Father’s Day was last weekend, an event that was started to commemorate the deaths of dozens of West Virginia miners in 1907 and which resonated with similar holidays in other parts of the world. The loss of these men was significant not only emotionally but also financially because they were the breadwinners of their families who would be faced with the difficult task of making ends meet without them.
Our father, Leonard Vickars in this picture painted by his daughter Dawn, was the breadwinner for our nuclear family of 5 children, his wife Doris and occasionally other relatives. Mom did most of the housework helped by us kids and Dad paid the bills for food, mortgage, car, insurance, hydro, etc. That’s the way it was for most people in the small towns we grew up in, the normality we knew. Extended families which include grandparents at least and perhaps aunts, uncles and cousins all living under the same roof used to be a lot more common than they are now.
Humans need family. Romulus and Remus may have been able to make it but the chances of most infants surviving to maturity on their own are close to zilch. Other mammals would have a difficult time without a mother but have a greater chance of living. Breast milk improves the odds significantly and having others of your species in the neighbourhood adds a few more decimal points towards success. For us, however, our biology necessitates that Dad stick around. Our big brains are a blessing and a curse. I’ve seen a cow and its offspring walking around normally minutes after they parted ways but a human child is totally at the mercy of its environment because it is not fully formed. And Mom is quite drained after such an arduous task , both of them would make easy prey. For the next couple of years, the young one is quite mobility challenged compared to other mammals so needs to be carried around and have access to breast milk. Mom is still quite capable of the all the tasks she was doing before the new addition, she provides most of the nutrition for the family. Self-defence and defence of two is more difficult and this where Dad comes into the picture, protecting the next generation and adding meat to their diet. Both parents are able to do most of the work involved in keeping the species going but the males have a slight edge when it comes to size and strength. However, primitive societies are incorrectly named hunter-gatherer when actually it is the gatherers who should come first because they provide more towards sustenance. And give birth.
