Saving Dads Illegal? Get Real

[Marx]

Saving Dads Illegal? Get Real

Consider this an open invitation to NOW President Kim Gandy, who complained this week that the White House's fatherhood initiatives are sexist.

Come to Hartford.

Let me show you around, give you a glimpse of what happens to families, to cities when men are MIA while their children grow up.

We could knock on a few doors - almost any one really; with more than half the households in Hartford led by women only, it shouldn't take long to find a single mother and get a big dose of reality.

Chances are that woman and her children are living in squalor, with no health insurance and not enough food. In 2005, nearly 50 percent of families in Hartford led by women were living below the poverty level. To really understand what that means, consider this: The median income for married couples with children under 18 that year was about 71 grand. For a female head of household, it was about 26 grand.

And that doesn't even get us into the incalculable chaos that ensues when men are absent from homes and communities.

I know, we could chat up some kids on the street, where the only male role models they had growing up were the guys on the corner - the deadly corners they're now standing on.

And then, I wonder if the president of the National Organization for Women would still think it makes sense to oppose the programs because they're aimed exclusively at men?

Gandy didn't return calls Friday, but in a recent newspaper article she and other advocates who filed complaints with the federal Department of Health and Human Services insist that the programs to help men build job skills and connect better with their children are illegal.

Targeting men, NOW and Legal Momentum claim, violates Title IX, the 1972 law that banned gender discrimination at any institution that received federal funds.

That argument is thin. Very thin.

But it was apparently enough to rattle the Administration for Children and Families, the agency that oversees the fatherhood initiative grants.

When I called there, I thought Tara Wall, the director of its public affairs office, might hyperventilate.

The White House is merely trying to help men become better fathers, Wall said. The lack of male figures in children's lives is a national crisis. And anyway, she said, the programs do not bar women.

"We told grant recipients specifically that they must open their fatherhood programs to women."

I suggested she take a breath; she wasn't going to be hearing any complaints from me.

The government has spent billions of dollars over the years on welfare-to-work job training programs that, if not specifically limited to women, benefit women almost exclusively. Women are specifically targeted for nutrition education in a variety of programs, including the federal Women Infants and Children program.

At the Village for Families & Children in Hartford, which recently received funds for a fatherhood initiative program in Hartford, there are three parenting programs. Except for guest appearances by a few men, most clients are women.

You know why? Because men need to learn to show up.

"There's a big difference between closing a door of opportunity and opening one," said Village chief program officer Nelly Rojas Schwan.

It's really simple, actually: Helping men become better fathers benefits women and children.

And in the end, shouldn't it be about the children?

Helen Ubiñas' column appears on Thursdays and Sundays. She can be reached at ubinas@courant.com