Single fathers: doing it all

Ebony, June, 1995

IT was the last thing 30-year-old Eric Gray of Philadelphia expected to happen. A product of a single-parent home himself, he was determined to provide a better example for his child. But when his wife decided she wanted out of marriage and motherhood, the young father stared fate in the face and accepted his role as the sole provider of a young son who was still in diapers.

It never dawned on Clarence Williamson of Atlanta that he, too, would one day be a single dad. The solid relationship he shared with his wife of 25 years was a partnership. But after valiantly fighting a losing battle against breast cancer, his wife died, and Williamson was left with the daunting task of rearing a teenage daughter and a seven-year-old son.

Olton Drake decided life was just too short to wait for that someone special to begin a family. The 53-year-old yearned for the sounds of youthful pitter-patter, laughter and mischief to fill his spacious Los Angeles home. So seven years ago, the food service supervisor created his own family by adopting two sons.

To let White media tell it, fathers like Gray, Williamson and Drake don't exist. Yet, recent statistics suggest that a growing number of Black men who are divorced, widowed or who have never married are confronting the economic and social challenges of single parenthood and are willingly providing a loving and nurturing environment for their children.

On any given day, single fathers like Williams, Gray and Drake, and other solo dads, such as Allan Johnson of Chicago and Bill Butler of Seat Pleasant, Md., cook, clean, do dishes, potty-train, comb hair and perform other family chores without the help of a mate.

In 1983, more than 6 million households in the U.S. with children under age 18 were headed by single parents, according to the Census Bureau. But fewer than 3 percent of those homes (127,000) were headed by Black men (1.8 million homes that same year were headed by Black women). By 1993, single Black men leading households alone rose to 16 percent.

Shifts in family values, economic stresses and personal crises have all affected the changing structure of the traditional family Add changing gender roles and expectations about who should legitimately head the household, and it becomes clear why an increasing number of homes are headed by men. "With the changing roles of women, there have also been changing roles and expectations for men," explains Dr. Walter Allen, a sociology professor at UCLA. "So the old notion that if the family breaks up, the children should automatically go to the women is open for question and re-examination."

Other family experts agree. "In the past, we expected the men to go out and work, and the women to stay at home and nurture the children," says Costella Tate, director of the Spirit of Excellence Parent Empowerment Project, a division of the National Black Child Development Institute in Washington, D.C. "What's happening now is that men are saying, `I care about children. I can raise children, too.'"

There was no question about where young Tysha Butler would stay when the relationship between her mother and father ended. "I think all parties wanted her to stay here," 35-year-old Bill Butler of Seat Pleasant, Md., says of the agreement he and his ex-girlfriend made about their daughter's living arrangements. "It was just some bond between me and Tysha. I had always wanted a little girl. She's Daddy's girl."

Butler, who also has a 14-year-old son whom he supports, has reared Tysha since birth, save the six months he spent away in Operation Desert Storm as a member of the D.C. National Guard. Tysha's mother lives nearby and helps with her care. But it is Butler, an Amtrak ticket agent in D.C., who prepares Tysha's breakfast in the morning, combs her hair and drops her off at school before leaving for work. Her mother picks her up from the baby-sitter and brings her back home. Once Butler gets home, he makes sure Tysha completes her homework, then presses her school clothes for the next day's mad rush. "Just taking care of everything seems to fill up the day. But I've been happy with it," says Butler who is part Black and part Creek Indian.

Some single fathers, like Butler, experience a degree of success, Dr. Allen says, because they are determined to beat the odds. "Contrary to some scientific research that says those young people whose fathers left them in turn leave their children, often the reverse is what happens. Out of experiencing that pain and sense of loss, that young man resolves that he will never, under any circumstance, create a similar loss and pain for his children," says Dr. Allen, who comes from a single-parent background. "It can become a psychological motive."

Even after working 12-hour shifts as an operations manager for a fruit company, Gray of Philadelphia makes that special effort to spend time with his son, time he missed out on growing up without his father. "There are certain things my son and I do together: swim, roller skate, play baseball--all of that I had to learn on my own," says Gray. "We sit down and do his homework together. I had my sister to help me with that."