This last couple weeks got me thinking about the importance of a Father in the home. First there was Father’s Day, then our daughter and grand-daughter got baptized. During our Father’s Day church service and then again at the Baptism, we were reminded of the impact parents and in particular a father has on his children.
I have heard various statistics listed different ways but they all point to the need to have a father present.
Consider these statistics:
- 41-43% of kids in America are being raised without a father.
- Without a father there is a 700% greater chance of a pregnancy
- 85% of those in prison did not have a father in the home or stated another way 20 times greater chance of being in prison
- Without a father present children are 9x more likely to drop out of school
- Without a father present children are at a much greater risk of drug and alcohol abuse
Larry Elders makes a compelling case for the value of a father in the home. He may address specifically Black Fathers but the number of Black, White and Hispanic fathers absent from the home has increased and so have the statistics. Watch the video and write out the statistics for yourself, do some research on your own. Lower the statistics if you feel they are exaggerated, but no matter how you slice it, the facts are still the facts. Fathers absent from their children’s lives and specifically from the home matters. Children need a father in the home.
Larry Elders asks the question;
What happened to fathers?
The answer is found in a basic law of economics: If you subsidize undesirable behavior you will get more undesirable behavior. In 1949, the nation’s poverty rate was 34 percent. By 1965, it was cut in half, to 17 percent — all before President Lyndon Johnson’s so-called War on Poverty. But after that war began in 1965, poverty began to flat line. From 1965 until now, the government has spent over $20 trillion to fight poverty.
The poverty rate has remained unchanged, but the relationship between poor men and women has changed – dramatically. That’s because our generous welfare system allows women, in effect, to marry the government. And this makes it all too easy for men to abandon their traditional moral and financial responsibilities. Psychologists call such dependency “learned helplessness.”
Do you agree with Mr. Elders?
Do you feel a father in the home makes a difference?
greg johnson leadership 