June 15, 2006 1:02 PM
Dads - Who Needs Them?
Here's an article I wrote in 2001 that's appeared in several papers on Father's Day. Keep in mind I was living in California, where we were in the thick of a major push to teach kids - as young as preschool - that there is no one best way to structure a family. They were promoting a film called That's a Family , which purports to prove that two women or two men or an unmarried man and woman or even a grandmother can provide the same foundation a traditional married mother and father can. (This is the kind of stuff I covered for Focus on the Family for three years beftore we moved to Virginia.)
Mind you, I'm not recommending that we go back to the days of stigmatizing children for the sins of their parents. But I think when we begin deconstructing role models for the purpose of making sure no one has hurt feelings, we are crippling our culture.
I was brought up in a fatherless home and felt bad about myself because of it. But the last thing I needed was for someone to take away the model that gave me hope and inspiration. Thank God I grew up in a time when the traditional family was still the model. And though for years - like all good counterculture cynics - I had contempt for Leave It to Beaver and anything that smacked of the traditional family, I now understand the value of a culture that supports healthy icons. Don't you think that shows today that show the family and its members as crass and corrupt help contribute to the breakdown of morality and morale? (Friendly Reminder: the sooner you kill your TV, the better - unless you have the self-discipline to only watch shows that uplift, enlighten and encourage you and your children).
Anyway, that is the background behind this article.
DADS: WHO NEEDS THEM?Culture clashes over fathers’ significance deserve a second look
It’s not the best time to be a father. Not when magazine covers are plastered with pictures and crammed with stories of one- or two-mommy families and how well they’re doing on their own. Not when Rosie and Michelle and Calista have glamorized single motherhood. Not when the woman you love can tell you she’s already made an appointment to get rid of a baby you might want to keep.
Of course, being relegated to afterthought status may be just desserts. It’s true a lot of dads are jerks. I know mine was. I remember the day he left. I was five years old. I knew my world was coming undone. What would it be like to grow up without my father?The years to come provided harsh answers to that question. Mine was not a carefree childhood. Despite the rosy picture painted for us in the media and grade school diversity courses, growing up fatherless is just about the worst thing that can happen to a boy or a girl – even worse than losing a mother.
If you don’t believe me, check the statistics. They show children from fatherless
homes are:
– 4.6 times more likely to commit suicide
– 6.6 times more likely to become teenaged mothers
– 24.3 times more likely to run away
– 15.3 times more likely to have behavioral disorder
– 10.8 times more likely to commit rape
– 6.6 times more likely to drop out of school
– 15.3 times more likely to end up in prison as teenagers.They are also 33 times more likely to be seriously abused ( a cohabiting boyfriend is 30 times more likely to abuse a child than a father) and 73 times more likely to be killed.
The numbers are important – more important than the carefully-selected and sanitized stories of moms who are doing just fine without dads. For each of these wonder women there are hundreds of mortal moms slogging through the daily grind of raising kids alone and wishing it were different. I think of my mom, who saw her oldest son go to prison at 17 and the next drop out of high school in his sophomore year. I think of how hard she worked and how little she smiled. I think of my own early promiscuity, drug abuse, and determination to control.
No doubt about it, things would have been better if my dad had stuck around.
It’s so much easier to see, though, now that I have the privilege of living with a real father. When my husband swoops up one of our daughters and tells her how pretty she looks, how smart or talented she is, and how much he loves her, I see the unmatchable power of paternal affirmation. And as he leads our sons with equal parts firmness and love, the results show me the world stands to gain much from young men brought up by a strong, involved dad.
David Blankenhorn – author of Fatherless America and father of three – goes further, theorizing that in a couple decades:
the principal dividing line between the haves and the have-nots will not be what color you are, what language you speak, to what religion you belong, or where you live. It will be a question of patrimony. Which of us had fathers, and, therefore, which of us received the kind of advantage in life that omes with having a father who loves you and cares about you and cares about your mother? Which half of us, of the next generation of adults, will not have had that?Of course there are kids who survive. I did. But I’m humble enough to know I might have lived a more graceful, pleasing, and consistently productive life if struggling through my “issues” hadn’t cost me and everyone around me so much time and energy. I think we’re fools if we believe that in order not to hurt someone’s feelings we should be teaching our children that dads are not necessary. What a recipe for disaster!
My advice to those without a dad at home: find an intact family to admire and spend a lot of time with them. If they’re worth admiring, they’re probably sufficiently generous in spirit to have room for more at their table and in their hearts. My friend Rhonda’s dad was a beautiful black man with enough joy to fill a whole row of rowhouses like the one he’d bought for his family. When he walked through the door, everything felt different, everything felt better. Without knowing their family, I might never have known a man could have such a positive effect. I might have settled for less, or never settled at all.And if you’re blessed enough that you don’t have to go out looking for role models, then thank your dad for being there, for avoiding temptation, for keeping his priorities straight, for all the ways he’s helped you become all you were meant to be, and for loving you enough to never leave.
Posted in Fathers, Holidays | Permalink
Comments
What a beautiful essay. Thanks for saying things that our world needs to hear and so eloquently, too! I've been enjoying your site, keep it up!
Posted by: Christine | June 15, 2006 1:44 PM
What a beautiful beautiful parcel of truth. Thank you so much Barbara.
Posted by: Lovejoy | June 15, 2006 2:01 PM
Wow! what a moving line - (My friend Rhonda’s dad was a beautiful black man with enough joy to fill a whole row of rowhouses like the one he’d bought for his family. When he walked through the door, everything felt different, everything felt better.) Have you ever thought of writing short stories? This post was a great reminder for me to send a "Happy Fathers Day" to one of my uncles that was like a dad to me!
Thanks ~ AH
Posted by: Angie H. | June 15, 2006 3:58 PM
Great post. I love your message.
Posted by: Neighbor Jane Payne | June 16, 2006 12:21 AM
A bit of a depressing post for someone (me) who is adopting a little girl by myself. I do hope that my daughter will have role models, though.
Melissa
Posted by: Melissa | June 16, 2006 10:58 PM
