my niece and nephew with male influence in their lives on a day-to-day basis. While their fathers aren’t as present as they could be, my niece and nephew do not lack male influence in their lives.
As we move towards including gay people into the privileged institution of marriage let us be mindful that male and female influence are not only found in parents. We must also analyze the role heterosexism plays in suggesting that male and female influence can only come from two parent hetero homes. We have a wealth of kinship and family ties that we can draw upon as we go about providing influences in our children’s lives. Grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, and family friends can all be called upon to ensure that children know male and female influence in their lives. It is time that we do away with the myth that male and female influence can only be rendered unto children by parents in two parent heterosexual homes. An even loftier idea will be to envision a future like Melissa Devlin, “when society is focused on providing kids with a positive and supportive influence not based on gender.
Posted on July 22, 2011, in Critical Thinking and tagged basketball wives, child rearing, childhood, female influence, gender, heterosexism, influence, male influence, socialization, stigma. Bookmark the permalink. 4 Comments.
The biggest male influence in my life was a man I didn’t meet until I was in middle school, and haven’t seen in over 5 years. He saved me sanity in a very real way, and where the stereotype is that women judge men against their father, I judge the men I meet against him. A rumpled, wrinkled old man, in a tweed suit, with a bulbous nose, who took shit from no one, wasn’t afraid to open up about his feelings, and taught me that speaking openly about ‘that which cannot be named’ robs it of it’s power, long before JK Rowling thought up Dumbledore.
I think as society becomes more & more individualized, we lose a lot of support from the extended family. I’ve lived in Zambia and Egypt and noticed how predominant the external family is as a model; but even there it is declining now as the nuclear family takes over.
You wrote,
“As we move towards including gay people into the privileged institution of marriage let us be mindful that male and female influence are not only found in parents.”
I wonder though why we would want to include gay people into an institution that is patriarchal and heteronormative? It is just another form of oppression.
So glad I found your blog!!!
Yu know I dont think I missed out on anything growing up without a father, my father became apart of my life once i was ready to begin it alone w/o parenting, we are on good terms but since i’ve become to know him I know that he would have had nothing to offer me that my mother did not provide, spiritually, mentally and physically, my mother also had alot of male friends, some that drove truck with her, a few long term boyfriends, but even outside of those I believe a whole individual can raise a child to be whole, I believe the saying is, it takes a villiage to raise a child, not it takes a mother and a father
The “deficiency” claim by single parent offspring feeds into patriarchy’s brainwash about the two parent heterosexual family being the only living unit to aspire to. People, Americans specifically, gladly belive the myth because we are always looking to blame someone for our own failings and inadequacies. So what if Evelyn had a father influence, would it have guaranteed her making better decisions? Its not even about male and female [American are so dam# binary thinking] its about masculine and feminine, and a truly evolved man or woman can teach a child how to properly mesh the two without a partner.