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So is it wrong to have a mohterless home?
Absolutely not. Once the child is beyond the age of nursing, there isn't anything a mother can do that a father cannot. With three children it would be very difficult, but it could be done, especially if you had some kind of support system to help you out. Note that I'm not saying this because you're a father; I'd make the same comment about a mother raising kids alone.
In one of my adolescent literature classes, we sometimes read the book Up a Road Slowly. The book begins shortly after the death of the mother of two girls, one in her late teens, the other pubescent, 15 I think. The father is a high school teacher. The older daughter, a senior nearly ready to graduate and get married, stays with him because she's essentially an adult able to care for herself. The other is sent to live with an aunt. No reason is ever explicitly given for this, except that it's better for her, and the decision itself is never questioned by anyone other than the girl herself. By the end of the book, she's come to accept the general wisdom that it was the right thing to do. By the end of the book, she's mature enough to take care of herself and is sent back to live with her father. I'm always a little amazed that my students don't question the implication that the father is incapable of caring for his own daughter because he's a man and she's a teenaged girl who needs a woman's care. It's well written as a coming of age story, but deeply flawed due to the unquestioned assumption that men are incompetent parents in the absense of a wife. This book was written in the 50's. I'm constantly surprised at the number of people who still share it's basic attitude.
Having a good, caring, devoted parent is what is important, not the sex of that parent.
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