Community Attitudes Toward Birth Fathers’ Motives for Adoption Placement and Single Parenting

Abstract: Community attitudes toward birth fathers were examined using 82 exploratory qualitative interviews and 706 survey respondents in Canada. Community attitudes were more positive toward birth fathers raising their children over adoption, when birth mothers were unable or unwilling to parent the child. Overall, respondents considered birth fathers choosing adoption as responsible, caring, and unselfish. However, women disproportionately considered birth fathers choosing adoption as irresponsible and uncaring. Men considered these fathers too young, unable to provide, or powerless against the birth mother and her wishes. We consider implications for practitioners working with birth fathers dealing with adoption decisions and offer suggestions for further research. Key Words: adoption, birth fathers, community attitudes, gender, single parenthood. Birth Fathers and Adoption Adoption, as a social institution, separates social parenting behavior from the biological role (Bartholet, 1993; Kirk, 1964). Historical studies on adoption reveal that children usually are placed for adoption by their mothers rather than by their fathers, and the gender-neutral terms of biological parent and birth parent used by state and adoption authorities have masked this fact (Sachdev, 1991). The birth father of children placed for adoption has also been absent in the research literature, and, when he does appear, his position has stood in marked contrast to the birth mother's. In the evangelical reform period (early 1900s), birth fathers of adoptees were "rogues, scoundrels, and unscrupulous cads" (Kunzel, 1993, p. 22) who lured women into sex. No marriage at all was preferable to unwed mothers entering "a marriage based on lies and deceit" (Kunzel, 1993, p. 33). The reverse image emerged in the 1950s, when the biological or "putative" father was portrayed as the victim of a neurotic "sexual delinquent" who used him to achieve her unconscious desire for a child (Spensky, 1992). If even told about the pregnancy, he was often advised to remain uninvolved and was rarely consulted about the decision to place the child in an adoptive home (Carp, 1998; Kunzel, 1993). Only in the last two decades have most jurisdictions in the United States and Canada required unwed birth fathers to formally relinquish parental rights before adoption can be legalized (Griffith, 1991; Sachdev, 1991). Policymakers and practitioners have categorized unwed fathers in general as "troubled fathers" or "fathers who cause trouble" and have made attempts to improve relationships between these fathers and their children (Day, Lewis, O'Brien, & Lamb, 2005, p. 348). Despite these efforts, birth fathers of adopted offspring tend to be viewed as peripheral actors in their children's lives (Clapton, 1997; Crean, 1988; Daly, 1988; Dienhart & Daly, 1997; Nock, 1998). Within the adoption triangle itself, their role is questionable. Sachdev (1991), for example, considered the attitudes toward birth fathers of 300 randomly selected adoptive parents, birth mothers, adoptees, and adoption personnel. He noted that these respondents "shared the prevailing stereotypical view of the birth father as being a 'Don Juan' (i.e., he sexually exploited a young innocent girl) and 'phantom father' (i.e., evading responsibility for the support and care of the mother and child)"(p. 137). Historically, then, birth fathers have been ignored or invisible, compared favorably or unfavorably to birth mothers, or subject to stigmatization. Analytic Perspectives on Fatherhood Family scholars are increasingly focusing on gender as a social construct in research on fatherhood and fatherhood involvement in the family (Marsiglio, Amato, Day, & Lamb, 2000). Fatherhood, as a social construct, embodies cultural meanings about masculinity, and gender, as a social construct, is a constituent element of social structures like class and race (Doherty, Kouneski, & Erickson, 1998; Fox & Murry, 2000). …