Father's Day--why boys especially need their dads
"As we’ve gone from the era of Father Knows Best to "Father Knows Less," this Father’s Day is a perfect time to rediscover the value of dad....
Dad-deprived boys are likely to suffer more intensely — by emotional withdrawal, depression, obesity, ADHD, imprisonment, and addiction to video games, pornography, alcohol, drugs, death by opioids, and suicide.
...The cumulative effect is a boy crisis. Today, boys are 66% more likely than girls to be living at home between ages 25 and 31. They are falling behind girls in almost every academic subject — especially in reading and writing, the two biggest predictors of success. Forty-three percent more boys than girls are dropping out of high school...
Many single moms heroically raise productive and caring boys, usually with pivotal input from other males. But on average, the boy crisis resides where dads do not reside.
Dad-deprived children are less likely to solve problems and more likely to create problems. Prisoners, mass shooters, and ISIS recruits have more in common than just being male: The great majority are males who are also traumatized by being dad-deprived. And a disproportionate percentage of these dad-deprived males are inner city and African American. These boys hurt. And boys who hurt too often hurt us. When boys’ testosterone is channeled well, it is one of the world’s most constructive forces; when channeled poorly, it is one of the world’s most destructive forces...
Dad-deprived boys, hungry for role models, are sitting ducks for terrorist recruiters and gangs who promise these boys a ready-made “family.” And the economic cost of cleaning up the results of the trauma of dad-deprived boys who become drug dealers, mass shooters, ISIS recruits, or fill our prisons, is about a trillion dollars per year.
In times of crisis, young men have always been willing to give their lives to serve our country. With the COVID crisis, we must call upon millions of our dads to serve America by returning to the family as loving dads."
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