Where are the Fathers?
Where are the Fathers?
I remember well the day my father died. I was driving to a conference, where I was the main speaker. The call shocked my world. I knew dad was old and ill and that inevitably this day would come. But I did not expect it then, now, or maybe ever. Dad had always been there. He was a solid rock, never flinching at adversity, never giving in to the many pitfalls of life.
I remember thinking that his standards had created expectations for me that I had strived to achieve, and that now that he had passed on, I no longer had those expectations to guide me. Yet, I realized that those expectations where no longer tied direct to his presence but to his existence. He had planted them well into me and into our family. They would continue beyond his life in everyone he touched.
Fathers are important – more, they are essential to the building blocks of character in the children they produce. Fathers are the cornerstones of tradition, ethics, expectations and character. Without them, we as a culture are weaker, and it is showing.
Written about Allen West:
Over the course of the past few decades, Allen West has had many titles bestowed on him, among them Lt. Colonel, U.S. Representative, “Dad,” and Scourge of the Far Left. He rose from humble beginnings in Atlanta where his father instilled in him a code of conduct that would inform his life ever after. Throughout his years leading troops, raising a loving family, serving as Congressman in Florida’s 22nd district, and emerging as one of the most authentic voices in conservative politics, West has never compromised the core values on which he was raised: family, faith, tradition, service, honor, fiscal responsibility, courage, freedom.
Crime rates and social blight can be traced back to the loss of the father figure in the home, as casual sex and irresponsible work ethics erode the foundations and fabric of cultures and segments of our American dream.
Where are the fathers?
I knew where mine was. He was working, or in church, or helping someone with their chores. He was always the one people looked for, to help stabilize their lives, to calm their fears and to provide a standard of behavior for the social context he was part of.
I watch the young men on our streets today, without motivation or direction, floundering in the pit of popular culture, electronic escapes and styles that are at best an assault on the sensitivities of normalcy. They are weak, following the nothingness of popular culture, standing for nothing, blowing in the wind of insanity and moral morass.
I look at my grandsons and I see something I hope that I was able to contribute to. I see a drive for success, a work ethic that is strong and a sense of leadership that others, including their own families, follow. It is unfortunate that it stands out in contrast to the norm of today’s weak-kneed go-with-the-flow guys. We are losing our manhood, the testosterone that God provided for the leadership of the family and the world around us.
I know, male dominance is unpopular in our ‘everyone is equal’ world. The warrior is being killed off by the lack of gender difference and the need to equivocate to the niceties of political correctness in our Nihilistic New World Order. I am certainly not advocating male superiority or insensitive tyrannical rule. I am advocating the recognition of leadership, strength and courage in men of solid ethical stature in our families and in our world.
We are losing it when father no longer are responsible for their children, for the families they produce and for the care they are traditionally obligated to provide. The feminist movement is great in its efforts to produce equality in the marketplace and in the liberation of women from structural inferiority, yet, to the degree that we lose our male strength and courage in the adjustment, we lose the foundation of our families and our world. We can honor women and elevate them to their proper stature without destroying the maleness of men. We must, or we will cease to exist.
Where are the fathers?
We have created social welfare agencies to take care of the families they abandon. We reallocate income and the flow of finance to cover their failure and their loss of personal responsibility. They are caught up in the quick and easy sexual revolution and leave a trail of fatherless children and mothers without the commitment and responsibility traditionally required in the fathering role.
Where are the fathers?
They are vegetated in front of the video game, complaining about the job market while accumulating enough tattoos to eliminate them from any job involving customer contact. We have produced a generation of young men who have no fathers themselves to be the models of ethics and character that previous generations enjoyed.
Where are the fathers?
We had best get it together men, or we will lose not only our children, but our nation and our world. We are responsible – like it or not!
