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It’s not every day you see a rich man with a poor man’s social problem—and the child of a rich man facing a risk associated with poor children in America. But that’s what is playing out now with John Edwards’ paternity drama.
Edwards first denied and then admitted that he is the father of a child conceived during a relationship that never had much chance for a long term future. He faced a moral dilemma much more common among low income fathers who have moved on from a relationship and then face the decision of whether to commit to that child—or to keep on moving down the road.
The big difference is that middle and upper income men are usually married before becoming fathers, and if they divorce, they are in a different psychological, cultural, and legal world than low income fathers. Psychologically, because they have lived with and bond with their children before the marriage ended, they usually want to stay involved as fathers. (Nowadays many divorced fathers even fight for equal parenting time.) The cultural norms expect these middle class married fathers to stay committed to their children after a divorce, without the excuses of past generations. And divorce brings legal arrangements that support fathers rights and obligations. Not that some divorced fathers don’t abandon their children, and of course some mothers block divorced fathers from being involved, but many forces now push divorced fathers to stay on the job.
Bottom line: It’s easier for men to do the right thing by a child when they have been married to the mother and lived with her and the child for some years. They feel like fathers, and others expect them to be good fathers.
But for low income men, especially in urban communities where nonmarital birth rates are in the 70-90% range, it’s common to have had little or no time living as a family with the child and the mother. Although the national Fragile Families Study has shown that many unmarried new fathers want to commit to the mother and child, especially when they are all living together, nevertheless children in low income communities face a high risk of not having a father who recognizes them and stays around to help raise them. Sometimes the mother does not want these men in the lives of their children, especially if they cannot contribute financially, and often times the legal system enforces child support but not access to time with the child. Many of these men were abandoned by their own fathers.
Bottom line: Powerful forces conspire against a committed father-child relationship in low income communities. The biggest loser is the child, but the father himself has a truncated life if he does not act as a father to a child he brought into the world.
John Edwards resolved his moral dilemma by doing the right thing by his child. He acknowledged paternity and promised to support his child financially and emotionally. He is paying to relocate the mother and baby to North Carolina (two hours from where he lives) so that he can be involved in the life of the child and be a coparent with a mother who is willing to move across the country to make that happen. That’s the good ending of a story of reckless infidelity.
Now Elizabeth Edwards, if she stays married to John, will face her own moral challenge of supporting her husband’s active fathering of a child conceived in a betrayal of trust. The right decision is clear—the child needs a father—but the human impulse is to view investment in the other woman’s child as another loss for Elizabeth and her family.
This is not just a sociological issue for me. I’ve been involved with a group of low income, non-custodial fathers for over two years. I’ve seen them struggle to do the right thing with their children—and without any of the economic resources of Edwards. (I wonder if the mother of his baby would have been willing to support Edwards’ relationship with the child if he had been poor. It would be the right thing to do, but far harder.) I know one father who has apologized to the three women he abandoned after they became parents together, and asked them to allow him back into the lives of his children. To their great credit, all said yes—not because they wanted a relationship with him but because they knew their children needed that relationship. He is now paying children support and seeing his children regularly. And he has joined a group of responsible urban fathers who are working to encourage all fathers (and mothers) to put the children’s needs first. The vision of the Citizen Father Project is to change the image of manhood and fatherhood in the urban community and beyond.
John Edwards deserves our recognition for accepting his responsibility. But the real heroes are the men with few economic resources, many of whom did not have fathers in their own lives, who are stepping up as healthy, active fathers and resisting the siren call from the world around them to keep on moving down the road.
