Dear Lane,

You ask a good, but a culturally sensitive, question. Your question can be answered from several different angles. There is the medical/psychological one and a religious view. Let’s approach this purely from a medical/psychological standpoint because as a physician, I believe that understanding a child’s needs should come from sound research.

Here’s what we know: Children have emotional needs that must be met by fathers and mothers.

Research shows (I know this because I’m currently researching father effects on children) that fathers give very different things to children than mothers do. Both parents are equally important, but the effects a father has on a child are different from the effects a mother has on the same child.

For instance, we know that mothers read and speak differently to children than fathers generally do. Mothers tend to baby-talk toddlers and fathers will typically use more sophisticated language.

We believe this difference accounts for the fact that when fathers read to their six-month-old children, those children test higher on IQ tests when they are three years old. According to the research, the same is not true for mothers.

Additionally, we know that sons and daughters who grow up without fathers in…