The crowd at Woodstock Music Festival (1969), Authors Derek Redmond and Paula Campbell (CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported)
Our society seems increasingly to view fathers as sperm donors [1]. The very concept of fatherhood is being lost, replaced by the part-time dads of divorce and – worse still – the so called “baby daddies” who assume little or no responsibility for their offspring.
The men who might actually want to raise their children – to love and support them (and their mother); to teach them right from wrong; to protect them from harm; to stand by them faithfully, through thick and thin – are rapidly going extinct.
A Lifelong Bond
First and foremost, responsibility for a child rests with the man (and woman) who elected to conceive that child and/or failed to take measures to prevent conception.
Claiming “surprise” at a pregnancy that resulted from unprotected sex between healthy adults is disingenuous, to say the least. Offering a partner the funds for an abortion is not sufficient to satisfy the parental burden.
Though it changes over time, the parent-child connection is a lifelong bond. The children deprived of it – even if well cared for materially– are left with a great emptiness.
Contributing Factors
The major factors contributing to the problem of absent fathers include a change in sexual mores, which eliminated or greatly reduced the stigma of illegitimacy; the vanishing nuclear family; children having children; and certain aspects of culture unique to the inner city.
The Sexual Revolution
“But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons” (Heb. 12: 8).
The sexual revolution of the 1960s made pre-marital sex and cohabitation acceptable, while removing the ignominy of children born outside marriage (much to the benefit of such children, thankfully).
At the same time, a radical shift took place in African-American culture. From 1890 until the 1960s, African-Americans over the age of 35 were more likely to be married than whites. However, during the 1960s, that statistic was reversed. Continue reading
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