In her column today, Cheryl Wetzstein recounts National Fatherhood Initiative president Roland Warren’s story of how he became a father. He was a teenager when he became a father, but unlike so many young men in his shoes, he owned up to the responsibility and married the child’s mother—and went on to discover a priceless privilege: fatherhood. You’ll have to read the Wetzstein article to get the full impact—it’s powerful stuff.
His story is a poignant reminder to me that one of the greatest tragedies of the sexual revolution was that men were given the option of exiting their children’s lives. As a result, millions of men will never have the “aha!” moment that Warren had. Why? Because we told men they don’t have to—that it’s okay for them to have sex when they want, to live together with another woman without making the commitment of marriage, and to have a child outside of marriage.
That’s tragic—not just for the millions of fatherless children, but also for the millions of men who are technically fathers but who will never know the awesome and life-changing responsibility of fatherhood. Fatherhood is a gift not just to the children but also to men! It’s a gift for men because it’s the ultimate existential invitation to go beyond the narrowness of one’s self and to live for something larger than himself. I’m not a father yet—but just thinking about becoming a father makes me straighten up a little more. How at once startling and sobering it must be to comprehend that one is now responsible for the raising of another person!
We’ve already lost a couple generations of “fathers” who will never really know fatherhood. Turning that trend around will have to consist of telling stories like Roland Warren’s, and reminding young men of the dignity of being a married father.
Categories: Fatherhood, Marriage
When you discover a man dead at the foot of a cliff you don’t know ehether he jumped or if he was pushed. David, like so many men who feel the need to show how they personally are a good man, chooses to claim that other men – not him – all jumped. Wrong. We did a simple survey and I suggest you do it wherever you are so that you can easily dismiss this misandry.
We asked the question, “Are you Married?”. To those who answered “No” we then asked “Did you imagine at some point in your life you would be Married?”
When we added those you answered “Yes” to either question we were astounded. Fully 94% of men, from all ages and backgrounds, saw Marriage as being for them. The problem is that they are being denied it. God Bless.