I feel like a whole generation of kids are missing out on positive male role models.
Step up, and pass on the good vibes and knowledge
this post was submitted on 26 Apr 2026
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Was raised with divorced parents, seeing my father only occasionally. I can see ways it's fucked me up - lacking confidence, typical "male" skills and I often had to face singular point of view of life when growing up. I didn't "feel" it making damage, because it didn't do that much - but I lost a lot of growth I'd otherwise had.
Also have female friend who had similiar situation and, at the same time, similiar outcome.
Children need both parents, simple as. Not only is raising a kid by yourself a horror for parent, it's also not enough for a child. Doesn't mean it will produce a psychopath or emotional wreck, but it will show up repeatedly after growing up, if done well only in small ways, but if not...welp.
And again, it's not about just lacking a father - IMO, both parental figures are needed.
I feel like what a child needs is some sort of close-knit community to interact with daily, not just parents. It could be the extended family, it could be the neighbors, etc. This is how children grew up for most of the history of our species, hell, I'd guess most mothers throughout history didn't know who the father is at all. The idea that a child is raised exclusively by the parents is an extremely novel invention forced upon us by western individualist culture.
Genders or "parental figures" don't actually matter here, what matters is interacting with different people, forming personal relationships with them and learning from their positive traits and behaviors.
Had that and from personal experience, it didn't work. I perceived them as just that - extended family, not really someone I'd trust like a parent. I learned from them but it wasn't...dunno, personal?
But other than that, I fully agree that children need more than just parents.
I do not agree that parental figures don't matter. There is a bond between parents and children that is simply special - however, parents don't have to be bio parents. Insert screenshot from the post, where one of kid's parental figures got filled in by an "outsider".
Ok, I think I phrased it the wrong way. I don't think it's necessary for a child to have exactly two parents of opposite genders. I think a much healthier way to be brought up is to be parented by a diverse group of people (maybe 5-10), each with their own identities, interests, and skills to learn from.
Parents are key in bringing other trustworthy adults in their kids life. Not having a father or a mother will greatly reduce these opportunities as the life of a single parent is significantly harder and leave less time for socializing with other parents, thus reducing the interactions their kids have with other adults.
This is just how the societal structure works nowadays due to atomization, the death of extended family and the local community.
Before all that happened, people actually interacted with their close neighbors (who were also often family members) on the daily, forged relationships and trust with them. It wasn't a question of "bringing trustworthy adults into a child's life", it was actually "bringing a child into an already existing close-knit community". Common everyday tasks (one of them is looking after children) were often shared between community members so that noone got overwhelmed.
Of course there are many benefits to modern societal and tech advances too, it's a fucking miracle that a single mother can raise a child at all, with little or no family support. 200 years ago the child would be dead or sent off to an orphanage.
I say we should combine the powers of both: bring back the local community to raise children together, and keep the technical progress and societal guardrails we've made to make it a lot easier.