Credible Fatherhood and Unique Identity: Toward an Existential Concept of Adoption

Abstract

In this article, I argue for the need of a credible concept of fatherhood in present-day Western culture. This claim is based on the belief that fathers and father figures play an important role in constructing unique identities, both in the context of childrearing and in a more general cultural sense. An existential concept of adoption is developed to clarify the notion of credible fatherhood, which is supported, on the one hand, by Dorothee Sölle's analysis of the shift from a religious construction of identity to a post-religious self-construction of identity and, on the other, by Charles Taylor's concept of authenticity.

Notes

Notes

1.  William Marsiglio, Fatherhood: Contemporary Theory, Research, and Social Policy (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1995); Michael E. Lamb, “The History of Research on Father Involvement: An Overview,” Marriage & Family Review 29.2/3 (2000): 23.

2.  Vincent Duindam, Zorgende vaders. Over mannen en ouderschap, zorg, werk en hulpverlening [Caring Fathers: On Males, Parenthood, Care and Work] (Amsterdam: Van Gennep, 1997).

3.  Jonathan Diamond, Fatherless Sons: Healing the Legacy of Loss (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2006); Anne Skevik, “‘Absent Fathers’ of ‘Reorganized Families’? Variations in Father-Child Contact after Parental Break-up in Norway,” Sociological Review 54.1 (2006): 114; Eva Franzén and Bo Vinnerljung, “Foster Children as Young Adults: Many Motherless, Fatherless or Orphaned. A Swedish National Cohort Study,” Child & Family Social Work 11.3 (2006): 254–63.

4.  Stephen Baskerville, “Is there Really a Fatherhood Crisis?” Independent Review 8.4 (2004): 485; David Popenoe, Life without Father: Compelling New Evidence that Fatherhood and Marriage Are Indispensable for the Good of Children and Society (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999).

5.  Joachim Duyndam, Twaalf vaders. Over wensdenken en geloofwaardig vaderschap [Twelve Fathers: On Wishful Thinking and Credible Fatherhood] (Amsterdam: Nieuwezijds, 2004).

6.  James Garbarino, “Soul of Fatherhood,” Marriage & Family Review 29.2/3 (2000): 11.

7.  Constructing or facilitating personal growth, depending on the theory of identity in use, which I will not elaborate on here, as this paper focuses on how an identity (however formed) becomes a unique identity.

8.  Emmanuel Levinas, “De l’unicité,” Archivio di Filosofia 54.1–3 (1986): 301–7.

9.  Dorothee Sölle, Stellvertretung. Ein Kapitel Theologie nach dem ‘Tode Gottes’ [Substitution: A Chapter of Theology after the ‘Death of God’] (Stuttgart: Kreuz Verlag, 1965; rpt., 1982): 17–61.

10.  The famous statement of Friedrich Nietzsche on the death of God does not, of course, refer to a verifiable historical incident, but to a process occurring over a long period of time in Western culture. It refers to the situation that God has no longer a predominant position in politics, society, education, art and literature––in our shared self-understanding, that is, in our culture. It remains to be seen whether this is also the case in non-western cultures. Evidently, many people still believe in God, also in Western countries, but I am speaking of God's meaning and position in public culture, where it has clearly diminished.

11.  Charles Taylor, The Malaise of Modernity (Don Mills, Ontario: Stoddart, 1991): 62–75.

12.  Duyndam, Twaalf vaders, 45–52.

13.  Karola Lehnecke, De rol van moeder-zoon symbiose in perversie en zedendelinquentie. Een wetenschappelijke verantwoording over de mogelijke gevolgen van een symbiotische moeder-zoonrelatie die niet door vader wordt beëindigd [The Meaning of Mother-Son Symbiosis in Perversion and Sexual Delinquency] (Nijmegen: Wolf Legal Publishers, 2004).

14.  Peter Trachtenberg, The Casanova Complex: Compulsive Lovers and Their Women (New York: Poseiden Press, 1988).

15.  Peter Sloterdijk, Sphären [Spheres] (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1998–2004), 393–96.