Family Man "I had a bottle of baby powder, a baby blanket and a tote bag, and that was it for parental preparation," says Doug Althauser, speaking of the phone call he received in January 1998 telling him he might become a father -- in 36 hours.
The ranks of single-father
households are growingINSTANT DAD
Scott Vogel / svogel@starbulletin.com
"I ran home that night, took down the Christmas tree and bought the book 'What to Expect the First Year.' I had to make room in my house."
Flipping through his scrapbook, Althauser, 40, shows a before-photo of his bedroom, an orderly retreat adorned with the accouterments of a busy single man: a desk, a weight set, shelves of notes for his since-published book on overcoming alcohol and drug dependency. (He's the Chemical Dependency Program Coordinator for Kaiser Permanente.) Then, just 12 weeks after he had begun the mountain of paperwork required for adoption, the agency called about Michael, a 512 -month-old Cambodian boy whose adoption by another American family had just fallen through.
Althauser laughs as he carefully points out features of the after-photo, the shelves "filled with Beanie Babies and bottles and things like that. The weight bench has been replaced with a stroller, my desk has been replaced with a crib, and my bed was never made again."
Seeing the rapid adjustments Althauser was forced to make, it suddenly becomes clear why the gestation period for human beings is normally much longer than 36 hours; it takes nine months -- at the very least -- to adequately prepare emotionally and intellectually for a baby's arrival, not to mention financially.
"I kept thinking that I had to have more money, I had to have more time, I had to have more preparation. And when I really thought about it -- I'm never going to have enough money, enough time, enough preparation."
Besides, there was a baby out there who needed a father now.
After a mere three hours of deliberation, Althauser told his adoption agency that he would indeed accept their offer of fatherhood, whereupon he was instructed to be at the Honolulu Airport the following evening.
"I got to the airport, sat down and tried to take a few minutes to say a prayer, and wouldn't you know it, the plane was early. (A social worker) stepped off the jetway, handed me this baby and said, 'here you are, Dad,' and that was all the ceremony there was to it."
Althauser is part of a growing number of single-father households. Although nationally more than three times as many single families are headed by women as men, the ranks of the latter are growing. According to Census 2000 figures, there are 2.2 million single fathers raising children in the United States, a 62 percent increase from 1990.
In Hawaii, the Census 2000 counted 8,945 households headed by single males with children under 18 years old.
Michael may have come into Althauser's life with nothing more than a yellow jumpsuit and a bottle of formula, but the new dad quickly mobilized a dense network of contacts; friends began showing up with diapers, blankets and other new baby paraphernalia just minutes after the duo arrived home from the airport. Subsequently, Althauser joined a single-parent adoption group called SWAN -- for Single Women Adoption Network -- which eventually changed its name to SPAN to reflect the group's newfound diversity. "It's 11 single mothers and me," he says.
Still exhausted a few days after Michael's fourth birthday party, which attracted 58 revelers early last month, Althauser acknowledges the challenges that a nontraditional family faces, but believes there are special lessons his son could only learn from him.
"One of the things that I hope he will see is the ability of an adult man to be sensitive and unashamed of it, whereas I think in traditional two-parent families, men might have more hesitancy or discomfort with the nurturing role, which is traditionally the mother's."
Michael was a name Althauser had always liked, while his middle name -- Thomas -- is Althauser's father's name. Then there's Salath (which means "bright child"), the nickname given by his caregivers at the orphanage (he was not given a name by his biological parents).
"And I had thought at times that there might be a better chance for me to go to the Moon than become a father, and the way that Michael just dropped into my life, I figured that God's hand was at work there. So I decided to name him 'this child of the Moon is a gift from heaven'," and had a friend translate it into Hawaiian.
So the completed version of his adorable, now 4-year-old son's name is Michael Thomas Salath He Makana No Ka Lani E Keiki O Mahina Althauser, quite a reversal of fortune for a boy who once didn't have a name at all.
"When he's trying to write that out in the fourth grade, that's probably when we're going to have our first father-son fight," laughs Dad.
There are a total of 287,068 families in Hawaii. Here are the types, according to Census 2000: Families in Hawaii
Married-couple families: 216,077
With children under 18 years: 96,758 / No children under 18 years: 119,319
Other families: 70,991
Male householder, no wife: 21,068With children under 18 years: 8,945 / No children under 18 years: 12,123
Female householder, no husband: 49,923
With children under 18 years: 23,619 / No children under 18 years: 26,304