By Rey Flores
It was reported this past week that 60 percent of Richmond, Virginia, households were single parent. More specifically, this means that these single parent homes are single mother homes.
Now, what does that say about men in today’s America? What do numbers like these mean?
These numbers mean that the unrelenting forces behind the culture of death have successfully decimated the family unit. These same forces must be celebrating the fact that today we have “baby mamas” and “baby daddies” instead of stable married households.
In this culture of “hook-ups” and “victimology,” we have been trained to blame someone else for our troubles and seemingly insurmountable predicaments. For example, let’s take a look at the young “unsuspecting” unmarried couple who suddenly find themselves being put in a “difficult” situation by a baby who somehow magically appeared there, through no fault of their own. How dare this little baby intrude upon their lives? Why didn’t the pill work? Why, why, why? they’ll cry.
You see, we like to blame others when we fall short of the minimal amount of common moral decency, or common sense, which is expected of each of us in a civilized society.
Thus, when the First Things First Foundation reported that 60 percent of births in Richmond, Virginia, are births to single mothers, what are we to make of this?
There was a racist joke I heard when I was growing up in Chicago that always saddened me. It asked: “What is the most confusing day in the (black) ghetto?” Punch line: “Father’s Day!”
If people were making light of this tragedy way back in the early 1970s, imagine what these same communities look like now. Forty years ago, people were already looking at America’s black communities as places with rampant father absenteeism. Today, it’s all across the board. It doesn’t matter what color or socioeconomic status you are. Men and women are fornicating, cohabitating, and contracepting all the way to hell.
Men have adopted a drunken frat boy-type mentality where they hop from bed to bed, impregnating women indiscriminately and never being held accountable—and not caring whether or not another life may be affected.
As reported by WTVR News in Richmond, Virginia, First Things First executive director Truin Huntle said, “We have a major father absenteeism issue in Richmond. . . . I wish more people were discussing why this is such a major issue. We see more people beginning to give some credence to it because they are looking for the root cause of other issues like childhood poverty, poor performance in school. Father absenteeism, broken homes, broken marriages and teen pregnancy are continually being found as the root cause of those problems.”
Indeed, the lack of a father in a child’s life is a major cause for the rapid decline of the family unit. Aside from very traditional, countercultural Christian-based efforts, there appears to be a bleak future for the traditional family in America.
If we really think about it, the bottom line is that it is the lack of God the Father in everybody’s life that is causing so much pain and suffering in our world. When we take God out and insert hedonism, worldly pleasures, or ourselves in His place, society begins to crumble.
Father’s Day should be a special day to celebrate the bond between a man and his child—a day when a father feels blessed to be wished “Happy Father’s Day!” It should not be a day that reminds a man of the child or children he has left behind.
This weekend, may we realize the importance of a father and of the stability he provides in a home. May we learn to cherish his involvement and his role in his children’s lives. And may he do so as well.
Rey Flores is American Life League’s director of outreach. He can be reached at RFlores@all.org
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