A vote for fathers.
On this Father’s Day weekend, I’m reminded of one of the few times I ever agreed with Barack Obama. In a guest sermon that he delivered on Father’s Day 2008 at the Apostolic Church of God in his hometown of Chicago, then-candidate Barack Obama said this:
Of all the rocks upon which we build our lives, we are most dependent on the family. The family is that most important foundation. And we are called to recognize and honor how critical every father is to that foundation. They’re teachers and coaches. They’re mentors. And they’re role models. They are examples of success, and the men who constantly push us toward success.”
But if we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll admit that too many fathers are also missing – missing from too many lives and too many homes. They’ve abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men. And the foundations of our family have suffered because of it.”
As I sit down to write this it dawns on me that it will soon be true that I will have spent more time on Earth without my dad than I got to spend with him. Yet because my dad wasn’t missing from my home, because he did take his responsibility seriously, he’s still here. I am reminded of that frequently when I’m talking to either of my two daughters. Often it is true that while it may be my lips that are moving, it’s my dad’s voice filling the room.
I’ll never know how things would have turned out for me if my dad hadn’t been around. But I cannot imagine that things would have turned out better.
Countless sociological and academic studies have all said the same thing. Many of the problems that plague our society and that trap millions in inescapable poverty – the illiteracy, the crime, the drug dependence, the un- and under-employment, the high mortality and the general anger born of hopelessness – all problems that have proved themselves to be beyond the reach of billions of taxpayer dollars and countless government programs – would largely solve themselves if the men who impregnate women would stick around to be fathers (or rather ‘dads’) to their children.
The dads of my growing up, after having saved the world from Hitler and Tojo, went on to put men on the moon and build the most prosperous society in all of history.
But at the same time, well-intentioned but fatally flawed liberal welfare programs, together with a militant strain of feminism that rejects the value and worth of men, began eroding the role of American fathers. With that erosion went the respect and reverence we once had for them. The resulting societal pathology now stands on vivid display.
It’s an election year and we’re going to vote in a bunch of politicians that we hope will do better than the ones we have now. But if we vote fathers back into American homes, the politicians we pick won’t matter as much.
And that would be an altogether good thing.
Very good article Paul. I too, think of my father often. He was a brilliant physician who taught me a lot. He left us in 1990, but his wisdom remains with me. I have passed on what I can to my kids and grandkids. You’re a good man. Stay safe my friend.
Spot on Paul! I wish also that I had spent more with my dad!
It just seems every day there is a shooting and those are the reported.
Statistically speaking; anyone can look this up, BLM’s goal is to destroy the nuclear family unit. The one minority group that absolutely needs fathers for their children is all about destroying it? The Afro-American community has a 75% fatherless home rate. That is a tragic statistic. Good fathers (Daddies) overall are critical for the well being and solid development of their children. I have always heard this from every “old” person I worked with back in the 70’s and early 80’s, “Anyone can be a father, but to be a daddy is Devine.” Sure you all have heard this said in a different way; but it nails the point of the article.
Paul, thank you for another true and to the point commentary regarding the need for a father in every family. In what we can only assume to have be a well-meaning effort, Pres. Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society and the consequent ever-growing welfare state failed miserably to lift the poor –primarily blacks–from poverty.
What the great Society and policies that followed most succeeded at is destroying the nuclear family by incentivizing the removal of the father. Fatherless families over the decades, in their ever-growing numbers,were inevitably far more dysfunctional than a nuclear family blessed with a father.
Little wonder then that the crime rate in virtually every category is much higher among blacks than any other races. It isn’t that blacks are inherently more violent and untrustworthy. That is nonsense. Any race put through the decades- long wringer of government “assistance” that supplanted fathers would be equally well represented.
The government/schools axis has failed miserably to replace fathers.
That axis has shown itself unable to teach children to read, write, and do math, things that are easier to teach than basic morality.
Far better than a remote bureaucrat or a woke teacher, a father in as many homes as possible is the true and obvious key to children doing better in every way.
We all know that, including the politicians and the education bureaucrats.
But policies good for our children are not always good for the politicians and the education bureaucrats.
And until that changes, we will continue to see black children as they merge into adulthood dominating the news channels when crime is reported.
Not only is our country in a desperate situation because of the removal of fathers from the family unit, but even more damaging is the removal of our Heavenly Father from most of our institutions. Authoritarians cannot tolerate any competition for complete worship and obedience from the population, and our Heavenly Father represents a clear and present danger to their domination. Until we actually return to our roots and allegiance to the pledge “one nation under God”, I am afraid that we will continue to suffer from all of the ills that have been so eloquently cited in Paul’s essay and each one of the responses.