While it's easy to understand a woman's desire to have a child, it is less easy to understand how it was decided that fathers are nonessential. I find little comfort in the fact that some sperm donors agree to meet their "offspring" when the child reaches age 18. Ego gratification on one end balanced against narcissistic self-fulfillment on the other offers little to soothe the restless soul. Or the child, who might like to have a real daddy tuck him in at night. Or, perhaps, attend her piano recital, rather than hear her piece played during a virtual Internet visit, as one dad did in the Times story about long-distance parenting. Virtual visits may be fun and a great way to stay in touch with friends and family, but they're never a substitute for being there. From the stories, we can infer that the sperm-shopping women didn't set out to be alone in middle age and make families without fathers, or that the virtual dads hoped to have long-distance relationships with their children. We also can figure that unwed fathers don't mean to produce accidental babies only to lose them. Nor that the prisoner-wife dreamed of someday having a child with a convicted killer. Life is full of surprises. And mistakes. There's something terribly wrong with this picture, and it is this: These are sad stories that reveal symptoms of a diseased culture in which human relationships have no moral content and children are treated as accessories to adult lives. Yet, these trends are portrayed as the latest gosh-gee fashions. A society in which women are alone, men are lonely, and children don't have fathers is nothing to celebrate. And a future world filled with fatherless children - bereft of half their identity and robbed of a father's love, discipline and authority - won't likely be a pleasant place to live. |