An assistant professor at Northwestern University wrote the article “When Children are Better off Fatherless”. She starts off by saying…
“The 24 million American sons and daughters growing up without fathers are not all doomed.”
“Our society must not assume that these sons and daughters are damned.”
This is a true reality. Growing up with a father doesn’t automatically make you a good person. Growing up without a father doesn’t make you a bad person. The Bible on this issue deals with “best practice”. A mother and a father is the ideal situation for children. However, we know that God can do anything with any circumstance.
The article then goes on to say…
“The government itself sends the message that children are better off with a father. The reality is, many children are better off without their fathers.”
She then quotes a Cambridge psychologist, “We think it is misguided to see increased paternal involvement as a universally desirable goal.”
She grudgingly admits, “Certainly it is optimal to have two parents who love and nurture their children…” but then slams the door shut in the same breath “…but rather than insist that all men can be good fathers, we should fill the lives of children with love and support from untraditional directions.”
What are “untraditional directions”? Further more, all men can be good fathers, isn’t there potential for that?
She then turns to her own experience and explains, “The myth is personal to my family, because I raised my sons as a single mother.”
Myth?
I do not believe that many people can subscribe to such a radical point of view, but the problem is that this philosophy finds its way into our culture and thinking.
If we deny the importance and necessity of fathers, do we not hinder those sons from their own destinies of fatherhood? Yes, we as men do have our own very serious issues. We must strive to be the “Genesis Men” that we were intended to be, but let us not limit the potential and power to change. As the saying goes, “Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.”
Looking into the other things this author has written, there is a book entitled, I Close My Eyes: Revelation of a Battered Women. She discusses the difficulties in surviving a nine-year abusive marriage and raising three boys alone.
So I guess the real question is if children are better off without bad fathers… better yet, can we, with our influence, shape better men?
What do you think about this?
The Genesis Man Project 