Jun 24 JDN 2460485

I am writing this on Father’s Day, which has become something of a morose occasion for me—or at least a bittersweet one. I had always thought that I would become a father while my own father were still around, that my children would have a full set of grandparents. But that isn’t how my life has turned out.

Humans are unusual, among mammals, in having fathers. Yes, biologically, there is always a male involved. But most male mammals really don’t do much of the parenting; they leave that task more or less entirely to the females. So while every mammal has a mother, most really don’t have a father.

We’re also unusual in just how much parenting we need to survive. All babies are vulnerable, but human babies are exceptionally so. Most mammals are born at least able to walk. Even other altricial mammals are not as underdeveloped at birth as we are. In many ways, it seems that we come out of the womb before we’re really done, in order to spare our mothers an impossible birth.

And it is most likely due to this state of exceptional need that we became creatures of exceptional caring. Fatherhood is one of the clearest examples of this: Our males devote enormous effort to the care and support of their offspring, comparable to the efforts that our females devote (though, even in modern societies, not equal).

It’s ironic that many people don’t think of humans as a uniquely caring species. Some even seem to imagine that we are uniquely violent and cruel. But violence and cruelty is everywhere in nature; it’s the lack of it that needs explained. Even bonobos are not as kind and cooperative as previously imagined, and eusocial species don’t generally cooperate outside their hives; humans may in fact be the most cooperative animal.

What about war? Is that not uniquely human, and thus proof of our inherent violence? Wars are indeed unusual in nature (though not nonexistent: ants and apes are both prone to them), but the part that’s unusual is not the violence—it’s the coordination. Almost all animals are violent to greater or lesser degree. But it’s the rare ones who are cooperative enough to be violent en masse. And most human societies are at peace with most of their neighbors most of the time.

In fact I think it is the fact that we are so caring that makes us so aware of our own cruelty. A truly cruel species would be far more violent, but also wouldn’t care about how violent it was. It wouldn’t feel guilt or shame about being so violent. The reason we feel so ashamed of our own violence is that we are capable of imagining peace.

And part of why we are able to imagine a more caring world is that (most of us) are born into one, in the hands of our mothers and fathers. When we become adults, we find ourselves longing for the peace and security we felt in childhood. And while caring is largely seen as a mother’s job, security is very much seen as a father’s. We feel so helpless and exposed when we grow up, because we were so protected and safe as children.

My father certainly taught me a great deal about caring—caring so much, perhaps too much. I suppose I don’t actually know how much of it he actually taught me, versus how much was encoded in genes I got from him; but I do know that I grew up to be just like him in so many ways, both good and bad—so kind, so loyal, so loving, but also so wounded, so aggrieved, so hopeless. My father was more caring than anyone else I have ever known. He carried the weight of the world on his shoulders, and now so do I. My father died without achieving most of his lifelong dreams. One of my greatest fears is that I will do the same.

Being in a same-sex marriage has also radically changed my relationship with fatherhood. It’s no longer something that can happen to me by accident, or something that would more or less end up happening on its own if we simply stopped fighting it. It is now something I must actively choose, a commitment I must make, a task I must willfully devote myself toward. And so far, it has never seemed like the right time to take that leap of faith. Another great fear of mine is that it never will.

Life is a succession of tomorrows that turn all too quickly into yesterdays, of could-bes that fade into could-have-beens, of shoulds that shrivel into should-haves. The possibilities are vast, but not limitless; more and more limits get imposed as time goes on, until at last death imposes the most final limit of all.

I don’t want my life to pass me by while I’m waiting for something better that never comes. But I clearly can’t be satisfied with where I am now, and I don’t want to give up on all my dreams. How do I know what I should fight for, and what I should give up on?

I wish I could ask my father for advice.