[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 83 (Thursday, June 14, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6361-S6362]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         IN DEFENSE OF FATHERS

  Mr. BYRD. Madam President, recently there has been a spate of 
articles regarding the increase in the number of single parent homes, 
based upon the latest census data. Last month, Newsweek's cover story 
was ``The New Single Mom: Why the Traditional Family is Fading Fast, 
What It Means for Our Kids.'' The number of families headed by single 
mothers has increased 25 percent since 1990, to more than 7.5 million 
households. Although divorce and widowhood certainly contribute to this 
figure, the number of out-of-wedlock births has run at about one third 
of all births for the last decade, compared to 3.8 percent of all 
births in 1940.
  Let me say that again. The number of out-of-wedlock births has run at 
about one-third of all births for the last decade, compared to 3.8 
percent of all births in 1940.
  Not all single parent households are headed by women. The number of 
single fathers has also increased, to just over 2 million families. 
Nevertheless, what I found most striking about the articles I read was 
the apparently growing trend of women who choose for whatever reason to 
put off marriage, but who still decide to go ahead and have children, 
whether by birth or adoption. The thinking seems to be: Don't settle 
for less than Mr. Perfect, but if the biological alarm is ringing, 
don't put off having children, either. As Father's Day approaches, I do 
wish to say a few words in defense of men, particularly men in the role 
of father.
  Men are not perfect. I found that out at the beginning of the human 
race. Most will never be ``Mr. Perfect.'' I will be the first to admit 
that. Many men squeeze toothpaste from the middle of the tube and many 
men do not always put the cap back on the toothpast tube. Men have been 
known to drink from the milk carton before putting it back in the 
refrigerator. Some men cannot seem to find the dirty clothes basket for 
love nor money, and a few miscreants leave their dirty clothes tangled 
in inside-out knots. Men commonly are assigned the once-a-week `glory' 
jobs like taking out the trash and mowing the lawn, leaving the daily 
burden of cooking, cleaning, laundry, and getting kids ready for school 
to their wives. This I hear from women on my staff, and it can be 
readily verified by asking any married woman within earshot. Fathers do 
not do their fair share of changing diapers, getting up in the middle 
of the night, reading bedtime stories, helping with homework, driving 
kids to sports practices and games, or shopping for school clothes. 
From this litany, one might suppose that women who elect to have 
children without the burden of also caring for a

[[Page S6362]]

husband are the smart ones. I do not advocate that, but in a sense they 
may be the smart ones.
  But in defense of fathers--and that is why I take the floor at this 
time--we are not simply a drag on the family. Of course, it is a little 
late for me to be referring to myself as a father, except I am one. I 
am a father and past that stage now. I am a grandfather, and beyond 
that I am a great grandfather, great in the other sense, the true sense 
of the term. I am a ``great'' grandfather.
  We are not as fathers simply a drag on the family, good only for 
bringing in our share of the family net worth.
  Fathers add a different dimension to child-rearing that, historically 
at least, has proven its value. Fathers are often forced to be the 
``bad cop'' to mother's ``good cop'' routine. Mother gets to be 
understanding and sympathetic, leaving the tough calls to dad, as in 
``you'll have to ask your father,'' or ``just wait until your father 
comes home.'' It is dad who must say ``no.'' It is dad who leads the 
miscreant to the figurative woodshed. Fathers are often accused of 
being demanding, but they are no more demanding than one's future boss 
or coach will be. And it is dads who come to the rescue, dads who 
arrive with toolboxes at the scene of the automotive failure or at the 
scene of a plumbing crisis. Dads investigate the noises in the night.
  Some fathers are overbearing, some are obnoxious sideline coaches, to 
be sure, but many more dads are patient teachers of baseball pitches 
and football catches. Some dads teach other skills, too, such as 
carpentry or plumbing, or working on the family car. Tiger Woods thanks 
his dad for encouraging him to play golf. Countless 16-year-olds have 
learned to drive with their father in the passenger seat, calmly 
saying, ``no, not this one but the other right turn'' while inwardly 
suppressing the desire to grab the wheel to make the turn.
  It was the man who reared me, that old coal miner dad. He was the 
only father I ever knew, really, having been left without the tender 
love of a mother at the age of barely 1-year-old. The man who then took 
me to raise was my uncle by marriage. I did not know the difference 
until I was 16 years old. So to me he was dad, really dad.
  It was he who nurtured me in a love of art and music. He didn't buy 
me a cowboy suit or a cap buster. As a matter of fact, he wasn't able 
to buy me very much of anything, but he bought for me watercolors; he 
bought drawing tablets; he bought pencils; he bought books--good books. 
He could hardly read himself, but as a coal miner he knew the worth of 
an education. He didn't want me to be a coal miner. He wanted me to 
have a better life. So he bought me a fiddle, a violin.
  It was my old dad. He was the best dad I ever knew. He was the best 
dad, as far as I was concerned, in the world. I never heard him use 
God's name in vain, never, in all the years I knew him. I never heard 
him speak ill of his neighbor. I never saw him sit down at the table 
and grumble at the fare that was on the table. Not once, never. I never 
heard him speak ill to the good woman who raised me--his wife, my aunt.
  When he died, he didn't owe any man a penny. He was as honest as the 
day is long; Humble, hard working, one of the truly few great men, in 
my opinion, that I ever knew.
  It was that man who used to meet me on his walk home from the coal 
mines. In the evening I would look up the railroad tracks. We used to 
refer to directions as up or down--up the railroad tracks. They were 
really up because there was a little incline on the railroad track. So 
I always, late in the afternoons, looked up the railroad track as far 
as I could see to watch for him, the greatest man in my life. I watched 
for him. I could see him coming from a long way off. I can see him now: 
tall, black hair, red mustache, slender, carrying a watch in his pocket 
on a watch chain.
  I would run to meet him. I knew that he had saved a cake for me. And 
so running along the railroad tracks, three or four crossties at a 
time, each time I would be running fast to meet him. He would set down 
that dinner bucket, he would lift off the lid, and then he would reach 
down and bring out a cake that he had put into his lunch pail. Here he 
had worked all day long in the black bowels of the Earth and the black 
dust of the coal mine heavy labor, but he had not eaten the cake; he 
kept it for me.
  So he reached down into that pail, pulled out that cake, a real 5-
cent cake back in those days, a 5-cent cake--usually two little cakes, 
perhaps with coconut icing, wrapped in a piece of wax paper, two little 
cakes for 5 cents.
  How do I know? Because mother sent me to the store to purchase the 
groceries. She would tell me: Bring home the cake. I knew that cake was 
going into his dinner pail, but I knew he would save it for me.
  So he would greet me with the tired hello of a man who had spent his 
day in the mines and he would give me the cake that he had saved from 
his lunch.
  His work was demanding and physically draining. He probably could 
have used those extra calories, and the extra energy from that cake, 
but he always saved the cake for me.
  He wanted better for me than he had had. He encouraged me in school. 
He demanded my best work. I know he would have helped me to go to 
college if he could have helped me. He certainly didn't want me to go 
to work in the mines. I never heard him complain about going there day 
after day and coming home tired with coal dust still in his eyebrows, 
perhaps in his eyelashes.
  Dads like mine teach important values. They teach their sons to 
respect their mothers. They teach their sons to read the Biblical 
admonition, honor thy father and thy mother. They teach their daughters 
to expect and to demand that kind of respect from men.
  They teach the value of work, and of giving one's best effort at 
whatever task is at hand. Like the Bible admonishes us: ``Whatsoever 
thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might. . . .'' They reinforce 
the importance of family, and of teamwork. They push their children to 
achieve more than they did, and show their pride in their children's 
accomplishments. Dads like mine may not be flashy, as mine was not. 
They may not be demonstrative. But they are the solid backbone of the 
family, a refuge in times of trouble. They are enduring, much more so 
than networks of friends. They are enduring, meaning lasting, ever 
always the pillar of strength and refuge, much more so than networks of 
friends.
  And, finally, fathers kill bugs, which alone is reason enough to keep 
us around, I think.
  So, women, please, I urge you to reconsider. Most men make pretty 
good fathers. They love their children and they add value to their 
children's lives. Come Sunday, this Sunday, they will be delighted with 
the loud ties and cheap cologne--maybe cheap cologne--that are their 
due on Father's Day.
  Madam President, I close with a bit of poetry that always brings to 
mind the kind man who raised me, who always set a fine example for me. 
I often think, if I were the man that he was, I could really feel good 
about myself. The bit of poetry is called, ``The Little Chap Who 
Follows Me.'' Most Senators, I am sure, have already heard it.

       A careful man I ought to be;
       A little fellow follows me;
       I do not dare to go astray
       For fear he'll go the self-same way.

       I cannot once escape his eyes;
       Whatever he sees me do he tries--
       Like me, he says, he's going to be;
       The little chap who follows me.

       He thinks that I am good and fine,
       Believes in every word of mine;
       The base in me he must not see,
       The little chap who follows me.

       I must remember as I go,
       Through summer's sun and winter's snow,
       I'm preparing for that man to be,
       A little fellow follows me.

  Madam President, this former little chap salutes his old Dad, who is 
watching from the diamond towers and the golden streets of Heaven, and 
all the other fellows who rise to the challenge of setting a good 
example for the children who look up to them.

                          ____________________