15 June 2008
This weekend as a nation we celebrated Father’s Day. The preparations involved, and how most Fathers spent their day, is indicative of the precarious situation of fatherhood in our culture.
We must consider all of the commercials from retail outlets hoping you will celebrate the day by opening up your wallet. Buy dad this, buy dad that. Buy him what? Gadgets, gift baskets, a new movie or a game. The presents are opened only later to be forgotten. Half of the time people wonder what to get their dad for Father’s day, because they find they don’t know their dad, and as a culture we identify gifts, their quantity and expense as a measure of love.
Monday however, in many households it is back to business as usual. Amidst the public service messages on television practically pleading for families to spend more time together, there are endless sitcoms where the dad is stupid, or clueless, and mom saves the day! Effeminate men are put forward as understanding, while real manhood is scorned as something from the dark ages. If a father tries to discipline his children (for example, not letting them go to another house for a sleepover), and look out for their welfare, he is authoritarian and oppressing. If a man tries to exercise his headship over something such as his child’s hair, in some households the wife will create an act of rebellion until the husband capitulates.
Thankfully, some father’s have families that respect them, and who take their roles as fathers seriously. However, for many, the Monday after Father’s day dads around the country are waking up and returning to work. They will work hard and come home and sit in front of the television and continue receiving programming that he is a dolt and mom knows best. Children have once again begun their assault on authority at every stage (encouraged by their school social worker). Even the family pet is staring at him ruefully.
For other dads, Father’s day is a bitter pill, since their wife walked away and took the kids, and now 50% of his meager check is garnished for child support. I literally knew a man who worked in retail that had to live with friends because his child support left him with $200 a check, because both of his ex wives were taking 50% of his gross income. Technically that is illegal, but there is so little oversight for family services I wouldn’t be surprised if that was more widespread.
According to one some researchers, of the million divorces each year, 2/3rds are initiated by women , who then retain custody of the children through the policy of the court that “mom knows best”.1 The image of a carefree father, gambling and whoring his way to perdition while is wife and children are starving has been prevalent in our culture for a generation. The image is however bloated and often fiction, or nice political talking points. In reality the government has established a system of no-fault divorce, where a father can be hauled into court and forcibly separated from his children, and declared a criminal if he sees them outside of government approved times.
Without a doubt there is a war on fathers in our country, and a war on fatherhood itself, waged by radical feminism, sociologists, university professors, divorce courts, divorce attorneys and ex-wives. Unless of course one is gay, then he is perfectly qualified to be a father and adopt.
However, it will not do at all to go on about a litany painfully apparent to those with eyes to see. At some point we need to identify both the cause and the solution. There is a certain reaction that I have encountered, that lays the blame for the current state of affairs squarely at the feet of radical feminism. It is their fault they say, for creating today’s situation. In truth feminism is the proximate cause, but it is not the total cause, and those who think so are kidding themselves, much like Adam in the garden. When God asks Adam why he had sinned, he blamed his wife.2 It was all her fault. In reality we know this was not the case. He did not use his God given authority to protect Eve and uphold God’s law. Disorder within the family, or by extension society of which the family is the model unit, occurs because of a failure to exercise headship which is a failure to correctly and lovingly exercise authority.
This is also the case in today’s society. In the 1960s fathers did not step up to the plate, and now we live with the consequences. Fathers allow things to slip away from them, because they provide materially, but not psychologically. I recall a few years back visiting gift shop that had a humorous gift, a man sitting in a couch with a sign on it: HUSBAND FOR SALE, COMES WITH TV AND REMOTE CONTROL. While we can blame the radical feminist movement for all sorts of things, it is men, not loving their wives as Christ loved the Church who established a spirit of laxity in which revolution could break in. The origins are in the disconnect between men and women, and have been problematic for centuries, but none more so than our own which is inundated with facile amusements, and little discipline and self sacrifice. It was men in the sixties who did not take their role as fathers seriously or succeed in doing so who let their sons grow up to be 40 year old children, and men in society who did not propose the real remedy but instead turned to pharmacology, so that kids could be medicated into submission rather than lovingly trained to choose the good.
What is real fatherhood? It is love, but not the cheap love we see on TV or read in modern “literature”. It is not buying the proper presents or the name brand clothing or taking them to eat fast food on a whim. St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that “A man therefore, ought to love in two ways, firstly to flee from evil and secondly, to do good. Wherefore the former of these precepts induce one to perform the good, while the others prevent him from doing evil.”3 What father flees from evil when he allows his children to watch MTV, which is perhaps one of the most visibly evil networks in existence next to the pornography channels? What is needed to end the war on fathers and save families is for dads to sanctify their homes and expunge the evil, and to live as a family unit. Many times when a divorce occurs and the father loses custody, the ensuing situation is little different than the previous one, only now the father does not live in the same house. Fathers must work, it is true, but they also must provide psychologically and emotionally for their family, not only materially. Just as truly as a child needs a mother, he needs a father and for too long society has lived, with easy divorce or without, as if this was not the case. Thus, a first step to more meaningful fatherhood each father’s day, is not merely nice presents, or a resolution to spend more time with one’s family, but to be a father to one’s family. That is helping your children to avoid pitfalls, that is, expunging evil from the home in all its forms, and praying with your family, not to mention being there for your wife! Nothing jades a spouse as much as neglect and men need to realize more, that inattention is the true killer of marriage, not money or perceived inadequacy. No restoration of Christian society is possible without a true father at the head of the family.
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Notes:
1. Sanford Bayer Whitley, M., & Ng, C. (1993). Who divorced whom? Methodological and theoretical issues. Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, 20, 1-19.
2.Genesis III:12
3.“Homo enim sic diligens debet duo facere: scilicet fugere malum, et facere bonum. Unde quaedam sunt in praeceptis inducentia ad bonum, alia autem sunt prohibentia facere malum.” St. Thomas Aquinas, de Decem praeceptis, a.6, http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/cac.html
Ryan Grant for Volume I, Issue 5
