Disposable Dads

My Dad, David, has always been a dreamer.  He taught me about getting back up when you get knocked down.  He has a great sense of humor and shows compassion. Some of the lessons he has taught me have been about what NOT to do, and those can be the most valuable of all.

My Step-Dad, Gene, is a model of hard work.  He loved my mom through her darkest days.  He is an amazing woodworker and gardener.  He can fix anything and is always willing to help a friend.

Tom, my Father-in-Law is a sweet man who is quick with a smile.  He has a gentle spirit and has taught me about being loyal and stable for your family.  He loves flying airplanes and is teaching my boys to love it too.  My kids adore him.

I sure miss my Grandpa, Harvey.  He was one of my favorite people in the whole world.  He always had a twinkle in his eye, even when I would debate him in politics.  Back then I was a hippie, born a generation too late.  He would always bait me and and as I rambled on and on, just smile knowingly.  He seemed to think that paying taxes and getting a job would cure my crazy liberal ideas... oh, wait.

He has been gone a few years, but I still miss him.  Throughout my crazy childhood he was one constant that I could count on. When I was about eight he asked my brother and I to make Christmas lists for our Grandpa.  We must have spent hours on our lists.  There were categories and subcategories of presents.  Our motto was "no toy left behind".   Of course, we were just trying to give him options. When my parents went to his house to pick up presents, they didn't realize they would be making several trips.  He had bought us everything on our lists.  He was generous even to a fault.  I always knew I was loved unconditionally by my Grandpa, and I sure miss him.

And I have to say Happy Father's Day to my husband, Kevin. We love you!



I am sure you have your own stories about the men in your life.  Hopefully you are able to find some good in the memories and lessons they taught you.

Unfortunately, too many people in America would have a hard time coming up with anything to say about their Fathers.   It seems that Fathers have become somewhat optional in our mixed up society. The notion that Fathers are optional is a dangerous trend with significant consequences.  Here are some startling statistics on the impact of fatherless from an article by Wayne Parker.

Incarceration Rates. "Young men who grow up in homes without fathers are twice as likely to end up in jail as those who come from traditional two-parent families...those boys whose fathers were absent from the household had double the odds of being incarcerated -- even when other factors such as race, income, parent education and urban residence were held constant." (Cynthia Harper of the University of Pennsylvania and Sara S. McLanahan of Princeton University cited in "Father Absence and Youth Incarceration." Journal of Research on Adolescence 14 (September 2004): 369-397.)

Suicide. 63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Bureau of the Census)

Behavioral Disorders. 85% of all children that exhibit behavioral disorders come from fatherless homes (United States Center for Disease Control)

High School Dropouts. 71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes (National Principals Association Report on the State of High Schools.)

Educational Attainment. Kids living in single-parent homes or in step-families report lower educational expectations on the part of their parents, less parental monitoring of school work, and less overall social supervision than children from intact families. (N.M. Astore and S. McLanahan, American Sociological Review, No. 56 (1991)

Juvenile Detention Rates. 70% of juveniles in state-operated institutions come from fatherless homes (U.S. Dept. of Justice, Special Report, Sept 1988)

 

Confused Identities. Boys who grow up in father-absent homes are more likely that those in father-present homes to have trouble establishing appropriate sex roles and gender identity.(P.L. Adams, J.R. Milner, and N.A. Schrepf, Fatherless Children, New York, Wiley Press, 1984).

Aggression. In a longitudinal study of 1,197 fourth-grade students, researchers observed "greater levels of aggression in boys from mother-only households than from boys in mother-father households." (N. Vaden-Kierman, N. Ialongo, J. Pearson, and S. Kellam, "Household Family Structure and Children's Aggressive Behavior: A Longitudinal Study of Urban Elementary School Children," Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology 23, no. 5 (1995).

Achievement. Children from low-income, two-parent families outperform students from high-income, single-parent homes. Almost twice as many high achievers come from two-parent homes as one-parent homes. (One-Parent Families and Their Children, Charles F. Kettering Foundation, 1990).

Delinquency. Only 13 percent of juvenile delinquents come from families in which the biological mother and father are married to each other. By contract, 33 percent have parents who are either divorced or separated and 44 percent have parents who were never married. (Wisconsin Dept. of Health and Social Services, April 1994).

Criminal Activity. The likelihood that a young male will engage in criminal activity doubles if he is raised without a father and triples if he lives in a neighborhood with a high concentration of single-parent families. Source: A. Anne Hill, June O'Neill, Underclass Behaviors in the United States, CUNY, Baruch College. 1993

So what do we do about this?  There are a few things that need to happen to turn this trend around. For starters, we have to tell the truth about divorce.  Just because something is common doesn't mean it is normal or good.  Divorce has become the easy out for couples not getting along.  There are some situations when divorce is the right course of action, but it shouldn't be the first option.

Marriage has become a disposable idea, if people choose to get married at all.  What has served as the bedrock of civilization, the nuclear family, has become "easy come, easy go".   In a world of instant gratification, couples need to be reminded that it can take years, not weeks or month, to work out the kinks in a marriage.

Second, and this is going to really cheese liberals off, men in our culture are being told in subtle and not-so-subtle ways that they don't count.  One of the most basic illustrations of this is the idea of fatherhood itself.  As it stands, if a woman gets pregnant she has complete control over what happens next.   Chicks march in the street celebrating this fact, apparently ignoring the consequences of their ideas.  If she chooses to have the baby, the father is obligated to pay her money till the child is 18 (as he should).  But the father has no say in the matter.

Now if she chooses to have an abortion, and kill his baby, he has no say in that either.  Even if he is willing to raise the child on his own, he has no rights.   Last year I read a sickening article in Mother Jones which said,

Husbands or boyfriends have been known to barge into his office and violently insist their baby not be aborted, to which Rashbaum replies with an equally violent, "F*%#! you, Charlie, we can abort her." He won't talk to them directly because, he explains, "I don't treat men."

Should men have a say over the life and death of their own child? I think so.  If we are going to tell men they don't have a say over the life or death of their child, what message are well sending about overall fatherhood?

This is a complicated issue to be sure; but like most problems in life, if we don't tell the truth about the problem, we can't begin to fix it.   While the solutions may be complex, one thing is simple and clear: kids need dads.

Happy Father's Day!