Father's Day: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow!

            When I was a little boy growing up in north Memphis during the Eisenhower Administration, Father’s Day was a big deal.  That’s because fathers were a big deal. 

            Every kid in my neighborhood (including me) had a father living in his home.  Not momma’s boyfriend or an occasional male visitor, but an honest-to-goodness real live daddy. 

            I lived in a blue collar neighborhood, and every morning the daddies of the neighborhood left their homes and went to work at International Harvester or Firestone or Humko.  And then at night all these daddies came home, had dinner with the mommas and the kids, and were respected and adored authority figures.  Most daddies had their own “thrones”, generally a chair in the living room, where after dinner they would spend the evening reading the Memphis Press Scimitar. 

            These daddies not only went to work every day, they came home at night.  They also served as Boy Scout leaders, little league baseball coaches, and instructors in the fine art of hunting and fishing. 

            Given how important daddies were in my childhood, you can just imagine what a big day Father’s Day was.  It was celebrated at the church and home.  On Father’s Day at my church, the  pastor (who also just happened to be my father) would begin the services by asking all the fathers in the congregation to come to forward to the altar.  And after they gathered, my father would say a prayer of thanksgiving for each of these men and then give them special Father’s Day lapel pins to wear on their Sunday suits.  Daddy would then preach a sermon about the importance of fathers as spiritual leaders in the home. 

            Then after the benediction, all the daddies would go to their respective homes where they would be celebrated with fried chicken dinners and special presents, generally ties or bottles of aftershave. 

            But nowadays, Father’s Day ranks on the list of national holidays just behind Columbus Day and only slightly ahead of Groundhog’s Day.  Why?  Simple.  There’s no reason to celebrate a Father’s Day if there’s not a father in the home. 

            These days more than half of America’s children are growing up in a fatherless household.  In the city of Memphis, the percentage of fatherless children is even higher. 

            Here’s the really bad news.  Nobody seems to care.  Whenever someone raises a masculine voice of concern about fatherless America, they are generally dismissed as the second coming of Dan Quayle. 

            One of the fathers of our country, John Adams, once observed that “facts are stubborn things.”  Here are just a few stubborn facts about fatherless America: 

Ø                  90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes

Ø                  63% of youth suicide victims are from fatherless homes

Ø                  71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes

Ø                  70% of juveniles in state-operated institutions come from fatherless homes

Ø                  85% of all young men now in prison grew up in a fatherless home

Ø                  85% of all children who exhibit behavioral disorders come from fatherless homes

The sociologist David Blankenhorn, author of Fatherless America: Confronting our Most Urgent Social Problem, has said that “fatherlessness is the most harmful demographic trend of this generation.  It is the leading cause of declining child well-being in our society.  It is the engine driving our most urgent social problems from crime to adolescent pregnancy to child sexual abuse to domestic violence against women.” 

Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan recently wrote that the great divide in America these days is not over race or class.  It is between those who come from functioning families and those who do not. 

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may be correct in her observation that “it takes a village” to raise a child, but the village needs to be comprised by a lot of homes occupied by daddies. 

Over the past 50 years, Father’s Day has become increasingly less significant now that dear ol’ dad has either disappeared or been marginalized.  Part of the blame rests with American men for either abandoning or never even bothering to care at all for the children they helped create.  But we as a society are at fault because our culture no longer values fatherhood.  The message we send to so many American fathers is that the only thing we seek from them after conception are child support payments.  Forget “Father Knows Best” or “Make Room for Daddy.”  Let’s just make sure that father knows how to make child support payments, after we make room for paternity tests. 

The painful truth is that the real victims of fatherless America aren’t our nation’s children, but rather our nation’s men.  We men need to be fathers not just for the sake of our children, but for the sake of ourselves.  Without fatherhood, we men tend to be mean, selfish, and violent.  But if we are willing to become fathers and not just sperm donors, we can lead happy, rewarding, and fulfilling lives.  If all you’re doing is making child support payments, a little boy or a little girl is just a financial liability.  But if you’re a father, that little boy is your baseball player or fishing buddy, and that little girl is your princess.  When you’re a daddy, it’s no longer all about you.  You have at least one other person to live for, care for, and in whom you can invest your hopes and dreams.  

So here’s hoping that in the years to come, Father’s Day will once again be the special day that it was when I was a child.  Here’s hoping that someday in the not-to-distant future we will once again revere fathers and that they will be worthy of our respect.  And here’s hoping that more and more men will look forward to a special day each year when they get a new tie and a bottle of aftershave. 

(This is an article that I wrote for The Best Times, Father’s Day 2008.)