Father's Day Weekend

Here in the US it is Father's Day weekend. For many this is a positive day to show dad he's appreciated. For some, though, this can be a day of painful reminders. Remembrance of a father or father figure who has passed. Or the loss felt when a someone can't quite live up to being all a father can or should be. For those in the adoption world there is also range of feelings from positive to negative emotions. For those who have suffered through infertility there may be the loss of a dream. For others, there may be a feeling of the excited anticipation of an impending placement or already be filled with the joy of becoming a father. There might also be some tension surrounding the role of the birth father.

Whether you are a father or father-to-be, we wish you a wonderful weekend. Please also remember that during Father’s Day weekend, Wendy’s will donate 50¢ from every Frosty product sold to the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption (DTFA), a national, non-profit public charity dedicated to dramatically increasing the number of adoptions of foster children in North America. Also customers can stop by Wendy’s and donate to the cause by purchasing a Frosty pin-up for $1 each. Online, you can design a Frosty eCard for Dad: Kids can go to FrostyCard.com to create a free custom Father’s Day eCard and Wendy’s will donate an additional 25¢ to the DTFA for every Frosty Card sent.

Single Parents

The recent National Center for Health Statistics' National Survey of Family Growth reports that “men adopt twice as often as women—2.3 percent of men versus 1.1 percent of women.” This reflects a national trend in which the number of single fathers more than doubled from 1.1 million to 2.5 million between 1990 and 2006. These statistics are promising, but the numbers can be misleading. Researchers have attributed the growth in the number of men involved in adoptions mainly to men who adopt their divorced or widowed wives’ children and to gay male couples. Furthermore, four out of five single-parent families are still headed by women.

Despite this, any growth in the involvement of single fathers in raising children is good news. The roles of parents have become more flexible in recent years, and single father households are no longer seen as a rarity. Mothers are often given parental responsibility by default, regardless of their ability to provide the optimal environment for their children, while fathers are held minimally accountable. If these societal stereotypes are abandoned, placing children whose mothers are unfit parents into foster care will no longer be seen as the only alternative. Likewise, many single men who would not previously have thought of adopting may see adoption from foster care as the best choice. There are a plethora of issues to consider regarding expectations and responsibilities that hopefully can further the situation of children who are already in or face the possibility of being in foster care.