As I contemplate my time with my sons and their friends, talking, laughing and doing ‘guy things,’ I am reminded that it may be that much of the aggression in the world today would be attenuated if fathers were active participants in the lives of their sons. Generations of absentee fathers, or fathers in biology only, have left young men without a true north, without anyone against whom to measure themselves, without anyone to teach them morality and manhood, and without anyone to remind them that they aren’t the biggest or baddest. All laws aside, I suspect that fathers are the key to the problem of violence. “And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.” Malachi 4:6
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Edwin Leap/physician-writer discusses medicine, family, and culture
Do you have any evidence at all for this or are you just sharing feelings? Do you think that mothers can’t teach their sons morality and manhood?
Eleanor, indeed, there is much evidence that absence of fathers is linked to many societal ills, from education to economics, sexual morality to criminality. I’m not suggesting you can’t teach morality. But in the same way as I count on my wife to teach my daughter womanhood, a man best teaches manhood. If our children lack one parent or another, it is the other parent’s duty to find role models for the child to teach them manhood or womanhood. This isn’t bigotry, it’s reality.