In January, Alyson Quinn wrote a story about Angela Patton and her idea of holding father-daughter dances in prison. Such a dance was recently held at the Richmond (Virginia) City Jail, and has garnered a fair amount of media attention.
An article in the Washington Post takes a look at the event, giving a glimpse of both fathers and daughters as they prepare for the dance. In addition to providing a great gallery of memorable images, the article raises a question: is a father-daughter dance outdated, considering the demographic changes in family composition?
Author Peggy Drexel, who is interviewed in the story, thinks so. “The whole idea feels very 1950s,” she says. “I mean, do you invite your sperm-donor dad? Today’s America has the daughters of donors, lesbians, two gay dads. …”
“What’s really new here is that people whose family forms were shoved under the rug, including those in jail, are increasingly saying we have a right to the same respect that everyone gets,” says Stephanie Coontz, the author of “The Way We Really Are: Coming to Terms With America’s Changing Families.”
Such criticisms miss the point of the dance. The dance does not exist to propagate new ideas of what families are becoming. In fact, many of the inmates quoted in the story indicate that growing up in such alternate families with absent fathers played a part in their eventual imprisonment in the first place.
Instead of promoting a postmodern moral equivalency among differing familial structures, the in-prison father-daughter dances seek to restore what has already been broken – relationships between parents and their children that have been ruptured because of the crimes the parent has committed. The benefits are twofold: the girls learn that their fathers care for them and want them to live a life that doesn’t lead back behind prison walls, and the fathers are encouraged to mend their ways so that they can become an active and positive part of their daughters’ lives once they are released.
“I just gotta break this cycle I’m in,” laments one of the fathers in the story. “I’m just tired of it.” If a father-daughter dance provides the impetus for at least one of the participants to move beyond such a cycle and, in turn, helps to keep their daughter from getting involved in a similar cycle, the dance has accomplished its purpose.
Prison Fellowship knows that, with God’s help, such transformation is possible. Through Angel Tree, children have been reconnected with their incarcerated parents, and families have been restored. Through reentry programs like InnerChange Freedom Initiative and Out4Life, inmates are given the training and encouragement needed to stay out of prison and to become the parents their kids deserve. And with prison outreach programs like Operation Starting Line and publications like Inside Journal, inmates are introduced to Jesus Christ and the transformative work of the Holy Spirit.
To learn how to be a part of God’s work in the lives of prisoners and their families through Prison Fellowship, visit https://www.prisonfellowship.org/get-involved/.
