No other quote on fatherhood has stuck with me quite like this one.
It’s ballsy and over-the-top and it takes for granted how mothers are far more likely to be in their children’s lives. But, there’s a burning truth in it that brought silence to an entire classroom of criminal justice majors.
The course years ago at Penn State Altoona was actually about the history of organized crime. We watched documentaries and read books and discussed how the crime is portrayed in the media. The violence of the crimes often took center stage but one student saw the quiet thread that seemed to weave through most criminals we studied: they came from broken homes. Correction: they came from fatherless homes.
The one student who always sat up front but rarely said anything had something to say after one particular film when the professor asked if there were any questions that could begin our discussion:
“It seems like, maybe I’m wrong here, but it seems like when families break down, when… it seems like the end of fatherhood means the end of civilized society.”
He wrestled with the words and they seemed to wrestle with each other as they came out. But when they came out the rustling of notebooks and the tapping of shoes and pens came to a halt. Most of the students were young men and, it turned out, many of us (including myself) had selected criminal justice as our major in part because we had some daddy issues to deal with. A discussion unraveled, generally, about how breakdown in the family have become the clichéd story of most people serving time in prison. But nothing more was mentioned about fathers specifically. I viewed this generally as well even though I myself was being raised and supported in a single-mother household. The following week’s discussion was about Al Capone and so the quote on fatherhood was left alone.
The quote didn’t resurface in my life until the release of my own memoir. Emails from readers poured in and I still receive a few each week that, wouldn’t you know it, nearly always are from men who could relate to my story because their father wasn’t around either, because they found themselves turning to drugs or martial arts, to crime or literature, or to a host of other seeming dichotomies all in an attempt to fill the void. Within the first few pages of President Barack Obama’s memoir The Audacity of Hope is this quote:
“Someone once said that every man is trying to either live up to his father’s expectations or make up for his father’s mistakes, and I suppose that may explain my particular malady as well as anything else.”
The quote can likely apply to any child-to-parent relationship, but, in the context of America’s mass incarceration problem, which is primarily made up of men, and the statistics and information below that are from this PDF of the 1998 US Department of Justice report titled, “What Can the Federal Government Do To Decrease Crime and Revitalize Communities?” we have much work to do on fatherhood and fatherlessness:
Many of our problems in crime control and community revitalization are strongly related to father absence. For example:
– Sixty-three percent of youth suicides are from fatherless homes.
– Ninety percent of all homeless and runaway youths are from fatherless homes.
– Eighty-five percent of children who exhibit behavioral disorders are from fatherless homes.
– Seventy-one percent of high school dropouts are from fatherless homes.
– Seventy percent of youths in State institutions are from fatherless homes.
– Seventy-five percent of adolescent patients in substance abuse centers are from fatherless homes.
– Eighty-five percent of rapists motivated by displaced anger are from fatherless homes.
Without fathers as social and economic role models, many boys try to establish their manhood through sexually predatory behavior, aggressiveness, or violence. These behaviors interfere with schooling, the development of work experience, and self-discipline. Many poor children who live apart from their fathers are prone to becoming court involved. Once these children become court involved, their records of arrest and conviction often block access to employment and training opportunities. Criminal histories often lock these young persons into the underground or illegal economies.
How to break the cycle? The Good Men Project’s Robert Duffer highlights a few worthy initiatives already underway in his article What They Don’t Know: The Dad Movement Has Never Been Stronger. A movement. Yes. This is exactly what we need.
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–Photo: cmogle/Flickr
“….. they came from broken homes. Correction: they came from fatherless homes.” Why did you correct the statement?
This article, and many of its comments, vastly oversimplifies the situation. Yes, it would be of great benefit to a child to have both a father and a mother committed to its well-being at home. But the mere presence of a male parent isn’t enough. Is the father functional (e.g. not engaged in substance abuse or criminal activity and able to contribute to his household/society)? Is he non-abusive (emotionally, physically, verbally) to the mother and children? Does he demonstrate enduring commitment to his marriage/family? Does he demonstrate a loving, caring and respectful relationship to the child’s mother? And does she… Read more »
Have you seen this Volkswagen commercial?
http://youtu.be/FjTQV6CjAPE
How insulting is this to the idea of fatherhood, yet how commonplace is this theme of “Father as Doofus” in the media?
The video can’t be seen in that it’s private.
Someplace, I referenced the SciFi short, “The Cold Equations”. Found it amazing that it was in a high school lit anthology, because it teaches–most heart-wringingly–that when you meet arithmetic, arithmetic wins. Every time. No matter what you think of the result. Not what they’re teaching these days to kids–see the last election. And here we see the arguments about historical guilt, group guilt–for some but not others, of course–different parenting styles, and…ignoring the fact that arithmetic wins. Because arithmetic’s results may be inconvenient, some think other issues are more fun to discuss and maybe we can ignore the math a… Read more »
I have been watching season 4 of The Wire recently, and it deals with the school system and the young people affected by the drug problem in Baltimore. The trends cited in this article are present there. Just about every single young person on the show comes from a broken home, and now I see that the writers (mostly Ed Burns, I think) did that deliberately. Not because it adds to the dramatic power of the show, but because it’s the honest truth behind the problems Baltimore is facing. That is why I love The Wire, and that is why… Read more »
“The article doesn’t specifically say these problems only exist for boys” Boys in fatherless homes do worse than girls in fatherless homes. There are probably several reasons for that but one alarming factor is that the mother prioritise their girls over their boys. Research shows that mothers provide more “parental investment” to girls than to boys when there is no father in the home but provide a more equal distribution of parental investment when there is a father in the home. So it is not just about the absence of a father to provide something unique to the boy it… Read more »
“However, they are certainly not the only ones responsible” How about the feminists who have done everything in their might to remove any right for the father to be involved in his childrens lives? How about the women who refuse to allow the father to see his children or who does what she can to reduce their contact with him. How about the women who get pregnant but do not inform the man she got pregnant with that she got pregnant with his child and is going to have it? How about the feminists who have relentlessly argued that fathers… Read more »
I really don’t think that the blame for fatherlessness can be laid simply or even primarily at the door of women, or feminists for that matter. There is responsibility there, but hardly sole or even necessarily primary responsibility. In the same way, the fact that women are more likely to initiate divorces does not mean that they are more responsible for marital breakdown. Perhaps they are being abused by their husbands and need to get out. The party that initiates divorce is arguably more often than not the cheated or abused party, rather than the adulterer or abuser. If this… Read more »
Men did not bear or give birth to their children. They didn’t nurse them, nor do they experience the same costs to their careers on account of them. While valuing fathers, we need to recognize and defend the peculiar bond that exists between a mother and her child. The problem is this is not happening. As it stands on one hand there is plenty of talk over not penalizing women for bearing chilren while at the same time denying men that are doing the very “stepping up” that is being asked of them. Bitter and resentful attempts to shift blame… Read more »
“I think that ‘equal rights’ can be an extremely unhelpful approach in these areas. Mothers and fathers have a different sort of relationship to their children and we should honour that difference. Men and women should be treated equitably, but not equally, because we are different. Men did not bear or give birth to their children. They didn’t nurse them, nor do they experience the same costs to their careers on account of them. While valuing fathers, we need to recognize and defend the peculiar bond that exists between a mother and her child.” This is all bullshit. What you… Read more »
I think you have blown his statement way out of proportion. He hasn’t stated his opinion, he’s stated a fact, and I think you should pay attention to it. Women have a different relationship to their children than men do, you can’t deny that. He’s not asking you to favor a mother-centric view of parenthood, he’s asking you to acknowledge that women go through a hell of a lot for their children, some of which men physically cannot experience. For goodness’ sake, childbirth alone should tell you that.
Sure. I’d be willing to accept that giving birth to a child and nursing a child with your own breasts would create a particular bond between a parent and child. And, since men can’t really do those things, the male connection to children may be different. But, I think this difference is really overstated. First of all, if it’s true then that means that adopted children fed milk with a bottle will have the same relationship with their adopted dad as their adopted mom. What if neither parent gave birth to that child or fed that child with a breast?… Read more »
Fatherless homes tend to be homes with far too little BOUNDARIES.
Clearly, the main focus here is situations in which there had been a father present in the home, but that either he left, or there was a divorce and he either showed little interest in being involved with his children, or was given little opportunity to be. But what about an increasingly common cause of fatherlessness, namely, women are voluntarily becoming single mothers — via sperm donation (or sometimes adoption)? I have no idea how well these children will do — it’s kind of too early to tell, since voluntary single motherhood on the scale we see it today is… Read more »
Fathers are paramount in raising well adjusted children. Thank you for foster discussion on this important topic!
“The father figure is also one who can be depended upon. He provides, protects, and supports.” Alastair. Correct. But. You don’t need to “depend” on someone if things are going well. You don’t need anyone to protect you if there is no threat. You don’t need anyone to support you if you are supporting yourself or someone else is. IOW, the t things you mention imply some difficulties. The man must be capable of managing a threat. He must be dependable, which means there is something going on you can’t handle yourself, which means it’s not necessarily a picnic for… Read more »
Search and read – ‘we are all in the same boat’:
Please help us if you can or forward this message onto anyone who you know that will be able to help.
http://www.mortimers-removals.co.uk/ukfathers.htm
True, very!
Excellent, insightful article, and superlative comments from all 3 commenters so far. This some good stuff here, I would recommend this read to fellow men and especially to young and new fathers.
There are parts of the GMP, an archipelago in a sea of blue-pill mainstream thought, that gleam like diamonds (in the eyes of aware, turned on “red pill” men.) this is one of them.
Thanks, Cameron. You clearly get it. I mean that, and I appreciate this work more than you can know.
Governments systematic neglect of the neglect of men / fathers ‘role in the family’ is gender apartheid. Search: [email protected] read and consider the relivant contents.
“The End of Fatherhood Means the End of Civilized Society” If that is the case then I would say that not only do most people not seem to care about the end of civilized society but a lot of them are actively trying to bring about the end of civilized society. Over on the facebook like to this someone commented about men seem to be able to walk away from children scott free it’s seen as a major character flaw when women do it. What that person didn’t mention for some reason is what’s on the other side of that… Read more »
Interesting that the inverse proportion of fathering to criminality is one of the initial these of the film Courageous which, while at times heavy-handed, is an intriguing illustration of the many layers of fathering. I’ve been doing it for less than 2 years. Still so much room for improvement.
I think that the loss of fatherhood operates on two different levels. There is the absence of particular good fathers and their positive role modelling and support for their growing children. However, in many quarters of society there is increasingly also the loss of fatherhood as a role for men to aspire to. This is far more troubling and dangerous in the long term. Men without the cultural role of fatherhood to aspire to will often pursue masculinity in far less healthy ways. The loss of fatherhood is easily blamed on male failure. The claim that men are ultimately responsible… Read more »
I love this