Tuesday, August 24, 2004

Let's face facts: a good number of the stories I note in this space are about middle- and upper-class men making the laudable decision to stay home. There's scant media attention to men on the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum who are seeking to be active, involved fathers.

That's what sets the cover story in Sunday's New York Times Magazine apart. In it, longtime Times reported Jason DeParle chronicles the fatherhood of Ken Thigpen, a one-time drug dealer who now dotes on his two-year-old during the day and delivers pizza in the evening to fight economic disaster. Though the story never comes right out and says it, Ken is an at-home dad. His pizza gig runs in the evenings, and he is the primary caretaker for most of the day, while his child's mother is working at a nursing home.

It's a complex story (and long) and is excerpted from a new book by DeParle, but it raises some interesting points about welfare reform and life near the poverty line. The fact that DeParle takes on fatherhood is noteworthy. Despite growing attention to the question of how to make socioeconomically disadvantaged men into better fathers, I haven't seen much on how service groups or social policies are working. DeParle doesn't claim to offer a scientific perspective on the question, but his anecdotes describe what success could look like, even if it's not clear what sets Ken apart in his willingness (and passion) to be a good father. Such attention to the question of how to get fathers involved is welcome, and the story is a reminder that getting professionals to consider active fatherhood is only part of the solution.

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