Deconstructing Fatherhood

by Smitty

Change can be good. The Constitution as initially ratified had glaring flaws. These have been fixed, albeit at a price.
Change for its own sake, in contrast, lays waste to what is good and gives damn-all in return. The symbol "marriage" has been under siege. At least its defenders are living enough to cry foul, which is more than can be said for the victims in the abortion mills.
Recently making waves is Harry Knox, as reported by CNSNews:

A controversial member of President Barack Obama’s faith-based council said that part of the administration’s role in promoting responsible fatherhood should include moving beyond America’s “heteronormative view of fatherhood.”

Putting him in context, it's almost possible that he has a point:

“Responsible fatherhood offers us an immense opportunity to speak to a real need in the country,” said Knox, director of the faith and religion program at the Human Rights Campaign, a homosexual rights group, during the PBS interview broadcast on its Religion & Ethics Newsweekly show.
“It’ll be challenging to do that for instance in ways that are not dismissive of the tremendous gifts of single mothers; not to sort of hold a heteronormative view of fatherhood up as the only model,” said Knox.

I suppose it's the phrase "only model" that's the sticking point.
Really, Knox: an XY chromosomal makeup for the role is an invariant for fatherhood. You can't have that any other way, an more than you can have a marriage composed of other than a male and a female. I like to quote Abe Lincoln in reply to the attempt at implying an alternative Where None Exists:

"How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg."

Knox nearly has a point, that we do not need to go around denigrating single mothers. My father was deployed for such a chunk of my childhood that she was a de facto single mom. God forbid the sad conditions of the Carter Administration return to afflict our military like that again. There are plenty of other women who've done admirable jobs when men decided to get their Springsteen on. However, the sin of sad, overgrown boys is beside the point of defending the crucial institution of fatherhood. Society sinks as spinally deficient males like Knox fail to keep the boat bailed amidst the flood of nonsense.
What is the reward for Knox-ian error? Dr. Helen provides an answer:

Mr. Lewis's account of becoming a father to his three children, begins promisingly. "At some point in the last few decades, the American male sat down at the negotiating table with the American female and -- let us be frank -- got fleeced," he writes.
The poor sucker agreed to take on responsibility for all sorts of menial tasks -- tasks that his own father was barely aware of -- and received nothing in return. If he was hoping for some gratitude, he was mistaken. According to Mr. Lewis: "Women may smile at a man pushing a baby stroller, but it is with the gentle condescension of a high officer of an army toward a village that surrendered without a fight."

Admittedly, I'm still not a father. There are some medical reasons, as well as hope for the future. One way or another, I'll join that elite group. And when I do, I'll gladly do my share of the menial tasks. It's a part of the experience. But I will do it in such a way as to underscore that the heteronormative view of fatherhood is the only model, Mr. Knox. If the daughters want Pride & Prejudice, you know me and the boys are chasing it with The Terminator. Lest they become wasted modern lickspittles instead of men.

Update: The Dead Hand has a more humorous take.