The Fire This Time

Jackson’s essay begins by asking how boys without fathers spell the word father. In a video, a poet dreamed he spelled that word by spelling the word mother instead and insisted it was a proper substitute for father. Jackson disagrees that mothers can be fathers. He acknowledges changing gender roles and emphasizes that young women need fathers. However, mothers provide irreplaceable support to daughters, while fathers provide irreplaceable support to sons. (In a footnote, Jackson clarifies that he means cis males and females.) Sons need fathers, whether biological ones or various male figures who provide fatherly support. 

Jackson himself, whose father did not parent him during his early years, assembles a father from many men in his life. He likens this practice to that of President Barack Obama and, in an extended footnote, details the fragmented fatherhood of Obama and several other presidents. Obama, whose father left him as a child, was parented by his maternal grandfather and a now-infamous figure named Frank Marshall Davis, whose leftist beliefs apparently informed some of Obama’s platform and policies. George Washington lost his father as a child and found a composite in his brother Lawrence, who preceded him in military service and political office.