Cheers to Dads who do things differently

Courtney Keenan with daughter, Poppy

Father’s Day, as a day to celebrate fathers is gone for another year but the days of father, of fathering, of ‘doing the Dad thing’ continue.

For the past several decades, copious literature illustrates that the role of father has changed, has shifted dramatically. The workload of Dad has taken on a multitude of tasks often done by females – ‘women’s work’. Employment opportunities, housing, friendship connections and community involvement all contribute to growing boys into men and men into fathers – into Dads.

While there are many resources for fathers of children with disabilities, it is more difficult to find resources for fathers living with disability because we live in a culture that sometimes assumes, unconsciously and mistakenly, that people living with disability are not likely to be parents. As well, some among us may entertain Dickensian stereotypes about how one with challenges to daily living could possibly procreate let alone provide for children once they are born.

Fathers, like mothers, are pillars in the development of a child's emotional well-being, with children looking to their fathers, to Dad, to provide a feeling of security, both physical and emotional. It’s exceedingly challenging for single mothers, women without a partner, whether by design or circumstance, to fulfill the role of Dad in a way that’s going to be impactful in the long term. It’s an emotional roller coaster and often puts too much pressure on women who are already spreading thin each day’s allotment of hours to ‘get it all done’.

More than ever, community leaders must step up and organize schemes to address these cracks in the landscape of community life that diminishes how those who struggle are coping as stressors mount. Post-COVID lives are forever changed.

Fathering a child is easy for many men but being a Dad takes a lifetime of commitment to instilling in a child the values that will ensure physical, emotional and mental safety within the home and within the community. If there is no active male presence in the home, many single mothers will network with groups within the community with men who possess the requisite care and compassion to step up to interact with their child.

They've got their dancin' shoes on

Fathers, Dad, men not only influence who we are inside, but how we have relationships with people as we grow. The way a father treats his child will influence what that child looks for in other people. Friends, lovers, and spouses will all be chosen based on how the child perceived the meaning of the relationship with their own.

Unlike girls, who model their relationships with others based on their father’s character, boys model themselves after their father’s character. Boys will seek approval from their fathers from a very young age. As human beings, we grow up by imitating the behavior of those around us; that’s how we learn to function in the world. If a father is caring and treats people with respect, the young boy will grow up much the same. When a father is absent, young boys look to other male figures to set the “rules” for how to behave and survive in the world.

Throughout history, discrimination against parents with disability is all too common and the number of such parents who push back, victimized by such overt abuse, needs to grow. It’s time they were heard and seen as valuable contributions to family life, to community life. So long as ‘the card holders’ and the ‘purse string holders’ continue to be obstacles, little will change. That being so, it’s incumbent on each and every person in the community to examine their misguided view of what it means to be a Dad, a father, a parent. We live what we learn so if we’re holding on to antiquated views advanced by generations, then we do ourselves and our families and our communities a huge disservice. Government systems of child protection need to change and get with the times by developing working relationships with those whose parenting style differs from the norm.

Being a Dad should be held up as a privilege, not a right; a child is not a piece of property. Father and child relationships are mutually nurturing. Cheers to Dads who do it differently.

Courtney, Courtenay and Poppy

Carla MacInnis Rockwell is a freelance writer and disability rights advocate living outside Fredericton,  NB with Miss Lexie, a rambunctious Maltese and Mr. Malcolm, a boisterous Havanese. She can be reached via email at carmacrockwell@xplornet.ca

Disabilities don't need to hold back Dads

As Father’s Day approaches, I am reminded of my own father who, in the early 50s, began his medical practice in Bath, Carleton County. Our family grew to number 8 children; I am number 7, the ‘differently able’ one. Though he never intended for it to happen, Dad treated me more like a patient than a daughter. Perhaps that was inevitable, given his background and training and the realities of my situation from birth to date. Dad died in 2008, never the Father Knows Best kind of father, dispensing words of wisdom to his children. In fact, truth be told, he spent more time with other people’s children than he did with us. Nature of the beast growing a medical practice in a new place where the ‘rules of the road’ were different from the place where he was raised and educated.

    Fathers who are physically and emotionally present in the lives of their children, who accept, nurture and encourage them, make a huge difference. Physically, emotionally or economically absent fathers leave a gaping hole in the lives of their progeny, though ‘father hunger’ can be fed by other significant males in the world of a child – a teacher, a pastor, the school’s soccer coach, or a few local businessmen. All can have a role in nurturing fatherless children and contribute to them growing into self-confident, community minded adults.

    Being a father is about conceiving a child; being a DAD is so much more. Being a girl Dad! Now, that’s something else entirely.

    Men who live with challenges to daily living, notably the inability to walk and to run, to engage in rough and tumble games, to teach children to play ball, to golf, to skate and to swim, will often have feelings of guilt and uncertainty about whether they could be a Dad, should be a Dad. To them I say, go for it! There are so many things that a differently able Dad can teach his children without actually doing anything that involves physicality, unless making funny clown faces count. Children are like sponges, observing the goings on in their environments so it doesn’t take them long to fine tune a set of skills that allow them to settle in to the day to day with a parent who does things in a different way.

    Courtney Keenan became a first time Dad to Poppy last year. I’ve not yet met him, but I grew up across the road from and went to school with his Dad, Gary. Clan Keenan numbered 13 children, with many of theirs being of similar age to the MacInnis 8. We grew up at a time when inclusion was a given so I and those like me were part of the community with no thought to what we could or could not do. We simply went along as best we were able.

Courtney and his siblings grew up in small town New Brunswick as well, but at a time when there was greater access to technology and with that, a different type of education and opportunity than was my experience.

As a young man, Courtney sustained a catastrophic life altering spinal cord injury which, in an instant, derailed any sort of life plan he was nurturing at the time. His life today, in spite of C5 quadriplegia, speaks to the success he’s achieved in realizing many of his dreams; being a husband and father are top of his list. I’ve seen photos of him with his daughter and the joy is palpable.

Courtney Keenan and daughter, Poppy

    Men and women with SCI who become Moms and Dads may require certain supports to daily living not required by the uprightly mobile and able-bodied but that in no way diminishes their effectiveness as loving parents, able to meet the demands of child rearing, which is no easy task at the best of times. In fact, parenting from a wheelchair is a life lesson with staying power. Knowing that allows wheelie Dads and Moms to lighten up and loosen up and enjoy the journey with their child, from infancy to adulthood. Hang on for the ride through the teen years. 

    Courtney himself said it best: "People want to know what it’s like to be a Dad with a disability but what does it mean to be an able-bodied Dad? Is it not about loving beyond & giving of yourself? Does my disability diminish the joy her smile brings, the warmth I feel when she holds one of my fingers or the hopes I have for her future? As any father can attest, there are no words to describe how the love of a child makes you feel. I am a father & husband before anything else, especially disabled."

    Happy Father’s Day to all the folks fulfilling that role.

Carla MacInnis Rockwell is a freelance writer and disability rights advocate living outside Fredericton, NB with Miss Lexie, a rambunctious Maltese and Mr. Malcolm, a boisterous Havanese. She can be reached via email at carmacrockwell@xplornet.ca