THERE were 33,606 unmarried mothers receiving the lone parent's allowance last year. Unless their children were conceived as a result of immaculate conceptions all of the children involved have fathers. But where are they? The concept of the unmarried father is so foreign to us that even those two words placed together sound as if somehow they don't fit.
No one talks about the number of unmarried fathers in the country. They're an invisible group in society - and some of them want it that way. Although there are definitely some unmarried fathers who will go to any lengths to remain uninvolved there are others who don't know they are fathers and even more who desperately want access to their children but can't have it. And there is another group: the man who is married to one woman but not married to another who has his child or children.
"You could put Mickey Mouse on the birth cert and it would have very little to do with what rights you may or may not have in the future. We were a very young couple. We were both 20. When she was pregnant, it was a very busy year. I was trying to run my own business and she was studying for her finals in college," says Alan Glasgow, an unmarried father who has joint custody of his son David.
When a woman becomes pregnant the focus of attention is on her. Men are often relegated to the margins - or choose to dwell there. Too often it's immediately a question of blame, maintenance and payments instead of a recognition that every child is born with two biological parents, the involvement of whom - in the vast majority of eases - is the best option for the child's future.
Alan and his girlfriend lived together for two years and then the relationship broke up. David went to live with his mother.
"It was terribly hard initially. I missed him terribly. I was very concerned at the time and I had all these armchair psychologists, you know, all the people who meet in pubs, saying `ah no, a broken home, Jazus he'll be a psycho hatchet murderer' . . . all that rubbish."
Now Alan and David's mother have an arrangement whereby David spends three days of the week with Alan and four with his mother. "The time with me is kind of precious. I try to be as involved as possible," says Alan who started junior soccer for David and his class in school on Saturday mornings.
A fear about the welfare of children brought up solely by mothers is outlined in a book called The Garbage Generation, by Daniel Amneus [Primrose Press, CA, 1990]. Talking about American society, the author claims: "Most criminals come from female headed families. Most gang members come from female headed families. Most addicts come from female headed families. Most rapists come from female headed families. Most educational failures come from female headed families . . . Most illegitimate births occur to females who themselves grew up in female headed families."
On the other hand in a study, Lone Parenthood and Family Disruption - The Outcomes for Children, by Louie Burgbes for the Family Policy Studies Centre in London the findings show that "children born (to use their term) `illegitimate' who remain living with their mother alone may fare better than those who subsequently live with both parents."
Poverty may be more of a factor than marital status and the outcome for such children may be little different from children in poor, two parent families.
Unmarried fathers have no automatic rights under the Constitution. There are two relevant pieces of legislation in relation to fathers and children. The Guardianship of Infants Act 1964 states that the mother of an illegitimate [sic] child is the guardian, and the Status of Children Act 1987 stipulates that in the case of unmarried parents, the father may apply to the court to be guardian of the infant, but the mother has to consent in writing and the father has to be registered.
Margaret Dromey from Treoir, the Federation of Services for Unmarried Parents and their children, finds that since the Status of Children Act 1987 came into force, fathers have been increasingly contacting them. They want to be involved with their children.
"There can be difficulty when a mother has finished a relationship with the father. They often forget the implications for the child. The parents should make every effort to ensure that the child's relationship with the father will continue. Because it's good for the child to have a relationship with the father and to know the father, if at all possible."
THE new Adoption Bill 1996 will also affect fathers. One of the purposes of the Bill is to allow for the unmarried father to be consulted before the child is placed for adoption. This is a result of the findings in the Keegan ease in the European Court in 1994.
"My child is now eight years old and it started when she gave me a letter saying my child was up for adoption," says Joseph Keegan. "You see, she comes from a Protestant background and I come from a Catholic background. And her parents didn't like this idea that she was going out with a Catholic. It was confirmed that she was pregnant and she went home to tell her parents.
"One night I knew there was something happening, so I went down to the country on Saturday My child was born on Friday. I went to the hospital and there was my child, a baby girl. I saw her once when she was a day and a half old. I fed her. The hospital staff rang the mother and father and they came down with the police. They said you have to move you have to go now. She was hysterical. She thought I was going to take the baby away. I just wanted to hold the child."
Joseph Keegan took his case to the Irish courts and subsequently to the European Court because the child had been placed for adoption without his knowledge. He did not get guardianship of his child because the case took over five years and by then the child had bonded with the adoptive parents.
In The Garbage Generation, it says: "What is happening to our society is that it is discarding patriarchal sexual regulation and reverting to the primeval mammalian pattern of a reproductive unit consisting of the mother and her offspring, the male putting in an appearance to perform his minuscule sexual function and then disappearing or being hauled off to the sausage factory or being reduced to the role of stud who can be discarded when the female tires of him."
Dave is another unmarried father who discovered that because his name was not registered on the birth cert, and he wasn't married to his girlfriend, he had very few rights in relation to his two children.
Dave got a job which took him away from home a lot and he had an affair. His girlfriend found out though his best friend.
My best friend moved in on my girlfriend. He got my job. He got my car. He got my kids. He got my house. He got everything I possessed. The children despise him. He has three children for three different girls and they know this. He went out with a neighbour at first and my children have seen him in bed with this neighbour and seen him in bed with their mother."
THE whole situation may be exacerbated by myths surrounding paternity. While a woman can be in no doubt that a child is hers, men can have fears or feelings about whether or not they are the father of a particular child. The notion that lots of babies are conceived as a result of a one night stand or on the back seat of a car with a stranger after a disco is as prevalent as ever.
"There was a myth that women were going out and getting pregnant very easily and didn't know who the father was. The reality is that most children born outside marriage are conceived in the context of some kind of relationship. Now it may be just a month or maybe a week, but it isn't a series of fellows in one night and which fellow is it?" says Margaret Dromey.
A consultant haematologist interviewed for this article about men who go for paternity testing in Ireland says: "One finds that in less than 10 per cent of cases the man will be shown, even though he's suspected of being the father, not to be the father of the child in question." This would include unmarried men who are being asked to pay maintenance and married men who suspect that one of their children is not theirs.
Ever since the floodgates opened on the Irish adoption situation in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, revealing the overpowering need many adult adoptees often have to know their genetic make up and biological family origins, the importance of naming parents has been increasingly acknowledged. Margaret Dromey believes that it's essential that the father's name, appears on the birth cert.
"It's just so unfair to expect any one to produce a birth cert with the mothers name and then a stroke for the father's name. It's a basic human right of all of us to know who we are.