The Jaycee Dugard story is an incredible, can’t-look-away-from story. I watched the Diane Sawyer interview July 10. I wouldn’t have missed it. It’s a story of human resilience. Jaycee Dugard is a hero. She showed such grace and composure as she described her kidnapping and years as a prisoner in the back of a suburban home. Maturity beyond her years. It’s also a horrifying story of the failure of the criminal justice system. They failed Jaycee when they did not protect her from the hopelessly sick husband and wife predator team. They failed when sixty (60!) visits by parole officers ended with no visit to the backyard sheds where they would have discovered and rescued the poor girl from her eighteen year nightmare. The focus of the two hour special was split between those two themes. Depravity and Grace.

Where was Jaycee Dugard’s Father?

But my mind kept wandering to a third theme. Where was her father?

Where was her father when she was walking to school alone and her mother was at work? Where was her father during the ordeal of Jaycee’s imprisonment? Why was Jaycee’s mother alone to cope with the anguish of her missing daughter? Why was she alone in raising attention and get help? Where is her father now as Jaycee struggles to break free from the prison of her thoughts and fears?

A big part of what fathers do is protecting their children. Mothers do a lot for their children and certainly protection is part of what they provide. They make the home warm and safe. They provide love that doesn’t need to be earned. But no parent can do it all. A dad sees his role as protector of his children from threats of the outside world. Dads help their children make their way in a sometimes cold and cruel world. Jaycee Dugard had no preparation for what she was to face when as a fifth grader she was snatched away from the path between home and school.

During the Diane Sawyer interview I kept asking, “Where was her father?”

The quick answer was her biological father had been absent her entire life! Her step-father (not her father) was at home. She was not close to him. The fifth grader walked to school alone.

The ABC news special alluded to the fact that Phillip Garrido and his wife preyed on potential victims, looking for the right one. They had a profile in mind. They were looking for vulnerabilities.  They were weighing the risks. In Jaycee Dugard, they found someone they thought they could successfully kidnap.

Several years ago, David Blankenhorn wrote, Fatherless America, a ground-breaking book on the role of fathers. He asked a number of fathers in different parts of the United States about their unique role in the family. Most dads put protection at the top of their list. They meant this in the most basic and literal sense. If an intruder were to break into their house, they would expect to be the one to go and meet that intruder and fight him off. The intruder might be a spider. Or it might be a thief. Heaven forbid, it could be a kidnapper. It might be a threatening nation. In order to provide that sense of security, dads have to be there. Physically.

Fathers tend to see their protective role in a larger sense, wrote Blankenhorn. They considered it their responsibility to protect their children from the destructive forces in the larger society. This is done by teaching their children a way of living.

Fathers define protection as preparation: preparing children for an uncertain and potentially dangerous future – by teaching and instilling values.

After I read Fatherless America, I began myself asking fathers what they brought to the family table. One father I questioned didn’t hesitate when I asked, what is your unique role in the family? He replied, “To scare the hell out of the boy who comes to my front door to pick up my daughter for a date.” I laughed, but I could see he didn’t. He was serious.

Now that my daughter is fourteen, I totally get it. One of the hardest parts of my separation a year ago was not having my daughter under my roof where I could tuck her into bed each night. I could not assure her that I was watching over her. I was no longer just down the hall. I could not warn her of the very real dangers outside the walls of her home.

There’s plenty of blame to go around in the Jaycee Dugard story. The criminal justice system failed her for eighteen years before someone finally got it right. I’m sure Jaycee’s mother felt some guilt. Even Jaycee must have wondered what she might have done differently. I squirmed as I saw Diane Sawyer’s look of incredulity as she kept asking, “why didn’t you grab your children and run away? But I am looking for Jaycee’s father – the one who brought her into this world. I can’t let him off the hook. The unique and indispensable role of a father in the life of his daughter is basic and essential. Nothing a mother or a government can do will ever fill that need.

You can watch the interview here:

Jaycee Dugard: The Full Interview Abducted by strangers and held captive for 18 years. (Diane Sawyer, ABC News special)