What if my working toward being a more present dad causes more harm than good? I just realized this week that maybe I’ve got it all wrong. Culturally, we applaud the dad who is present in their kid’s lives. But is it possible to be too present? Like any good engineer, I’m going to start with an edge-case and deriving the general case would be much easier.
It's a difficult issue where you weigh out security concerns vs the benefits to the child of having a father. Because children do get a really big benefit from having a father in their life, one I think people underestimate but that screams out of anecdotal experience, social statistics, and academic literature. It's very likely that the benefits are so great that it's worth substantial risk to the child's life for the better lifetime outcomes of being raised with their father.
But I don't think this is abstract, it's sounds like rationalization of a personal issue that's going the wrong way.
It's a difficult issue where you weigh out security concerns vs the benefits to the child of having a father. Because children do get a really big benefit from having a father in their life, one I think people underestimate but that screams out of anecdotal experience, social statistics, and academic literature. It's very likely that the benefits are so great that it's worth substantial risk to the child's life for the better lifetime outcomes of being raised with their father.
But I don't think this is abstract, it's sounds like rationalization of a personal issue that's going the wrong way.