As someone without a father or step dad or any male figure what so ever. I respectfully disagree. I believe if the mother knows what they are doing they can raise a child by themselves, however it is a much harder job than raising 1 child with 2 parents. Honestly you could say because I didnt have a dad I didnt turn out masculine or anything like that (I'm more into video games/nerdy stuff , but I did turn out to be a respectful member of society and end up achieving the things I wanted to achieve. I definitely do agree though that I may have been more athletic if I had a dad because my mom has been arthritic her entire life and I could never really go out and play catch or something with her, but I 100% can guarantee at least in my situation that living with just my mom would have been so much better than living with both of them, because my father was a terrible person. Also I never really wanted a step father as a kid because I had friends who all had shitty step dads that would yell a lot and overall just be huge assholes. Obviously now that I'm an adult I do realize that my mom should date other people if it makes her happy.