Role of Fathers


"one third of American children live without any father and that, in many inner cities, the out-of-wedlock birth rate exceeds seventy percent. Also well known, though rarely acknowledged, is the devastation that such a lack of paternity has wreaked on children and society more generally. Fatherless children have rates of incarceration, criminal activity, possession of firearms, poverty, drug and alcohol abuse, teen pregnancy, incompletion of school, and overall parental neglect and maltreatment alarmingly higher than their two-parent counterparts."

[. . .]

"horse farmer and communitarian author Wendell Berry observes, marriage--like friendships, families, and neighborhoods--'is a form of bondage, and involved in our humanity is always the wish to escape. . . . But involved in our humanity also is the warning that we can escape only into loneliness and meaninglessness.'"

http://www.firstthings.com/RSS/onthesquare/2009/06/on-the-demise-of-fatherhood

or

http://tinyurl.com/lqceej

On the Demise of Fatherhood
Andrew Peach
First Things
June 17, 2009