Don’t Forget That We Need Fathers

There’s a question to ask with the statement, “I need ….” Why do you need it? What do you need it in order to do? You might find out, by exploring the question, that you may only want something, but not really require it. Or you may find that you do require something, and you’ll come to understand why that thing is essential.

The other day Andrew Klavan (how many times have I quoted him at the top of a post lately? It’s from 7 minutes onward in this clip) suggested that one trouble with woke, or leftist, culture is that it is forgetting obvious things that have always been known. He says,

Every great civilization dies by forgetting the obvious thing…. And they want to make sure that your children forget it too. The culture war is the war.

I believe that among these forgotten things is the fact that we need fathers.

Why do we need fathers? What do we need them in order to do?

We need them to fill the role in the basic unit of civilization—the family—that fathers must do.

Dennis Prager recently put out one of his 5-minute videos asking and answering the question, “Are Fathers Necessary?” Yes, is the answer. Yes, fathers are essential.

screenshot from Dennis Prager's PragerU video "Are Fathers Necessary?"

After listing several publications showing the answer has been forgotten, Prager quotes Barack Obama, from a 2008 speech, saying fathers are “critical” to families, that “they are teachers and coaches; they are mentors and role models; they are examples of success; and they are the men who constantly push us toward it.”

That speech wasn’t disqualifying to Obama as a candidate, so that must mean, as recently as 2008, this basic truth was in the public consciousness. So it’s only recently that it has been forgotten.

But it’s still true.

Prager goes through some of what we know through social science data[i], showing that both boys and girls need fathers. First, for boys:

A boy has no built-in understanding about how to be a man—meaning a good and responsible man. Male nature is wild—most obviously regarding sex and violence. If a boy does not have a father who models how a man controls himself, he will most likely not know how to control himself—let alone want to. That's why most males in prison for violent crimes grew up without a father.

After days of riots in the UK in 2011, quite like the 2020 riots in America, Cristina Odone wrote a column for The London Telegraph whose title says it all: “London riots: Absent fathers have a lot to answer for.” In the column, she wrote, “The majority of rioters are gang members…. Like the overwhelming majority of youth offenders behind bars, these gang members have one thing in common: no father at home.”

The way social science data works is, it’s about the odds. It doesn’t mean that mothers never successfully raise boys on their own. It means the odds are against them. It means that, if you take a large number of people where boys are raised without fathers and compare them to large numbers of boys with both parents, the fatherless boys have a much higher likelihood of bad outcomes than boys raised with both mother and father.

According to family researcher Glenn T. Stanton, in Secure Daughters, Confident Sons,

Anthropologists tell us that the primary problem in every human community throughout time and place is always the same: the unattached, undisciplined male. His male nature—with its raw physical strength and energies, appetite for food, drink, and sex and even violence—needs to be domesticated and even socialized.

Next, for girls, Prager says this about fathers and daughters:

Mr. Spherical Model and granddaughter.
Masks are still required on the tram ride at
Space Center Houston, but we had fun
taking yet another generation there.

As regards daughters, the father is the man girls learn to relate to. Without a father to relate to and bond with, there are at least two destructive consequences. First, she will not know how to choose a man wisely. She will not know how a man should treat her, and she may well end up with a man who mistreats her. Second, to fulfill her desire to bond with a man—as primal a yearning in most women as bonding with a woman is in most men—she will go from man to man. Girls without fathers in their lives are far more likely to be sexually promiscuous, and to begin sexual activity at an earlier age, which in turn are reasons many young women are depressed. Few women find sleeping with man after man fulfilling. Most find it ultimately depressing.

It isn’t a matter of simply having two parents—of whatever sex—to help with the parenting; it is that fathers and mothers contribute particular things to the family. Some of this is borne out in data surrounding children raised by two same-sex parents. There’s this summary of the data from 2013, in a piece by Michael Bauman: 

Compared to children who were raised in intact homes with both the biological father and mother present to raise them, the children of homosexual parents grow up to:

•                   Be Much more likely to receive welfare.

•                   Have lower educational attainment.

•                   Report more ongoing “negative impact” from their family of origin.

•                   Be more likely to suffer from depression.

•                   Have been arrested more often.

•                   (If they are female) Have had more sexual partners—both male and female.

If they were the children of lesbian mothers, they are:

•                   More likely to be currently cohabiting.

•                   Almost 4 times more likely to be currently on public assistance.

•                   Less likely to be currently employed full-time.

•                   More than 3 times more likely to be unemployed.

•                   Nearly 4 times more likely to identify as something other than entirely heterosexual.

•                   Three times as likely to have had an affair while married or cohabiting.

•                   An astonishing 10 times more likely to have been “touched sexually by a parent or other adult caregiver.”

•                   Nearly 4 times as likely to have been “physically forced” to have sex against their will.

•                   More likely to have “attachment” problems related to the ability to depend on others.

•                   Use marijuana more frequently.

•                   Smoke more frequently.

•                   Have more often pled guilty to a non-minor offense.

Whenever a family is missing a mother or a father, the children are missing something essential to their upbringing. If we recognize that this father-shaped piece is missing, we might be able to compensate—with another father figure, maybe a grandfather, uncle, coach, teacher, or minister.

There’s a dad who saw what was lacking, and took it upon himself to fill in a bit. He teaches people, through short videos, how to do basic skills that typically a father would teach. “Dad, How Do I?” shows how to tie a tie, how to iron a dress shirt, how to shave, how to jumpstart a car, how to fix a toilet, and even something as important as how to have integrity. A video might not make up for the absence of the father, but at least it’s a resource to help out the moms, who can’t teach it all.

screenshot from "Dad, How Do I" video on how to iron a dress shirt

But if we fail to notice what has been obvious to civilizations for millennia—that children need a mother and a father—and suddenly think we know better, we leave that gap. And it’s the children who suffer.

We’ve looked here at what happens with a missing father. But, in honor of Father’s Day coming up soon (a week from Sunday), let’s also list what fathers-doing-the-dad-thing-right provide. I offered this list in 2019. And when I wrote it, I had adapted it from this article. 

·       Children who come into families with loving fathers know they were wanted, planned on, and welcomed. If affects their identity in positive ways today’s society should know better than to take for granted.

·       Fathers fill a need. Without a father in that role, there’s a father-shaped hole in the child’s life that good mother can’t fill.[ii] It’s not just about love; it’s about the security and protection that a good father represents, allowing a child to feel secure enough to explore the world and grow to potential.

·       Fathers work to generate the wealth necessary to provide for a wife and children—far beyond the typical earnings of non-fathers, and also far beyond what non-resident fathers provide even when required by law. These good fathers create a sense of worth in the child that some other resource—such as welfare or even charity—could provide.

·       These good fathers modify their behavior; they become more civilized personally. They control their anger, their language, their aggression around the woman and children they love—thus modeling civilization for that next generation.

·       Good fathers have a particular effect on their daughters. Daughters need the respect and love of a father to know to value themselves with the men in their lives. This helps daughters grow socially, with self-respect, better able to accomplish their personal goals and better able to resist men who would not be good partners in marriage.

·       Good fathers have a particular effect on their sons. Boys in particular need the example of male role models in order to grow into civilized, socialized men.

·       Good fathers channel the use of power toward defense and protection, rather than toward aggression. They protect the family both physically and morally. This eliminates male predatory behavior toward women and children. And it eliminates aggressive force among larger societies—nations—for any reason but defense.

 I heard earlier this week, on Glenn Beck radio, a parent complain that their child was given the writing prompt on an AP exam, “Explain the benefits to society if marriage didn’t exist.” The answer is easy—a blank page. But that doesn’t get you any kind of passing grade on such an exam. That question could only be asked by those who have forgotten obvious things—and are insisting no one else should remember those things either. Because the culture war is the war. 

The forgetful—those pressuring for some experiment that doesn’t include mother-father families—ought to try a better experiment. As I said in 2019 and still stand by:

 

If all men were living civilized lives within families, many of the world’s ills would disappear: war, famine, poverty, tyranny, bullying, abuse. We would still have illness, accident, and natural disasters. But we’d also have the strong help to face those things.

 

---

[i] I suggest this compilation of social science data: “Why Marriage Matters, Third Edition: Thirty Conclusions from the Social Sciences” by family scholars, for the Institute of American Values, 2011. 

[ii] The piece I adapted my list from included this anecdote: “And that longing can hardly be extinguished: a never-married San Francisco professional with a young child was stunned by it: ‘My son began asking for his father before he was two. I’ll never forget it. He said, “Why no daddy?” with the reference to Maggie Gallagher, The Abolition of Marriage, pp. 54-56.

Good Fathers Create Civilization

Imagine the civilized world. At the Spherical Model, we use this description for Civilization:

Families typically remain intact, and children are raised in loving homes, with caring parents who guide their education and training, dedicating somewhere between 18 and 25 years for that child to reach adulthood, and who then remain interested in their children’s success for the rest of their lives.

Civilized people live peaceably among their neighbors, helping rather than taking advantage of one another, abiding by laws enacted to protect property and safety—with honesty and honor. Civilized people live in peace with other civilized people; countries and cultures coexist in appreciation, without fear.

There is a thriving free-enterprise economy. Poverty is meaningless; even though there will always be a lowest earning 10% defined as poor, in a civilized society these lowest earners have comfortable shelter and adequate food and clothing—and there’s the possibility of rising, or at least for future generations to rise.

Creativity abounds; enlightening arts and literature exceed expectations. Architecture and infrastructure improve; innovation and invention are the rule.

People feel free to choose their work, their home, their family practices, their friendships and associations. And they generally self-restrain before they infringe on the rights and freedoms of others. Where there are questions about those limits, laws are in place to help clarify boundaries of civilized behavior. When someone willingly infringes on the rights or safety of another, the law functions to protect that victim as well as society from further uncivilized behavior from the offender.

There are two rather large ingredients necessary for thriving civilization:

·         A religious people.

·         Strong families.

We can summarize “religious people” simply, for now, as people who honor God our Creator, as well as life, family, property ownership, and truth. That’s a shorthand for the Ten Commandments.

Family is mentioned in there. In the Ten Commandments, that would include honoring parents and not committing adultery.

Our unit of Civilization, December 2016
photo by Portrait Innovations

We focus additionally on strong families, because they are so crucial for passing along all the values necessary for civilization.

Family is the basic unit of civilization. That means that, even when the surrounding society is tyrannical and savage, the family can be a tiny island of civilization. And when there are additional civilized families joined together, there’s a community-sized civilization.

Here’s what families do:

Families have the responsibility to safeguard women and children for the greatest benefit of both current and future generations. Families provide food, shelter, clothing, education, spiritual guidance, and training in how to live a civilized life in a civilized society. Elderly are honored for their wisdom. Youth are honored for their potential. Women are honored for giving and nurturing life, among their other abilities. Men are honored for providing and protecting, among their other abilities. Families are the main economic force, as well as the very means whereby civilization can perpetuate. Civilized societies therefore protect The Family as sacred.

We’ve talked about the formula for success in America—that is, for rising above poverty and into the middle class:

1.      Don’t have sex before age 20.

2.      Don’t have sex until after marriage.

3.      Stay married.

4.      Obtain at least a high school diploma.

It’s pretty minimal. But it’s what you do, if you want the odds to be in your favor.

What would you get if you do more than minimum? What kind of civilization would we get if we had a society full of families with married father and mother taking seriously their parenting roles?

image from here

In honor of Father’s Day, let’s just look at how fathers would contribute to even better outcomes. There’s a piece I read last year, near Father’s Day, offering 10 Reasons Civilization Will Not Survive without Fathers.” I’d like to take those things (combining some, so not an exact ten), and look at the positive contributions that result from good fathers.[i]

·         Children who come into families with loving fathers know they were wanted, planned on, and welcomed. It affects their identity in positive ways today’s society should know better than to take for granted.

·         Fathers fill a need. Without a father in that role, there’s a father-shaped hole in the child’s life that good mothering can’t fill. It’s not just about love; it’s about the security and protection that a good father represents, allowing a child to feel secure enough to explore the world and grow to potential.

·         Fathers work to generate the wealth necessary to provide for a wife and children—far beyond the typical earnings of non-fathers, and also far beyond what non-resident fathers provide even when required by law. These good fathers create a sense of worth in the child that some other resource—such as welfare or even charity—could provide.

·         These good fathers modify their behavior; they become more civilized personally. They control their anger, their language, their aggression around the woman and children they love—thus modeling civilization for that next generation.

·         Good fathers have a particular effect on their daughters. Daughters need the respect and love of a father to know to value themselves with the men in their lives. This helps daughters grow socially, with self-respect, better able to accomplish their personal goals and better able to resist men who would not be good partners in marriage.

·         Good fathers have a particular effect on their sons. Boys in particular need the example of male role models in order to grow into civilized, socialized men.[ii]

My dad would have turned 101 this week.
Photo from his WWII service.

·         Good fathers channel the use of power toward defense and protection, rather than toward aggression. He protects the family both physically and morally. This eliminates male predatory behavior toward women and children. And it eliminates aggressive force among larger societies—nations—for any reason but defense.

If all men were living civilized lives within families, many of the world’s ills would disappear: war, famine, poverty, tyranny, bullying, abuse. We would still have illness, accident, and natural disasters. But we’d also have the strong help to face those things.

Having a world full of good fathers is one of those simple but not easy solutions. But each one of these fathers creates an entire civilized unit—a family. It’s worth spending a day honoring the heroes who do this essential work, and encouraging those who want to be more like those heroic dads.

---

[i] In addition to the citations documented in this piece, I've done a collection of writings on fatherhood, all with additional research citations, here. I've also done a collection on motherhood, here, and a Defense of Marriage collection, here. Another good source is United Families International, A Guide to Family Issues: The Marriage Advantage, here. 

[ii] “Anthropologists tell us that the primary problem in every human community throughout time and place is always the same: the unattached, undisciplined male. His male nature—with its raw physical strength and energies, appetite for food drink and sex and even violence—needs to be domesticated and even socialized.” Glen Stanton, 71-73, 76. [This footnote was included in “10 Reasons Civilization Will Not Survive without Fathers.”]

Ninety-ninth Father's Day

Yesterday would have been my Dads 99^th birthday. He was late to fatherhood—39 when my twin brothers finally showed up, and 40 when I came along barely over a year later. We had him around a good long time. He was 91 ½ when he passed away in late 2009. But the age gap meant we were relatively young to lose our Dad, especially so for my sister, who is eight years younger than I am. I have a lot of friends a decade or more older than I am who still have their parents. That’s part of the variety of life.

My Dad, WWII Army photo

Anyway, since Father’s Day is coming up this week (which began in 1910, eight years before my Dad was born), I thought I’d go ahead and honor fathers—with their civilizing superpower, today.

I’ve written about fatherhood, and Father’s Day, fairly regularly here. There’s an even larger list related to strong families, but we’ll focus mainly on fatherhood today. So here is the collection, after which I’ll pull out a few highlights:

·         Honoring Fathers, June 17, 2011

·         Building Better Families June 20, 2011 

·         Dad Rules, June 18, 2012 

·         Fathers, June 15, 2014 

·         Being a Dad, June 22, 2015 

·         Depend on Dad, June 17, 2016 

From “Fathers”

In an interview about the study, Dr. [Brad] Wilcox said,

After kids come along, men are more likely to be engaged civically in their communities in activities ranging from youth soccer to church. Furthermore, they typically work harder and earn more money after they become dads, provided that they live with the mother of their children. One study found that “married, residential, biological fatherhood is associated with wage gains of about 4 percent, but unmarried residential fathers, nonresidential fathers, and stepfathers do not receive a fatherhood premium.” So, men become more engaged at work and in civil society in the wake of assuming the role of fatherhood.

Mr. Spherical Model carries sons
Political Sphere and Economic Sphere

Many of the outcomes of good fathering reinforce what sociological studies have been showing for some time. Additionally, though, Dr. Wilcox says having an involved father in the home actually leads to better mothering from mothers—assuming the father is doing his job well. He said, “It’s crucial for married fathers to do their best to be attentive, affectionate, engaged in the practical work of the home, and thankful towards their wives.”

From “Honoring Fathers”

There’s a summary of family research I often turn to for data, called Why Marriage Matters. I’m going to list some of the conclusions here, to show how important it is to children and to civilization for fathers to be present in the family. (Please go to the original for sources and more details, available through www.AmericanValues.org.) 

1.     Marriage increases the likelihood that fathers have good relationships with their children. (Children of divorce report having much worse relationships with fathers.)

2.     Cohabitation is not the functional equivalent of marriage. (Outcomes for children are equivalent to single-parent households, with higher incidents of abuse.)

3.     Growing up outside an intact marriage increases the likelihood that children will themselves divorce or become unwed parents.

4.     Marriage is a virtually universal human institution. (It is a significant factor in every civilization in history.)

5.     Divorce and unmarried childbearing increase poverty for both children and mothers.

6.     Married couples seem to build more wealth on average than singles or cohabiting couples.

7.     Married men earn more money than do single men with similar education and job histories.

8.     Parental divorce (or failure to marry) appears to increase children’s risk of school failure.

9.     Parental divorce reduces the likelihood that children will graduate from college and achieve high-status jobs.

10.  Children who live with their own two married parents enjoy better physical health, on average, than do children in other family forms.

11.  Parental marriage is associated with a sharply lower risk of infant mortality.

12.  Marriage is associated with reduced rates of alcohol and substance abuse for both adults and teens.

13.  Married people, especially married men, have longer life expectancies than do otherwise similar singles.

14.  Marriage is associated with better health and lower rates of injury, illness, and disability for both men and women.

15.  Children whose parents divorce have higher rates of psychological distress and mental illness.

16.  Divorce appears significantly to increase the risk of suicide.

17.  Married mothers have lower rates of depression than do single or cohabiting mothers.

18.  Boys raised in single-parent families are more likely to engage in delinquent and criminal behavior.

19.  Marriage appears to reduce the risk that adults will be either perpetrators or victims of crime.

20.  Married women appear to have a lower risk of experiencing domestic violence than do cohabiting or dating women.

21.  A child who is not living with his or her own two married parents is at greater risk of child abuse.

The study summary ends with this conclusion: 

Marriage is more than a private emotional relationship. It is also a social good. Not every person can or should marry. And not every child raised outside of marriage is damaged as a result. But communities where good-enough marriages are common have better outcomes for children, women, and men than do communities suffering from high rates of divorce, unmarried childbearing, and high-conflict or violent marriages.

From “Dad Rules”

A Dad will:

·         Spend time, more than money.

·         Work hard for and with his family.

·         Enjoy playing with his family.

·         Love the mother of his children.

He can be athletic or not. He can be good with a grill or not. He can be loud or quiet. He can be polished or a little rough. He can be himself, whatever that is—if he’s trying to be his best self.

Here are a few of the quirks we’ve observed in our household Dad, Mr. Spherical Model.

·         Vacations are for doing things you don’t normally get to do, or see things you don’t normally see; so there’s no excuse for wasting a minute. You fill every minute. Ten+ miles a day should be minimum.

·         Sports are for girls every bit as much as for boys—and Dad will just about always be the coach (which explains why daughter Social Sphere learned basketball instead of dance).

·         A dad that is big enough to intimidate just by walking in a room and looming over everyone gets the luxury of acting friendly to the kids’ friends.

·         Being considered an honorary teen for several extra decades is better than a lot of worldly honors.

·         It’s good to be one of those dads/grandpas/neighbors who loves holding babies and is sure he has the secret formula for calming fussiness.

·         When you say no to a daughter and she texts back that she hates you, you can be sure that she doesn’t really hate you and an apology is forthcoming; but you can save the texts to illustrate the amusing anecdote later.

·         Sure, save for a daughter’s wedding, but no matter what, it will cost more than you ever envisioned—but if you’ve been a good Dad all along, then she’s probably choosing the right groom, and it’s worth it.

·         Never swear around the Mom or kids, and the kids won’t swear around their Mom either (and maybe not around their friends either).

From “Building Better Families”

What are some of the ways to make a family more successful? Here are some of the ideas from yesterday’s lesson:

·         Pray together daily as a family.

·         Study scriptures together as a family, and teach your children your religious beliefs.

·         Do things together as a family—recreation, work.

·         Have family meal times and hold family councils.

·         Attend church meetings together regularly.

·         Keep a family history; share stories about elderly family members and ancestors.

Some years ago I had a lesson to give in our children’s auxiliary on Father’s Day. I wanted to be sensitive to any child that day who didn’t have a father, because if we made something to give to fathers and they didn’t have one, they could feel excluded. So I looked at the list of 60 or so children—and there was not a single child not living in an intact two-parent household. In our world today I know that’s rare. I know it’s rare even within my church. It was a snapshot. But it was telling. In that little community parents were doing many things right. The odds continue to build up against us, but the solutions to stopping and correcting the decay are known. They just have to be chosen.

And one final quote:

“One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters.”—17^th Century English Proverb

Depend on Dad

Father’s Day is Sunday. There’s plenty of serious data we can get to in a minute. But first, a couple of short videos that are more what being Dad looks like—and feels like.

This first is an award-winning animated short from Brigham Young University. You just need to see it.

Now another one for your viewing pleasure. The world has changed when a commercial has become a short documentary worth seeing. This Gillette commercial is so good, it might even sell their product. But, better than buying you dad shaving gear, watch this with him. Or just ask him something.

This third video is a little more serious. It's called "Black Fathers Matter," which Larry Elder did for Prager Univeristy--an online collection of informational videos that you should discover, if you haven't already. I suggest you watch the video first. But then, in case you didn’t take notes, I’m following it with some of the included data (which may have some minor discrepancies with other sources, but not enough to change the overall meaning).

·         Fatherless children are 5 times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime.

·         Fatherless children are 9 times more likely to drop out of school.

·         Fatherless children are 20 times more likely to end up in prison.

·         In 1960, 5% of American children began life with single mother.

o   By 1980, 18%.

o   By 2000, 33%.

o   By 2015, 41%.

·         Blacks during slavery, even for whom marriage was illegal, were more likely to be raised by their father and mother than black children today.

·         Between 1890 and 1940 a black child was more likely to grow up with married parents than a white child.

·         Black out-of-wedlock birth in 1965 was 25%; in 2015 it was 73%.

o   White out-of-wedlock births in 1965 was 5%; in 2015 it was 25%.

o   Hispanic out-of-wedlock births in 2015 was 53%.

·         In 1949, the national poverty rate was 34%.

·         By 1965, the poverty rate was cut in half, to 17%.

·         In 1964 (during Johnson's State of the Union Address), the War on Poverty began.

o   $20 Trillion has been spent on anti-poverty programs.

o   The poverty rate has remained stagnant for 50 years.

o   The likelihood of women being in poverty has dramatically risen.

o   64% of poor say the poor have more out-of-wedlock children in order to get more government benefits.

Let those sink in a moment.

Now, let me repeat the formula we know, through social science and economics, for avoiding poverty in America:

1.      Don’t have sex before age 20.

2.      Don’t have sex until after marriage.

3.      Stay married

4.      Obtain at least a high school diploma.

That’s a bare minimum, just to stay above the poverty line. Add some additional education, some consistent work ethic, and a stable, loving home, maybe a helpful and supportive religious community, and outcomes for children (and for parents) approach the American dream. Even in today’s bad economy.

Feminists have this hackneyed phrase, “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.” Fine. Live without a man. That’s a choice.

But for a woman who wants to be a mother, she—and the children—need a man. A good man. One worthy of being called Dad.

To those who are such a man, and to those blessed with one in their lives, Happy Father's Day!