THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 16, 1996 TAG: 9606160002
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Elizabeth Simpson
LENGTH: 64 lines
The '90s have been a best-of-times, worst-of-times decade for dads.
We have fathers who spend more time with their children than their own dads ever did, and those who haven't bothered to show up at all.
On the good-news side, fathers are more likely to be in the delivery room when their children are born, and more likely to change diapers. They show up for the soccer match, the PTA meeting, the school play. They put careers on hold to be home in time for dinner. They widen the 1950s father role of disciplinarian to a more nurturing one.
At the other extreme, it's been a decade when terms like ``deadbeat dads'' and ``fatherless children'' became part of the vernacular. A time when records were set for the most children living in single-mother homes. When the fatherhood experience too often revolved around custody battles and child support disputes.
A movement was born out of these two extremes, an unprecedented push to move fathers from one pole to the other. A recognition of the power of fatherhood.
Vice President Al Gore has called for a renewed commitment to reconnect men with their children. A Million Man March in Washington challenged fathers to seize responsibility. The National Fatherhood Initiative has held rallies across the country exalting the values of family.
Ron Clark is a part of that movement.
He crafted his own definition of a father as he grew up in a public housing community. His father wasn't around, so he watched the fathers of friends.
He remembers going to YMCA football games and watching the other guys' fathers rooting them on. He watched how they settled disputes by talking instead of yelling. He remembers how it felt to not have a father at those games.
Instead of clinging to an absentee image, he created a new definition of father out of those glimpses on the sidelines.
``I had to reach inside myself and model a father out of other fathers.''
And now he's working with 22 young men in Virginia Beach to teach them that definition. Twenty-two young men, some of whom are already fathers, most of whom grew up without them, all on the cusp of manhood.
Clark's lessons to them: Be responsible. Finish school. Get a job. Be there for your children.
``Getting a girl pregnant does not make you a father,'' says Clark. ``Taking care of a child does.''
Clark's group - called Fatherhood/Manhood Empowerment and sponsored by the Virginia Beach Community Services Board - includes a young man named Joe Williams.
He is 18. And the father of a 6-month-old boy.
``When I first came to the group I was a little on the wild side,'' Williams said. ``Ron told me that when you have a kid, that even though you want to hang out with your friends, it's better to slow down.''
Williams says he's tried to do that. He shares the cost of rearing Jokwon with his girlfriend. Splits the cost of formula, diapers, a crib. He cared for his baby while his girlfriend went to school, then attended class at an alternative school in the afternoon.
He knows he's made mistakes, but he's trying to learn the lessons that Clark teaches.
Clark, for his part, is creating fathers out of a long-ago desire to have one root him on at a football game.
``The definition of manhood has to include responsibility,'' Clark says. ``The more responsibility you take, the more of a man you are.'' by CNB