{"id":604,"date":"2015-06-26T10:58:36","date_gmt":"2015-06-26T17:58:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/searchingfortomsawyer\/?p=604"},"modified":"2015-06-26T10:58:36","modified_gmt":"2015-06-26T17:58:36","slug":"could-dad-be-the-key-to-healing-our-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/timwright\/2015\/06\/could-dad-be-the-key-to-healing-our-country\/","title":{"rendered":"Could Dad be the Key to Healing Our Country?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Near the end of his book, Do Fathers Matter? What Science is Telling Us About the Parent We\u2019ve Overlooked<\/a>, <\/em>Paul Raeburn writes this:<\/p>\n

Multiple studies suggest that fatherlessness is a major contributor to crime and \u00a0juvenile delinquency; premature sexuality and out-of-wedlock births to teenagers; deteriorating educational achievement; depression, substance abuse, and alienation among adolescents; and the growing number of women and children in poverty. That list comes from David Popenoe of Rutgers University, who says the decline of fatherhood \u201cis a major source behind many of the most disturbing problems that plaque American society.\u201d \u00a0<\/strong><\/em>(Emphasis mine. P. 221) \u00a0\"1291971_95250570\"<\/a><\/p>\n

That a book with the title, Do Fathers Matter? <\/em>has to be written at all, is telling. In the beginning of the book Raeburn says that up until the 1970\u2019s almost every major scientific study done on parenting was done on moms. And the research discovered what we intuitively know: Moms are absolutely necessary.\u00a0\u00a0 Very few studies were done on the impact of Fathers. And even though no studies were done to suggest that dads are irrelevant,<\/p>\n

The irrelevancy of fathers had become an article of faith among researchers, and why would any of them question what they knew to be true? <\/strong><\/em>(p. 6)<\/p>\n

But once research was done on dads, Science showed that not only do dads matter, they matter a lot.<\/p>\n

The belief that dads don\u2019t really matter, however, runs deep in our culture. Magazine articles and news pundits often debate the importance of dads around Father\u2019s Day. You\u2019d never have those conversations about moms around Mother\u2019s Day. You\u2019d never see a book published with the question, Do Moms Matter?<\/em><\/p>\n

Could it be that dads have been made to feel irrelevant so they make themselves irrelevant and then it becomes a cultural norm that dads are irrelevant? It doesn\u2019t help that fewer American dads are participating in the lives of their children now than at any time since the U.S. began keeping records (p. 13). A self-fulfilling prophecy?<\/p>\n

And yet, as the opening quote suggests, making dads irrelevant creates all kinds of family and societal problems. Could it be the much of the unrest in our country today traces itself to the marginalizing of dads?<\/p>\n

While debates about flags and guns are important, perhaps we can start on something that the majority of us can buy into; something that speaks to the systemic issues:<\/p>\n