24/06/2026
“Kids need a dad!”
“The most stabilizing influence in any family is a man in the home.”
It’s the nonsense we here from right-wing misogynists every day, and it often influences mothers’ decisionmaking about their own families.
They stay with abusers because “kids need a dad.”
They keep dating dangerous men because they think kids need a father figure.
They sacrifice their lives and dreams to a man who takes as much as he can, so they can avoid divorce and protect their kids from the apparent perils of single motherhood.
And when they finally leave abusers, protecting their kids at great personal cost and risk, we stigmatize these mothers, shaming them for being single and insisting that they are disadvantaging their children.
The notion that kids need a father at all costs is disingenuous and harmful. It gets women into abusive relationships, keeps them there, and gives men an excuse for their utter failure to change, grow, or parent their children with decency.
Patriarchy needs a story to justify itself. It’s built a complex mythology that many of us believe, often without even knowing we do. That’s why beliefs about the innate and extreme biological differences between the sexes are so integral to patriarchy. It’s why misogynists tend to aggressively enforce gender roles. And it’s why we believe objectively false things, like that men—the gender doing the majority of emotionally influenced violence—are more rational and less emotional than women.
These myths are the water we swim in and the air we breathe, and may remain invisible to us for our entire lives. But once you see them, you can’t unsee them. This is the latest installment in my series about the patriarchal myths we believe, how they influence our behavior, and how to avoid falling victim to the noise and the nonsense.
https://zawn.substack.com/p/kids-need-a-father-patriarchys-most
