Posted on 06/21/2015 7:17:17 PM PDT by Morgana
Imagine a world without dads.
Ok. The exercise is over, because you wouldnt be here to imagine anything if it werent for those who are 50% biologically responsible for your existence.
Nature is an extraordinary thing. It reveals to us how important every piece of the biological puzzle is to Life. Each gender, female and male, is significant and different and wondrous.
But what happens when we pretend that theyre interchangeable or dispensable?
#DadsMatter Dads Make Life Possible. By The Radiance FoundationThe puzzle starts to fall apart leaving gaping holes. We see that in our modern society as the epidemic of fatherlessness sweeps across our country. The sexual revolution should have taught our nation one thing: irresponsibility leads to instability. Today, 40.6% of American children are born to unmarried mothers, with a culture-shifting 58% of them in mostly unstable cohabitating unions. Back in the 1940s, unmarried births amounted to less than 5%. Today, abortion has become a violent form of birth control with 85.5% of Americas 1.1 million annual abortions occurring among unmarried women.
Roe never empowered women. It empowered men to have sex and run. This is what happens when people choose abandonment over accountability.
Nothing replaces a father. Not a woman. Not a live-in boyfriend. Not government insistence programs (which insist that fathers stay out of the picture).
The repercussions are serious as study after study reveals the impact of father absence. This isnt to disparage single moms who do all they can to love and provide for their child(ren). Neither nature nor Natures God intended for women to play both the role of mother and father. According to the US Census Bureau report on poverty, single female led homes are 5.27 times more impoverished than two-parent married homes. (Just to compare, single father-led homes are 2.74 times more impoverished.)
Among children, lack of involved fathers has led to higher high school drop out rates, higher usage of drugs, higher rates of suicide, higher instances of teenage pregnancy, higher incarceration rates, higher instances of violent crime, higher rates of abuse and neglect (typically by live-in boyfriends who are not the biological parent), higher abortion rates, lower college graduation rates, lower employment rates lower opportunities to thrive and succeed.
Hollywood mostly portrays fathers as buffoons and disconnected reluctant participants. Disney, one of the leading influencers of children and tweens, typically conveys a world where parents dont exist altogether. So nearly every sitcom churns out sassy, witty, self-absorbed kids who journey through life without parental guidance.
Our society is being socially, and radically, re-engineered to believe that men and women are simply interchangeable. Theyre not. In our reality-show obsessed culture, a failed father and husband automatically becomes a pop culture icon and ESPY hero for exchanging his manhood for faux femininity.
Fatherlessness is destructive. Hollywood can pretend dads are optional, but reality doesnt need reassignment surgery. Despite the fact that 72.3% of black children are born to unmarried women, civil rights groups like the NAACP and the National Urban League, ignore the devastating epidemic. In fact, in the National Urban Leagues 2015 State of Black America: Save Our Cities annual document detailing the issues facing the black community, theres not one single mention of fathers or fatherlessness in the body of the report. Ferguson, Baltimore, and every urban area across this nation exude the brokenness. Fatherlessness is the most apparent yet most ignored social issue in the black community. Save the familythe strength of any communityand you will Save Our Cities.
#DadsMatter "Like Father. Like Sons." By The Radiance Foundation
Many in the education establishment insist that changing the standards of learning will bring massive changes to communities, especially those more economically depressed. Common Core Standards, for instance, will never impact a childs possibilities like a community whose common core includes involved dads. Fathers who are present and continually engaged in their childs life help shield against the social ills and crushed opportunities that are all too common in vulnerable, fatherless communities.
Father absence is painful regardless of race, ethnicity or socioeconomic circumstances. It is felt by over 24 million children in this country today.
This Fathers Day, many will not have a father to celebrate. That sobering reality is created by dads whove chosen self over sacrifice, by social policies that try to exclude men, and so-called justice activists who ignore the urgent necessity of fathers. But this epidemic has a cure. It requires fathers, adoptive fathers, mentors and other role models to defy the national trend and put it in reverse. There are great resources on fatherhoood (here, here and here) to help educate young men to understand why they matter, how to treat others (especially women) like they matter, and why dads matters.
Women are invaluable. Men are invaluable. And children (born and unborn) are our priceless posterity. They are worth every effort to provide an environment where they are loved, protected and nurtured and where their beautiful potential can be unleashed.
I feel a song coming on.
I talked to a guy quite a few years ago—we were trying to figure child support—and he said he thought he had “about a dozen” (children) ... but he wasn’t sure.
After naming five or six, well, he gave up. He was just stumped. They were irrelevant legally since he paid no support and IVD child support must have given up on him.
Except for being unable to say how many children he had fathered, and an inability to name half of them, hey—he was a proud sire.
But he never saw most of them unless on the street, and the rest of us were supporting most of them.
And we wonder about the string of Treyvons, Browns, and on-and-on? Well, it’s just starting ... and I’m thinking we taxpayers are owed a few more FD cards.
And I’m also thinking of changing my ten year tagline to: “If you aren’t angry by now, you haven’t been paying attention.”
I tried to talk a dad out of killing his baby Saturday. He held up his adorable two year old son so I couldn’t talk to much with him, like a shield. I kept thinking of the movie “Dead Zone” with Martin Sheen and Christopher Walkin. His wife didn’t seem to mind a bit. Off, and into the place of joyful murder.
Buddy, they don’t want that two year old in there! Freaks out the other women! Happy Father’s Day! I didn’t realize it!
What a man!
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