Fathers and Druthers

Dads Are Still Saddled With Detached Image

So how was Father's Day for you? Did you get a new tie and a Sinatra record? Oh, you got a game for your Wii and the new Death Cab for Cutie? Cool. Pretty great to be treated like a king after a long week at the office, right? What, your wife's got the full-time job? No, it's your partner, Fred, who does? Still, family's first and it's a great day for . . . Your ex got full custody and you spent the day pretending it was any other Sunday? Sorry to bring up a sore subject. So remind me again: What exactly was it we were celebrating a couple of days ago?

Fatherhood isn't just challenging; it's changing. It's probably been changing ever since Adam had to confront his sons' challenging behavior, every generation doing it a little differently. But some ideas of what a father is have hung on pretty tenaciously: He's a provider; he's a role model. Here are some others: He's not big on expressing love; he's probably off working somewhere during the piano recital; he can barely boil water or wash his own clothes, so don't even think of leaving the kids alone with him.

From these various roles and expectations has emerged a disparate group of organizations and loose affiliations that add up to what's been called the Fathers Movement. It comprises fathers of many stripes, from young males preparing for the role of father to fathers of grown children still struggling with the relationship between parent and child.

Any good movement needs its grievances, and front and center in the Fathers Movement are the inequities of family law. I imagine that within a happy marriage most men put up with that inept-dad stereotype: It seems harmless enough, and it might even get you out of a few chores. But it doesn't look so harmless when you're standing in family court getting treated as if you're Homer Simpson.

The wide acceptance of no-fault divorce in the United States and the spike in the divorce rate in the '70s brought about a number of groups supporting men going through divorce. A primary function of these groups was to aid fathers in custody issues, where courts tended to favor the mother. Such groups are still very active today, leading among them the American Coalition for Fathers and Children. This group's initiatives include a shared-parenting petition that states: "Children thrive with the active involvement of both parents. Children and parents should be encouraged to spend substantial time with each other regardless of the parents' present marital status. The undersigned recognize that absent issues of abuse, neglect or abandonment, social and government policy must be structured in such a way as to promote and maximize the opportunity of all parents to contribute to the social, emotional, intellectual, physical, moral and spiritual development of their children."

Fathers' rights have been a larger part of the national conversation in Britain. Families Need Fathers, founded in 1974, is careful to avoid the angry and combative tone of many fathers' rights groups, and it set in motion fair-minded changes in the law that extended parental responsibility to unmarried fathers who signed a child's birth certificate.

Another British group, Fathers 4 Justice, is like the rowdy younger brother of Families Need Fathers. It has drawn attention to legal inequities with high-profile stunts such as storming the Lord Chancellor's lobby with 200 Father Christmases and putting guys dressed as Batman and Robin on the roof of the Royal Courts of Justice for three days. (The group paid the price for such tactics in 2006, drawing heavy criticism when a newspaper claimed that people linked to it were hatching a plot to kidnap the youngest son of Tony Blair, who was then prime minister. The founder of Fathers 4 Justice called the reputed plot "grotesque" and suspended the group's operations for several months; it is now back in business.)

To date, our shores haven't seen anything as high-profile as that. But give it time. For the moment the Fathers Movement is at that most 21st-century American stage: in conferences. This November, the 13th At-Home Dads Convention will take place in Sacramento. The agenda is to be announced, but the basketball, hockey and wine-tasting sessions are already scheduled. The weekend before last, Philadelphia hosted the National Fatherhood Festival. The event's mission statement addressed its attendees: "We were once defined only by our work ethic, now we are defined by [the] rise and fall of the next generation. We thank you for breaking the cycle and stereotype of fathers in America." Panels included "The Busy Dad: Juggling Work, Spouse, Home and Children," "False Abuse Allegations," "The Truth About Child Support" and "Discipline and Structure Without Using a Belt." You can rearrange the titles like refrigerator-magnet poetry to make your own troubled narrative of modern fatherhood.

Add to these groups the once-ubiquitous Promise Keepers, various religious organizations promoting a greater role for fathers and even the old Iron John crowd from the '90s Men's Movement, and you see something forming: a lot of different fathers in very different circumstances, some working for practical and immediate goals, others looking toward improved long-term outcomes for their children.

So far, what the Fathers Movement lacks is a unified front, a single identity to bring together the concerns of dads looking to change their custody rights, dads staying home with kids, gay dads just trying to be recognized as dads -- heck, even dads just asking for a couple of weeks of paternity leave. You each have your own conference, your own Web site and your own grievances. Isn't it time to get in touch with your Inner Coach and remember that there is no "I" in "team"?

But until then, what was the point of Sunday's exercise? It's not the labor-and-delivery angle of fatherhood, that's for sure. Aren't we celebrating the effort put in afterward, the trouble taken? If you were an anonymous sperm donor or someone who chose to play no part in your child's life, wait for your own holiday (though I wouldn't hold your breath). And in our modern moment, that effort has to be defined beyond Little League coaching and piloting the car on the summer vacation. Maybe you're a father who feels he's been unfairly excluded from helping to raise his child or just a dad who thinks it's a little creepy that we can't make out any father at all in "The Cat in the Hat."

Finally, it's the effort to change what's given rise to those situations that makes the difference. That's what the cards and the gifts were about.

Now go out and earn them.

Mark Trainer is working on "Bad Daddies," a collection of short stories. Comments:health@washpost.com.