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Over the years, through what I’ve seen with my own eyes and heard from others, I’ve come to believe that deliberately depriving a child of a father is a form of child abuse.
That’s not a popular position to hold. What’s doubly sad is that criticizing people who deprive children this way is worse than actually depriving the children. Why? Please explain.
Losing a father through death is awful, but it’s not the same as losing him through divorce or being born into a fatherless home. In whichever case, a child will feel abandoned, but losing a father through divorce and being deprived of one from birth are deliberate acts of abandonment, worse than death in a sense. When a family loses a father through death, they keep his memory alive. His authority lingers. The children grow up knowing he loved them and their mother, made sacrifices for their well being, and did not walk out on them to pursue his own interests.
Three out of four black babies are born in the United States to women who aren’t married to the fathers. Fatherlessness leads to a multitude of problems, the worst of which is the repeated cycle of fatherlessness. You’ve read the studies. Even if you haven’t, you’ve seen firsthand the effects of fatherlessness on children, especially boys.
Despite what selfish and shameless adults think, children want fathers. They need fathers. They need masculine men in their lives who love them and would do anything to protect them, men who live with them, raise them, and sacrifice for them. Millions of children grow up without being loved or cared for by the men who sired them. It makes me angry, bitterly so.
I reviewed a book called Raising Boys without Men: How Maverick Moms are Creating the Next Generation of Exceptional Men, about lesbians and “single by choice” mothers raising boys. The author is a psychologist and married mother, and I don’t know what possessed her to write a book praising fatherless boys. The book got my blood boiling so much, I wanted to fling it across the room. Read the review.
Anyway, the point is this: No matter how much the author tried to tip-toe around it, the boys she wrote about wanted and needed masculine men in their lives. Fathers. Because the mothers weren’t with the men who impregnated them, they had to seek out inferior “father figures” for their sons.
And that leads me to what prompted this post. James White reminds us that things will get a lot worse before they get better. Society’s permissiveness and selfishness will only increase, and sacrificing for and doing what’s best for children will become relics of a bygone era. In response to an article about homosexual “marriage,” James writes:
“As I stared at the picture [of two 'married' women with a child between them] I could not help but see only one thing: the selfish, self-centered abuse of a beautiful little child by two people committed to the fulfillment of their own desires. I once again immediately thought of the comments of Rosie O’Donnell. She was asked about her ’son,’ and she said he has asked about where his daddy is. O’Donnell’s response is the very essence of self-centeredness: ‘I tell him Mommy only likes other Mommies.’
“It is a measure of the decay of Western culture that self-deception is the activity of the day. We constantly cry, ‘for the children, for the children!’ while abusing them to no end in the service of ourselves. It is purposefully abusive of a child to consciously deny to them a mother and a father…A father is a man who heads the household and loves his wife as himself; a mother is a female who bears the children and nurtures them, honoring and loving her husband. These role models are never perfect even in the best situations, but the fact that there is failure in true marriage is no excuse for the creation of faux-marriages.”
As James alludes later in his post, perversity will become the norm, and anyone speaking out against it is viewed as the problem. No one wants to be reminded of his sin, so he tries to shut out and shut down criticism. On an individual level, that’s no threat. But when people organize as groups and push their debasement into government policy, that’s a BIG problem.
That’s why I speak out against homosexual “marriage” (and having babies out of wedlock) and will continue to do so, no matter what it costs me. It’s not just because it is a mockery of God’s intentions, it deprives children born into such unions the basic necessity of masculine and feminine love of a father and mother.
Freedom of speech will erode in this country, make no mistake about that. Merely expressing a Christian worldview is illegal in Canada. There is a deliberate effort on our own soil to silence those who call a thing by its name. What do you think so-called hate speech laws are about? So speak now, or forever hold your peace. The children need you.
Do you share my view that deliberately depriving a child of a father is a form of child abuse?
Update: Whenever you think something should go without saying, it’s wise to just go ahead and say it. I do not believe women should stay married to men who smack them around or sexually abuse the kids. This post expresses the general ideas that fatherlessness (through divorce or illegitimacy) harms children and that divorces are based on the selfishness of one or both spouses.
Related posts:
Resources:
- Fathers for Life
- National Fatherhood Initiative
- Effects of Fatherlessness here and here
- Shameful stats from A Portrait of the Black Family 2007 (PDF – emphases added):
• 70% of all black children are born out of wedlock.
• 65% of never-married black women have children, double that for white women.
• 22% of never-married black women with incomes over $75,000 have children, 10 times that of white women.
• 62% of black families with children are headed by a single parent.
• 85% of black children do not live in a home with their fathers.
• Only 15-20% of black children born today will grow up with 2 parents until age 16.
• Over 80% of long-term child poverty occurs in broken or never-married homes.
• 70% of [black] boys in the criminal justice system come from single-parent homes.
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You are dead on absolutely correct.
Boys need fathers who can teach them to be men.
Have you heard of or read the book; The Cry for Spiritual Fathers and Mothers?
There is a story in there that has been circulating about how in Africa at a game preserve, they went and culled all the older male elephants from the herds (when will we learn to stop messing with nature?!) with no older, stronger males to keep them in line, the young bulls became extremely aggressive and started killing the rhinos in an attempt to look for a way to vent their aggression and hormonal frustrations. When older males were reintroduced, the younger males were kept in line. It is such a tragedy to see communities run mostly by women. Not because these women are not trying to do their best, but because we simple cannot provide all that a child, male or female, needs. It is time for women and society as a while to wake up and to wise up and to start bringing men back into the fold, so-to-speak. We were designed to be a help meet, not an all-in-one.
You are gonna catch SO much flack for this post, but you speak the truth. Keep up the good work!
I think this article is good, yet it’s looking at the results of a far larger problem.
In fact, you mentioned it in one of the previous articles referenced at the end of this one called “Black Marriage”. In it the very first thing you wrote was this:
“I’m no expert on marriage (its benefits or detriments) or children or women or black people; my impressions are based on almost four decades of interaction with and observation of marriage and children and women and black people.”
The reasons marriages fail is because people don’t need to be in them in the first place. Based on MY observations and interactions with ALL kinds of people, it seems that people, in general, are woefully unprepared for most relationships (platonic and romantic) and lack understanding of what healthy and godly relationships entail, in form or function.
You quoted some statistics, and that’s fine, but what are the specific circumstances that led to those statistics?
Within, or even outside of sin and rebellion, families are broken apart for lots of reasons just as things happen, in general, for lots of reasons.
Which is the greater sin of broken families…a lack of preparation or lack of commitment.
In my line of sight, there are lots of couples met legitimately, had children legitimately, and (let them tell it) terminated the relationship legitimately, which can LEGITIMATELY speak to your the last 5 bullets.
Not all “black” families are broken because those people are oversexed and lack self-control. In my opinion its because (as in ALL groups) they are clueless as to what the purpose for yoking up in the first place. If I knew when I was 22 what I know now at 42, you couldn’t tell me anything. I would not have married so young and would not have made the choices in women that I did. Clueless!
I say that because, in my opinion, males shouldn’t even THINK about getting married until they are at LEAST 30.
Now for women it’s different because after 30, it appears your stock starts going down dramatically, which is why women in the their mid 20’s should look for a guy who is established and in their 30’s. LOL!
Thanks for those statistics La Shawn and great article. I am a witness of the fatherless issue. After my divorce, I raised my five children without the help of their father. But when my boys became teenagers, they wanted to be with him so I let them go. My daughters had no such yearning until they became adults. Now in their early 20’s, they are reconnecting with their father who didn’t want much to do with them at all. Regardless of what type of man he was, he was still their father and the kids love him and needed him! It is so foolish for anyone to think they can bring a child into the world and NOT need a father! Like you said La Shawn, it’s extremely selfish on their parts.
THEBIGDODDY hit it on the head though about preparation. I was one of those who did the right thing. Found someone who I though shared my values, we both wanted to marry and have a lot of kids, but neither us were prepared to take on the responsibility! If I had better preparation for dating and marriage, I wouldn’t have married this man in the FIRST place!
But sadly, according to those stats La Shawn shared, most of us black folks aren’t even making it to the altar. We are just unprepared for LIFE, forgetting who God is and how to obey Him. That alone would save us so much heartaches and headaches!
September 5 will mark 44 years of marriage to the same woman. I was 22 and she was 21. The ethos, then, was that marriage was forever and divorce was a failure and a humiliation. The “pill” was relatively new and was for pregnancy planning.
We both were high school teachers and from the mid-1960’s on we watched as the number of kids from single parent homes grew until it surpassed 70%. The screwy discipline problems and lack of respect rose and the drop out and failure rate grew.
Then, we started to get the kids of the single parents of the ’60’s and ’70’s and what was a trend turned into a torrent. Suddenly, our town grew dozens of private schools. Many of the kids in those schools have two parents, Those kids look more like the old fashioned kids who show respect and put forth effort. Meanwhile, the public school kids are divided between a small group of achievers and a general society that no one really knows how to address successfully.
Being a single parent is a burden. You can not possibly be there for your child when you need to be. If you are rich, you can hire surrogates. If you are poor, you can hang around home and be a poor role model. (I mean that!) But no one can take the place of a real mom or a real dad. And sometimes, real dads need real moms to kick start them and sometimes read moms need real dads to explain another point of view.
Frankly, I don’t think the word “family” applies to a home without a mom and a dad. We need a word that clearly denotes a situation where a child (children) is being raised by a single parent or a mom and grandmother. Maybe a “half family” would do it.
I learned that Laura Ingraham has adopted a child. Good on her. But where is the daddy?
Heliotrope, although we were a single parent family, we were still a family. We were poor. Being poor and in a single-parent family doesn’t mean being a poor role model. I was even on welfare for seven years which I CHOSE. Why? Because being home around my children and raising them was more important than me working outside of the home and leaving them to the wiles of government schools and after school programs which were teaching my children NOTHING but plain evil!
This is not a support for welfare which I hated. But my children do not have a poor image of their mother who made sacrifices so that they could be better citizens.
I’m proof that one can be a single-parent and poor as heck and raise children that won’t be a part of national unwed and STD statistics. I welcome you and others to read an article by one of these poor welfare children who is now a beautiful young lady, a senior in college and still a virgin. Here it is titled
Parental Detoxification.
The point of it all? It’s not being poor, but being poor without “training the children in the way they should go” is the downfall. All five of my children are born again Christians and none of them have children and are in college are working. They have broken the welfare mode already!
Being children raised without a father has taken a toll on my children and myself. They are not without emotional scars that affect them in their day to day lives.
Marriage must be the objective of any relationship and both mom and dad working together raising their children and hopefully, with one of those parents home with the child always (preferably the mother).
And God bless you and your wife’s marriage! Marriages like yours is what give others, especially the young, inspiration and hope that they too can have a successful marriage!
It’s worse than you think. I don’t have statistics, but I can tell you what I see. We taught a divorce recovery class for several years, from around 2000 up until last year. And the class morphed from mostly female to mostly male. Why? Because it was the mothers who were leaving the marriage. And yes, they left their children behind. Worse yet, these were mostly women who professed to be Christian.
I also raised 2 boys alone after a divorce from an unfaithful man. I agree, it’s child abuse, or at least neglect. Even after the divorce, my ex lived not more than 3 miles from his kids, and could have seen them every day. But I guess whatever it was he was doing was more important.
My problem with semantics used here (posted on facebook) notwithstanding, you have written an important post that targets the core of the problem with some of our most dangerous social trends. Fatherlessness deprives not just boys of someone very important in the shaping of their identity, but girls as well. It is just less obvious and discussed concerning girls.
The welfare system wrecked havoc on the black culture through the deliberate disintegration of their family unit. Now through other “enlightened” social engineering the whole fiasco is being perpetrated on our society as a whole. Why can’t we learn from looking at that illustration? Maybe we are being punished for our sins… doomed to repeat until we repent of what was done to the black community.
Coining the term “faux marriage” nails just what is wrong with the push for gay marriage. Maybe some of the trouble for understanding what is at stake is the conflation of “gay relationship” with “gay marriage”. Nobody says they want to harm children, but the attack on the integrity of the ancient form of the family relationship does just that.
I remember the time in the sixties when it was de rigueur to say marriage was “just a piece of paper”… but the gay marriage movement is willing to subvert the basic needs of *most* people for their “right” to that piece of paper. Goes to show that it was always more than a mere construct, after all.
Children need their fathers, that much we ought to recognize and advocate.
Thanks for your voice on the matter.
Carlotta says:
“We are just unprepared for LIFE, forgetting who God is and how to obey Him. That alone would save us so much heartaches and headaches!”
and:
“Marriage must be the objective of any relationship and both mom and dad working together raising their children and hopefully, with one of those parents home with the child always (preferably the mother)”
Amen!
A young man will always find a FATHER figure, for good or ill. This may be an absolute in human nature.
Spot on, LaShawn.
I know a lovely Christian woman who adopted a girl from China on her own. She is in her forties and has never married, and is pretty much past the time in her life when she can do so, having served her Church and Christian community faithfully as a single woman for many years. So, she adopted a girl that had neither a father or a mother, and raised her on her own. The girl’s about six now, and is not only raised by her mother but by the surrounding Church community, which features many men she can see as Biblical role models and fathers (not to mention she has a host of uncles and male cousins who live right on her street).
I have been struck by James White’s lack of humility when talking about homosexuals. I say this as a gay person who turned to Christ myself, but the kind of rhetoric he uses is the exact kind that kept me away from Jesus for so long. It’s Christians who were humble and actually seemed to understand (or at least want to understand) what I was dealing with that helped show me Jesus. I respect Mr. White, but he’s a horrible witness when it comes to this.
I think gay parents love their children just as much as any parent. It’s a misguided love, and one that will lead to ruin, but it’s not selfish and as dehumanizing as James White says it is. Besides, what is his solution? If a gay couple who adopted a child both came to Christ, what would his suggestion be? An ex-gay woman I know (who’s a fabulous writer) actually wrote that they should stay together, but be chaste. A gay family is even better than a split one.
As a chaste homosexual, I don’t know what the future holds for me. I might marry a woman if I can convince one that I’ll be a good husband (and I think by God’s grace I can be). But if not, I know that there are many children out there who don’t even have one parent, and if I can give them a home – and provide the opposite sex guidance that they need through friends, family and Church community, I’ll do it.
LaShawn
I agree with you so much. My dad was killed in Vietnam 2 months before I was born. Although it was an emptiness without him, you were head on, as to how we reflected upon him. We did all that you said, and for my brothers he was the example of being a loving father and proud to serve the country. My dad left a legacy behind him and we all know him.
To those that do not have a father or promote fatherless homes is devastating to me. The blacks in the United States are in crisis…and it is not just the fatherless homes but the abortion of 3 out of 5 black babies. What is the solution? Get back to His Word. Sorry if that offends some, but I am at the point where enough is enough. Who is crying for these children? I am! Shake things up LaShawn…finish the book. As a white woman in the desert southwest no one will listen to me…But you as a black woman in a city…You will be heard. (By the way I do post often on my blogs about the crisis, especially of the abortion of the babies.)
I am going to respectfully disagree with some of what you have to say. I will gladly grant that the two-parent family is the ideal, but there are also many situations in which remaining together is more damaging to the children than separation. Not all divorces are based on selfishness – some are based on actual abuse.
I ended my marriage due to my husband’s abuse of my oldest daughter. Should I feel guilty for depriving my (never abused) two other children of their father? I think not. But I do take the time to make sure they HAVE good male role models.
Your divorce was based on selfishness, B: Your former husband’s. I think you did the right thing by leaving him (good for you for protecting your children!), but that doesn’t change my view on the effects of fatherlessness. Your husband abused your daughter physically and all of your children psychologically. My concern is focused less on which parent is to blame and more on what’s best for children.
We might start by trying to define marriage Biblicaly which I maintain we haven’t done. We’ve defined marriage culturally, which is against God’s pattern.
Partly as a result of this we lose the fight on family and marriage, because we don’t know what they are. The biggest losers are the children
As a single father of three I think it is a mistake to conflate “fatherhood” and “marriage”.
Although my children were born out of wedlock, they are by no means “fatherless”.
LOL.. and I’m looking at the photos that accompany this article and tripping on you, LaShawn.
I want to add to my comments at #7.
Obviously, many commenters here will have a story that is NOT one man, one woman, wanted children and a happy marriage. The nuclear family is no longer the norm in large parts of our society.
Does anyone who is adding anecdotes honestly believe that what they did successfully is the BETTER societal model?
Too often we defend ourselves rather than promote the general welfare. Would you actually tell your children to purposely and faithfully follow in your footsteps?
As a side note, I can not understand how some churches came to be filled with third generation single parents. What book are they reading? What do they teach in Sunday School?
This is definitely a serious issue in the U.S.
No, I do not believe it is better.
What I do believe is that it is entirely satisfactory. My children have both a mother and a father. Both of whom are devoted to them and active in their lives. There are role models, of both genders, aplenty in their lives and, if anything, our respective partners only broaden their experience.
The two parent household is certainly an ideal and should not be denigrated. However, for many it is not the reality and we all have the lives we have.
Easy. When I joined a congregation I was welcomed without needing to qualify myself. Nobody asked about my parents. Nobody asked about my children. I was accepted for who I was, without question. This is as it should be.
A church is simply going to reflect the population from which it draws. If that community is primarily comprised of single parents, the congregation will be similar in composition.
Would you rather we not attend church at all?
Al–
I would rather you not attend church than to attend church and get nothing from it. It’s okay to have these things in your past. It is not okay to promote them in your children.
The household in which there are a man and woman, committed to each other (and that does, indeed mean marriage)is not an ideal. It is a necessity.
In a perfect world it would be okay to do whatever you wanted. In a perfect world children cannot be hurt. In THIS world, fathers are an absolute necessity. I believe that fathers are more essential to a child’s well-being than mothers are (and I am a mother myself), and even more so in a girl’s life than a boy’s. If we women do not stand up and demand men who will take responsibility for their actions, we won’t get them. Girls aren’t seeing such men any more. They don’t know about the kind of man who treats a woman right. They’re seeing “sensitive” men. Let me tell you, the biggest creep I ever met told me, quite seriously, that “I think I’m pretty sensitive.” He was sensitive, all right–to criticism of his own sweet self. To everyone else he was blind.
the bigdoddy–Maturity does not depend on age. I got married at 25, to a man four years my junior. We are still together 28 years later.
As a leader of a “families with young children” LIFE Group at our church, I try to reinforce the truth that fathers bear the primary responsibility for preventing or correcting the “no father = child abuse” problem. Christian fathers must lead by example as much as possible, and teach the children – especially the boys – how to stand against the destructive currents of our time, to become the fathers and husbands that God calls us to be. Thank you LaShawn for contributing to the solution by highlighting the truth.
–Tom
To answer La Shawn’s question, yes. Fatherlessness should be considered abuse.
Whenever a father turns his back on his children, depriving them of much needed love and disciple, provision for living, an example of how to love their mother, an example of how to be a husband and father in their marriages, when all of those things are missing – deliberately, it is plain and simple abuse.
Right now our government goes after the dads for child support. It’s the lack of “moral” support that’s the costliest.
La Shawn,
You make some wonderful points. I have some disagreements with the issue of divorce I have more fully explained here, but I would like to point something out.
Societal institutions have a role to play here, namely the Courts, specifically family courts. It is easy to become a biological father and harder to become a societal father. But the courts, if they become involved at all, tend to take the easy way out, allowing absentee parents (usually fathers) to “fulfill their parental obligations” by simply making a monthly child support payment. In return, the father gets a few days a month to be a parent. But this is too easy, it is like the child visiting a favority aunt or uncle, a family figure that can “spoil the child” for a few days and then the child goes back home. The absentee father is given a free pass from the hard part of parenting, the daily ins and outs and hard decisions that come with kids. They get to be the “cool” parent that does fun things for a few days, but does not have to make the hard decisions, does not have to say no or deal with real parenting.
To a certain extent I blame the family courts for this. I think family courts should do a better job of not just requiring financial child support but also fatherly support. Ordering a father to pay money to a mother for support of the child has become the legal substitute for actually requiring a father to parent a child and our society may be better off if more family courts started ordering more time of an absent parent in addition to the money.
This does not address all of the problems of fatherlessness, but until the courts start ordering more parenting, and demonstrating a real societal concern for fathering and mothering, then we are not likely to see as much in the way of change.
Uh Trish, you were 25 and the man you were with was 21, and obviously you were on the same level of maturity, though I think that perhaps this was an exceptional man.
Also, if both of you had a significant and healthy circle of family and friends, that goes a VERY long way to promoting accountability and longevity in young couples.
It is actually one of the reasons I disagree with those who presume that single parents are universally behind the 8 ball.
I don’t know about the full details of the respondent Al’s fellowship, but it seems they did provide a very good environment for him to progress AND cope with the uniqueness of his family. This is nothing to take for granted or ignore. What better place for a single parent to be than in a decent fellowship? Along with the warm fuzzies they get, they SHOULD be getting the entire message of purity and accountability and decision making.
People are in their situations for a whole lot of reasons, and AGAIN, I’m going to say it – but PEOPLE, in general, simply lack emotional maturity and health for a myriad of reasons…
..which leads my to my response to Matt Johnston..
Matt,
My position about emotional maturity is clear. The courts can’t and SHOULDN’T enforce anything else on men – or women – who are the non-custodial parent because they can’t force maturity and healthy interpersonal relationships between wayward couples/parents.
There are more men than people tend to believe who are non-custodial and pay their child support who WANT to spend as much time with their children as possible, but the MOTHERS are childish and selfish. In ministry opportunities, I’ve seen more cases of this than trying to run down a brotha to spend time with his children. It’s the mother who is resentful and poisonous to promoting the welfare of that child by MOVING on and being committed to what’s best for the child. And even those for whom “resentful and poisonous” is too vivid, then let’s just say the mothers tend not to cooperate in the best interest of the child. As such, you can see why the men back away and are consoled with the idea that the money they give is going to have to do.
And before we criticize the men for being consoled in that, I will tell you that I personally don’t, and won’t advise any man – or woman – to put up with ANYONE’S mess. Therein could be the possibility of why the relationship failed in the first place, which GOES BACK TO maturity, healthy support system and better choices from the get-go.
La Shawn,
My relationship with my daughters from my first marriage, although a long distance one, was successful because their mother understood the need for me to be in their lives.
I’m not sure what will happen with my second family because their mother is a self-proclaimed “I don’t need a man in my life” type. We adopted 5 children and she has tried to use the kids as leverage points throughout the divorce process.
I do believe what she has done is wrong and I continue to tell her when she steps out of line. The two younger boys are being shuffled back and forth between us because she “can’t handle them.” And her natural son, who knows me as the only “father” he has ever known hasn’t been allowed in my house since Thanksgiving. She never allowed me to adopt him.
Bottomline, La Shawn is that i think you are 100% on the mark.
Ken
Thank you for this post- and God bless you La Shawn Barber.
THEBIGDODDY, thanks for sticking up for the single-parent! It’s a nasty word automatically for many conservatives, not realizing that many single-parents are just as conservative and love the mother/father family model as much as they do! I’ve already noticed the disrespect on this board, although no one has actually called me out directly.
I made the mistake of sharing the success of this single-parent family. It seems as if people only want to hear of failure, to extol the virtues of the model mother/father family. I by no means am saying that single-parent hood is as good as the family with both mother and father, but only not to assume that just because you are missing a mother or father that you are somehow no longer a family, or just a “half-family” as heliotrope said in an earlier post.
I too am the product of physical abuse and desertion in my marriage. So not only have I suffered the indignity of a husband not willing to be responsible for his family, but also the disdain of people who consider my opinions worthless because I dare survive and have children thriving in spite of our single-parent familyhood.
The absolute best and necessary means for family survival I will repeat, IS the father and mother married with Jesus Christ as their foundation! If you have that in a marriage where the parents are submitting their will to God, the family will be at its best!
And you’re right BIGDODDY. Although it’s the overall moral support that children need even more so than financial (that I agree wholeheartedly with Matt), that is something that can’t be forced. If fathers begin to be forced to do that, physical/emotional abuse will increase rest assured. Many are in danger already due to having child-support enforced!
Parenthood is a spiritual decision which is why it’s so important that we must teach our daughters what type of men they need to choose. The same with our sons choosing potential mothers for their children. It starts real early, and something that you’ve already talked about in an earlier post.
My children don’t have to be convinced that both parents at home are better. They have suffered and will not wish that upon anyone else! Two of my elder sons are preparing for marriage with godly young ladies. So far, so good! They do get it!
A while back national statistics showed
children of unmarried parents have higher
infant morbidity and mortality than those
born to married (not cohabitating) parents.
thebigdoddy–
Actually, no. My husband came from a broken and abusive background. There was no “significant and healthy circle of family and friends”. Our marriage works because we choose to make it work.
Delaying marriage in a society that encourages 12-year-olds to have intercourse is simply asking for disaster.
The real root of the problem is that people are getting into sexual relationships before they get to know each other, which is exactly backwards. So here is somebody that you don’t want to spend the rest of your life with, but you’re going to force your children to spend the rest of their lives with this person for a parent? Uh-uh. Is killing the kid in the womb the answer? Hardly. It’s not your kids’ fault you messed up.
It’s time we remembered something: the child comes first, because the child is helpless. I’m sick of the “you can’t force people to _______ (fill in the blank)” We force our children to die in the womb. We force our children to live without mothers or fathers. We force our children to live unstable, uncertain lives so that we can indulge our selfish whims. And if we ever expect to get out of this morass, that is going to have to stop.
I’m not holding my breath.
#34 Carlotta,–
The single parent is not looked down upon by conservatives. I made my way through the orphanage world because my widowed mother was sent around the bend, mentally.
Many of us have life stories that are full of bad fortune and a few dumb mistakes. We pick ourselves up and move on as best we can and learn along the way.
Having said this, an intact, communicating and dedicated family with a mom and dad and children is the model that should be the norm.
If you look at what we have done to that concept, there is plenty of blame to spread around. But, we must get back to being sensible.
Divorce has a place. Celibacy has a place. A set of values and a strong belief system has a place. Children deserve to be wanted. Poverty of pocket is inconvenient, but poverty of spirit or morals or common sense is personal and nobody else’s fault.
I really admire what many single parents go through or have been through. But no matter how you slice it, two parents sharing the burden and being there for each other is far better.
That is why I challenge anyone who promotes single parenthood in a back handed way. Had my wife died, I might well have been a single parent head of household myself. But half of the family would have been missing, no matter what I might have done.
Heliotrope–
Had your wife died, you would not have been a “single parent.” You would have been a married parent whose spouse had died.
Trish, I agree with all you wrote in your last response.
As well I say that you husband is/was EXCEPTIONAL indeed as most 21 year olds are not regarding those endeavors.
Heliotrope, you say that single mothers are not looked down upon by conservatives. I know you want to think the best of the segment, but it’s simply a fact that they do..but then again, liberals do too.
In that aspect they are not much different in that both groups look down upon those who fall short of their ideal.
But nonetheless, the solution to those problems of familial destruction is going to be bi-partisan in nature which is the promotion of purity and preparation. Doing that will nip all of that in the bud.
THEBIGDODDY, thanks for the correction—-I have no call to speak for “all” of anybody! I have worked with kids and families of all sorts for my entire career. I now work with a hospital in dealing with patient/family problems and needs.
I find that a lot of people who have problems also have a lot of excuses and places to shift blame. They usually resist taking ownership for much of what is of their own making. As a conservative, I think that taking responsibility for your situation is essential to effecting an improvement. Granted, some folks are so worn down that they have to brought around slowly. But stroking a check and letting them go back to their failing ways is not the answer.
Conservatives who write people off and don’t offer a hand up are out there, I know. They just haven’t met me. Kicking a person who is down is not a philosophy, it is a sickness.
Whenever someone pats me on the back and hands me a donation, I always tell them I will call them when I have something I think they can pitch in an do. Surprisingly, to some, most people will help, they just have to be asked.
Fatherlessness is definitely a form of abuse because it effects a child as soon as they enter the world. I’m so glad that you’re brave enough to write this! And the Bible talks about us keeping widows and fatherless on our hearts.
BIGDODDY said: “The reasons marriages fail is because people don’t need to be in them in the first place. Based on MY observations and interactions with ALL kinds of people, it seems that people, in general, are woefully unprepared for most relationships (platonic and romantic) and lack understanding of what healthy and godly relationships entail, in form or function.”
This is the key, the crux of the matter.
I enjoy your blog, LaShawn.
Olive
Well said LaShawn,
My wife and I are retired and enjoying the role of Grandparent. We have four daughters. I must comment that the role of the father in the life of daughters is critically important too. One author says that every girl is a “princess” who asks two questions, “Am I beautiful?” and “Do you love me?” The affirmative answers to those questions are best supplied often and emphatically by the father. If that is lacking, the search for those answers begins to include other males and lasts into adulthood and for most of life. My opinion is that women “settle” for less than worthy men who have learned to get what they want by manipulating the woman. Giving “love” to get sex.
My wife and I are facilitating a premarital training and marriage mentoring program in our church. Training IS important.
We are also involved in our community as CASA volunteers. (I’m one of the few males in the local program!) We see too many young people who are in the foster care system because of the wreckage of uncommitted parents, most often the fleeing or unconcerned male who has “moved on.” Two parents are no guarantee of loving stability but they do improve the odds. We seldom are see a CASA child who is from a two parent home.
HHMmm. Sounds like I’m blowing my own horn. Sorry. Just want to say that if you have learned things that have helped you, get involved with sharing that experience with others, pass it on! My wife and I learned too much the hard way, butting heads for decades in some cases. Divorce was never an option, murder perhaps, but never divorce. We want to help others learn sooner some of the things that took us a long time to discover. Keeping the family together is paramount.
John said it best regarding being a believer/Jesus follower, “You will know them by their love.”
The statistics you quote at the end
are interesting. Most are dire, but
not all:
• 22% of never-married black women with incomes over $75,000 have children, 10 times that of white women.
This isn’t a bad thing. In fact I
would argue that it is a very GOOD
thing. There are far too many capable
and competent people who are NOT having
kids. When the breeders in a society
are comprised of the least fit, what
does that say about the future of
that society?
I personally believe that the government
should literally PAY people with high
incomes and/or high educational
achievement to have children.
Lee, how dangerous your assumptions are here. Those with money or more moral and can raise a child better than those who are poor. High incomes plus high education doesn’t automatically transfer to being a good parent.
The fact that a woman in that pay bracket is giving birth illegitimately shows a lack of morality (at least at conception).
Still, that is not good. Unwed is unwed whether you are poor or rich. That is NOT a good thing!
Carlotta, don’t fall for the okey doke, young lady.
When we post on conservative blogs we’ll have to unfortunately endure and even attempt to fruitfully engage with a whole lot of Jared Taylor, Ian Jobling, and Michael Levin wanna-be’s.
Don’t fret.
If “we the people” (government) “should literally PAY people with high incomes and/or high educational achievement to have children” —- why shouldn’t “we the people” (government) sterilize the “unfit”?
NOT MY PROGRAM —- just asking!
i’m not instigating, just curious. would the same apply if a single, never married woman wanted to adopt or had already adopted a child?
My grandfather abandoned my father and his mother when dad was a baby. It left a profound sadness, hurt and emptiness in my father’s that is so profound it affects even me. My grandmother did a magnificent job in raising my dad, he loved her so profoundly even I have admiration for a woman who died before I was born. My dad turned things around; married to my mom for well over 20 years, and I also hope to find someone to marry someday. My grandmother was a magnificent woman and did a fine job raising my father. But she had a lot to do, as did my father, in turning things around for themselves after my grandfather abandoned them. Would it have been ideal if my grandfather had stayed and done his duty? Absolutely. My dad came through ok, but the spiritual and emotional pain has definitely defined his character and his life.
Being that statistically, two thirds of divorces are initiated by women, does it seem that women place less emphasis on having a father in the house than men?
Most of what makes a marriage work is simply treating each other civily even when angry. The other half is living within your means. It really makes me sad to hear all the people who claim they weren’t ready for the responsibility of marriage. The more I hear that, the more I realize how immature our society has gotten. People used to raise their children so they had the skills they needed to survive. Now they have to go “discover themselves.” It breaks my heart.
[quote]Being that statistically, two thirds of divorces are initiated by women, does it seem that women place less emphasis on having a father in the house than men?
Comment by Greg [/quote]
An interesting statistic and most likely completely true. Having worked for a divorce attorney, I can attest that there were a lot of women who filed first, but in every case the man had already moved out. If the wife can’t seduce the husband and his paycheck back from his girlfriend’s apartment, then she got to get that paperwork on file so she can pay the bills.
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