NYP:
A child growing up in a broken home automatically puts them at a disadvantage. Studies across the board show that children of two-parent families have a better chance of success in education, in business . . . in life. Yet too often, society doesn’t do enough to encourage these unions, even saying it doesn’t matter. In his new book, “The Children We Left Behind: How Western Culture Rationalizes Family Separation & Ignores The Pain Of Child Neglect,” Adam B. Coleman explains how this is a terrible mistake of selfishness. An excerpt:
Why didn’t my father love me? Why did my father abandon me?
Why didn’t he show me how to become a man? Why wasn’t my father around to wipe away the tears that streamed down my face when I felt lost in this world and hated what I was becoming?
What was wrong with me?
Why was seeing me a couple of times a year satisfactory to him? Why would he always choose to leave in the middle of the night and never hug me goodbye? MORE
Holy Crap. “What was wrong with me”. Not a damn single thing.
For 20, 30 years the media and politicians have carried on about this and all it’s going to do is make more kids feel like something is wrong. And in large part they caused it with welfare and easy divorce. What’s really behind this? Ooops, the pushing of child support laws, hoping to correct the horrendous mess caused by the “War on Poverty”.
Be all this as it may:
For thousands of years, the “norm” in family lives did not include “hands-on” lovey-dovey parenting by fathers, who frequently were gone altogether for military or work. Men traveled. Immigrated to other countries for years before their families could join. Centuries of travel by horseback. Not to mention polygamous cultures.
In addition, the psych-soc studies are crap, conflating nonmarital births with divorce cases. There is no correcting for income or culture. (Guess what makes for the most success. Yeah, it’s money.)
At the very same time, this same group of fakes academics exalt same-sex unions in which there are no fathers or mothers (the latter being arguably much worse for a young child).
Really. Does everyone and everything have to have a version of victimhood?
Retort make by one woman formerly married to an abusive asshole: “No, my family used to be broken, but I fixed it.”
Addendum.
A quarter of U.S. Presidents grew up without fathers. HALF of U.S. Presidents in America’s first 50 years.
And by the way, back in those days, even when they had fathers in the home (who weren’t away for years), at age 7 not infrequently the boys would be apprenticed out to learn a trade somewhere. Real “family life”.
Forget janitor. Most men stayed on the farm. Strangers were few and far between and often viewed with suspicion.
Akshully, a lot of fathers died on the job of being fathers and husbands. Mom found a guy willing to take on a ready-made family (often with one of his own) and remarried (see Custer, George Armstrong or Carson, Kit). There were also plenty of motherless families childbirth being a rough time without obstetrics (see Cartwright, Benjamin).
While Janitor makes several good points about historical fatherless families, none of them address the topic of Coleman’s book: fatherless homes caused mainly by volitional acts of parents who, through their own immaturity, impulsiveness, and selfishness, pursue their personal needs over the needs of the children they (probably also impulsively or carelessly) brought into this world. This, rather than events outside the control of parents, is the subject of his personal story, and one that is easily extrapolated across our current culture.
There is no denying that a hot (potato) topic in the past several years is the mark left on black families by government policies which encourage fatherless homes. Coleman — at least from the article — goes much further than this one reason for the demise of the nuclear family and well-beyond it being confined to black families.
There is also no denying that today’s Progressive culture has popularized the idea that individuals continue pursuing whatever gives them personal satisfaction well into adulthood, at the cost of giving their attention and energy to their children.
I applaud Coleman for not just having the courage to raise the subject, but to write an entire book about it. I hope it sells.
I’d go even further to say that it’s not even enough that both parents suit up every day for their family team, but that they actually play. I’m distressed by the number of parents I see with their youngsters who are too distracted by their phones to interact with their own kids. Where do we think kids learned this behavior?
…all that, and I forgot to add:
God is the anchor for individuals and families. Without him there is no basis for adults who have children to sacrifice themselves to the care their children deserve, as imperfect as it sometimes is. In a culture (Coleman points to specifically to Liberals) in which personal responsibility is ignored and personal indulgence is paramount, it seems clear enough we are witnessing a large part of our society which denies God’s sovereignty over their lives and thus their own debt to their children.
In the 6th grade, I had a couple of friends who would throw drug and alcohol-fueled parties while both parents were gone for the weekend. I was stunned kids that age would do this. I never went, not my thing, and my parents would murder me if they found out. lol
I recall the kids saying that their parents (both had moms and dads in the home) didn’t care. They would tell me, “They don’t care” while looking away. Clearly, the kids cared but had no other outlet to express their grief. It was heartbreaking.
Sometimes, parents IN the home who act like that dude’s father in the article, are just as bad. Abandonment is abandonment.
“it seems clear enough we are witnessing a large part of our society which denies God’s sovereignty over their lives and thus their own debt to their children.”
1000%
“Studies across the board show that children of two-parent families have a better chance…”
That’s what marriage, in Christianity, is all about.
In fact, St John the Chrysostom spelled that out VERY clearly.
Abigail and MJA, there is no question that it’s a blessing for a kid to grow up in a home with two competent, loving, biological parents.
That said, the motives moving much of what we see, articles and books, decrying “fatherlessness” tend to be suspect and ignoring the real cultural problems — that are not merely about the absence of a parent. It’s not a fix for the libertinism, selfishness, and lack of values to demand more involvement by personality-disordered, abusive or otherwise bad parents (of either sex), or more child support enforcement. It’s also not a fix for for kids to shuffle back and forth between two “homes” and often, “blended” families.
Two things in the linked article jumped out at me: this guy’s father is just a crappy incompetent parent and unlikely to have been much better had he been living there, and… here we go reinforcing yet another claim of “why you have privilege.” I’m so tired of this.
AbigailAdams, totally agree. Excellent comments. A Godless and narcissistic culture has infested Western societies. As a result generations of moral deficiencies, sin-laden deviant behaviors have been passed on to uneqipped parents unwilling to take responsibility for their families.
Children grow up without God-centered principles. Fathers and mothers who don’t know anything about modeling those principles create broken, lonely people.
Thriving nuclear families are vital for functioning successful society. The influence of evil, destructive progressive ideologies has turned into a secular religion that has no beneficial aspects. Progressism is diametrically opposed to God’s intentional personal connection to His purpose for man through Christ.
The world is even feeling the strain of dealing with the brokenness in society. People with no interest in religion or knowing God are weary of the nonsense and seeking a reality check. One of the reasons President Trump’s “Common Sense” is so popular.
Fatherless families is indeed a core, very damaging component of corruption in Western societies, but the key has to be the refusal to depend on God. He created in love the best framework for a stable foundation for societies – family, as God alone defines it.
99th Squad Leader — Hear! Hear! Great commentary! And this is what we are commissioned to spread throughout our sphere of influence. Please pray for all who take this command seriously, especially for shaky-voiced me! I don’t mind the laughter so much as the scoffing, but at least I’m not worried — for the moment — about outright violence.
Blessings to you, friend.
Thank you, AbigailAdams. Amen, sister in Christ. Prayers sent. Boldly go before men with your witness. We overcome them (our enemies) by the Blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony. Dust off your feet and “keep it moving” for those who reject the Truth.
Plant the Gospel seed and let the Holy Spirit do the rest.
God has not given you the spirit of fear. No weapon formed against you shall prosper. You are braver and bolder than you think because Christ lives in you! – Galatians 2:20. Be blessed as always.