Fathers Matter
Whether you’re a believer or not, just take note that in Genesis 6, God decides to flood the world and start over. But, scripture tells us, “Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God.” The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Ge 6:9). (2016). Crossway Bibles.
Noah’s wife, his sons, and his sons’ wives were not declared righteous, nor are they described as walking with God, but because of Noah’s righteousness, they were allowed safe passage onto the ark. The rest of humanity died.
Fathers matter.
Across socio-economic, racial, and geographical lines in North America, boys are encountering pornography at earlier and earlier ages. Most boys now see pornography in the fourth grade and most regularly engage in it by the ninth grade. The only group of boys that fall outside this pattern, across race, economics, parental education, school choices, geography, etc. are boys whose fathers have explained to them why it is wrong and harmful and have relationships with their sons that reinforce their care.
Fathers matter.
Girls rarely have “mommy issues”; they have, instead, “daddy issues.” Fathers who do not have relationships with their daughters are statistically more likely to have daughters who get pregnant before marriage, have high rates of divorce, and develop dependency issues.
Fathers matter.
Our society most often makes moms the heroes and dads the butt of jokes. Parents are treated as interchangeable or expendable, particularly dads.
The data, however, shows fathers matter.
Your children can find safe passage on the ark because of you, fathers. You matter.
Happy Father’s Day.
Happy Father’s Day! Buffalo Trace has started a program pairing soon to be and new fathers with experienced fathers to teach them how to be great fathers. Makes that bourbon even better
The late, great Joseph Campbell commented that all successful cultures he studied had a common element of progressed human development from mother's-child, father's-child and adult.
The concept was that the child needed the early nurturing of the mother, but then needed the tough love of the father than helped launch them to functioning independence. Missing either of the those two things resulted in odds of behavior dysfunction as adults... and a resulting high risk that the tribe would not last.
My sense for our western societal decline is that as mothers have dominated the household and society, they have diminished the role of the father, and hence removed the needed step in developing well-functioning adults from the children. And the black community is even more evidence of this outcome with a higher percentage of single-mother families and their children behaving badly as adults.
Yes fathers are important. I would say they are essential.