Where Are the Men?

Jim and I have been watching a widening crack in the whitewash of political correctness. The politically correct narrative says we must go along with all the trends today. It tells us to “be cool.” It says the ideas of our parents and grandparents were for another time.

Women, we are told don’t need men. Children, we are told, can do fine without fathers. Moms can earn the bacon, as the song says, and fry it up in the pan. They can raise kids alone and help with homework at night. They can go to work all day and take classes to move up the ladder at work. (I guess in the middle of the night.) Meanwhile they protect and defend their children and themselves and require only a good girlfriend and a glass of wine to see them through tough times. Who needs to get married? Who wants fidelity?

Movies and music sell us a Thelma and Louise narrative that might be entertaining but is far far from the truth. Perhaps there was a time decades ago when women needed the empowerment of this fairytale world where Amazon women needed nothing but a sperm donor. Perhaps there are women who really can do it all. But I’ve been around for a while, and I haven’t met many.

My friendship with a man who has been a prisoner for 20 years is proof that for at least some people, moms cannot do it all. His mother didn’t need a man either. Her children were fathered by different men who were not raised to take responsibility for the children they fathered or the women they made pregnant.

But stress and difficulty led her into a nightmare of addiction and dependence on violent men. Her children were scattered. My friend was about six when he began being shuttled from one foster home to another. He never had a chance and came to maturity behind bars.

God has a plan for every one of His children. A young woman’s strength is her potential. The potential of a good mind that is well educated. The potential of a strong work ethic, that leads her to success in life, unrestrained by the shackles of government hand-outs. The potential of a loving heart that waits to adulthood to choose and marry an upright, kind and worthy man as a strong and caring partner in life.

Finally, a woman’s potential is in the glorious and miraculous ability to bring life forth into a loving two-parent home. Where she is protected and nurtured, where her children have guidance and respect for their parents, and where education is constantly encouraged and a child’s natural abilities are allowed to flower.

But, where are these men? Where are the men who look for such a woman? It is time to wipe away the whitewash that covers the irreparable damage that fatherless homes create for their children. The crack is widening. Let us not allow any more generations of children to fall through.

Blessings,
Nancy