This Sunday, June 21, Carlos Morales, a single 29 year-old father of quadruplets in Phoenix, will celebrate Father’s Day. It will be bittersweet because his wife Erica died five months ago on Jan. 16.
The couple, who married in 2007 and went through a miscarriage, conceived through in vitro fertilization. Erica went into shock from severe blood loss after safely delivering the babies—a boy and three girls—through Cesarean birth.
Grief-stricken and overwhelmed, Carlos is learning to cope with being a dad and has been getting much needed help. Since Erica’s death, Carlos has raised more than $350,000 on GoFundMe.com to take care of his quads. Steve Harvey gave away $10,000 for each child on his show—a gift from Sallie Mae to assist with college. Erica’s mother relocated to help her son-in-law with the kids, and her mother is helping too.
While few men will experience the heart-wrenching drama that Morales has endured while being in the news, every day single fathers endure their own private drama raising kids alone. Like single moms, they need to be acknowledged.
It is widely known that mothers are the sentimental favorites when it comes to celebrating parents. Part of the reason has to do with tradition. Women are natural nurturers, and that nurturing begins in the womb. This is a place where men can never compete.
The love, affection and sweetness which women are so good at expressing builds the emotional foundation which children need to grow into healthy adults. But the tough love, practical skills and confidence which a father brings should not be overlooked. We need both.
Single dads are on the rise in the U.S. According to studies by the Pew Research Center released in 2013, a record 8 percent of American households with kids are headed by single men.
There were 2.6 million households led by a single father in 2011, a nine-fold increase from 1960 when that number was fewer than 300,000. This means that men now lead about a quarter of all single-parent families.
Because many fathers have not stepped up in their roles as providers, the stigma of “dead-beat dads” has made it harder for those who want to be responsible. But that, too, is changing. Father’s rights organizations are increasing as more men fight for child custody, visitation and support. Fathers.com offers useful links to articles about parenting, single parent dating, legal issues and more.
Married or single, raising children is more than a notion. It takes patience, compassion, wisdom, financial support and as many willing friends and family members that you can find.