A Father’s Day reminder: They’re still essential
21st June 2010
Kathleen Parker actually looks at the evidence. (What a shock.)
Granted, many children still have in-house fathers, but millions don’t. Some fathers have become alienated through divorce. “Baby daddies” never were invited to the commitment party. Still others are anonymous in the truest sense — mere DNA donors who made a deposit and picked up a check.
The latter are the subject of a new study — “My Daddy’s Name Is Donor” — about the offspring of sperm donors. Published by the Center for Marriage and Families, the report is the first of its kind since artificial insemination and single motherhood came into vogue. Finally, we have enough grown children from such arrangements to ask a few questions and draw some perhaps unwelcome conclusions.