I know this is going to be published at the end of the day – we’re getting so many submissions that by the time I can start writing in the morning, almost all our slots are filled. The purpose of this post is to say that Fathers are the problem in America today. No, not that they ARE the problem but that they are LACKING in our society. Too many kids are growing up without them.
Society no longer really celebrates them anymore for the work they should be doing – so they either check out or disappear. Why SHOULD they be sticking around?
LBJ, with his Great Society and the regulations in “fighting the War on Poverty” basically threw them out of all the low income families. A rational father and husband, seeing that the Government would supply the basic necessities to his wife and children, would make the decision to leave. Government’s message was “they’ll be better off without you”. And many ended up better if you only examined the physical wellbeing. And with Government programs, those young children remained children, dependent on something rather than on a Dad (e.g., Obamacare that turned those that should be self-reliant by 26 to still see themselves dependent).
What was left unsaid by these “helps” was a Father’s most important role.
Feminists, too, piled on. As that movement went from the First, to the Second, onward to the Third, and now the Fourth Feminist Wave, made it clear that men, but especially husbands and fathers, were no longer needed. Men used to be seen as the home’s leader, the provider, and the protector. Feminists, adding to the Great Society, used the media to dispel and denigrate that role that men served for centuries. But now Government filled that provider role of food on the table, roof over the head, clothes on the back, child care, medical care…what was left?
Like Gloria Steinem made popular: “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle”. Media pounced as well with sitcoms and commercials showing how useless and inept husbands and fathers were to the well being of families. Court systems, too, sided against fathers in custody and divorce proceedings and men were left, often, without visitation rights and their money and good stripped from them.
Women were uplifted from their career second place spots – that kind of equal pay for equal work for equal talents and equal drive was a long time coming and well deserved. What came afterwards, was not. Boys were looked upon as problems as they didn’t act like girls in the lower grades, especially as men left the teaching roles in the lower grades. For many young boys, that may have been the only male role model in their lives…now gone. But, the emphasis on girls, who were portrayed as victims, really outstripped the attention shown to those young-men-to-be.
Think I’m wrong? Look at all the programs dedicated to helping young girls in school and outside of it. They did achieve their purpose – but at what costs to those men-in-training? It came home to me in looking at the “Top 10” pictures of the 2022 High School graduates. My town had no males. Most of the schools had one, two, or maybe three in that group.
My, how the tide has shifted. For quite some time, women are the largest cohort in colleges and graduate schools. They receive a lion’s share of the degrees. Male participation is dropping like a rock as Administrations, staff, Professors, and female and political advocacy group blame these now young men as the problem. Each one is a possible rapist on campus, all too willing to commit some level of harrassment or assault. Preference is manifest toward females, not only in the ‘gender studies’ but in the ‘soft sciences’ (e.g. sociology, psychology, and the like) in addition to the tradition study programs (e.g., teaching, nursing, O.T., P.T.). And men are now being set upon in the traditional male studies of STEM as misogynist, homophobic, and are put upon in other ways.
Slowly but surely, de facto “affirmative action” hiring processes grew into place. Human Resource Departments are now mostly female (and Woke), so the message continues.
And what’s the result?
A lack of fathers. A lack of fathers that results in a failure to teach BOTH their boys and girls those things, those ideas, those values, that are best taught by men (and sometimes ONLY by men as women can’t know what it is like to be a good man (and visa versa) who are a big part in their kids’ lives. I know, I’m going to catch a lot of grief over that but I don’t care. Rant at me because there isn’t really much else you can do.
FAILURE to have that strong male role model in a young boy’s life is what has brought us to this place in Society where teens and young adult males are savages at worst, rebellious in the middle, and totally dropped out/tuned out at the worst. Not having the values of GOOD masculinity inculcated into their souls by Fathers who were taught themselves by a long line of their predecessors is giving us the Society we see around us: drug addicts that don’t love themselves, guys that have no purpose, males that don’t have even a modicum of manners and respect towards others, and just float through their lives only caring about themselves. While the stereotype is that of them down in their Mommy’s basement playing video games in unhygienic conditions and having no friends, how has that been constructed?
How did we get “heah from theah”?
Again, if you couldn’t guess – Fathers. Masculine Fathers. Fathers willing to be that role model that is willing to hold that small child to his breast in comforting them to switching in a heartbeat to one that is stern, forceful, and unwilling to compromise on standards that his sons HAVE to meet to be both good citizens and great fathers in their turn. Duty, Honor, Courage, Sacrifice, Promises kept, Provider, Protector, the guy on the sideline exhorting his player son to “GO! YOU CAN DO THAT!”. To love God, knowing that someday you WILL be judged for your actions and beliefs, that you are NOT the most important person in the world (except to your family) be chivalrous, rightly knowing Right from Wrong, respect for LAWFUL authority, showing deference to elders, learning inquisitiveness, what is self-reliance and self-sufficiency, to stand up to bullies, to defend oneself, learn to cook and do house chores, learn the value of money ad the show up/stick-to-it-ism/work ethic to earn it, to be fair, assess situations, always have a plan, learn to have situational awareness, learn about our country’s founding and history, learn how to handle money, quick to be patient, be intolerant of “wrongness”, stand up for and by your friends. That loyalty counts in a friendship. And much, MUCH more.
And then, as time rolls on, know how to morph from being that Dad to being both a friend and a mentor as they grow into their adulthood.
And you treat your wife as the Gift from God that she is.
All these things that I was never taught and had to learn it on my own with tons of mistakes along the way; I had no father in my life growing up. I intimately know the consequences of that lack due to divorce, failure to put oneself second and kids first, and the bitterness surrounding a young boy as the family dissolved in slow motion.
No, Fathers ARE needed – and more desperately now than ever. No society that depends on government can be successful, no matter what is said. Success is bred from within a family. I write these words not to dismiss the work of an engaged, loving wife and mother but today IS Father’s Day. Ladies, you know innately, that your husband and the Father to your children can only succeed with your help and if he’s anything like me, he knows the converse is also true.
For all of the Political Correctness rules that I have just broken, I don’t care. A boy (or daughter) REQUIRES a Father.
Be that man and tell the rest of those that oppose your natural role to go pound sand. And REMEMBER this day that Love is both an emotion AND a verb (that requires a decision to chose TO love or NOT to love).
Now go give that little one a hug and and kiss.
