Tag Archives: Marriage

Commentary

Jennifer Roback Morse: Father’s Day is also Husband’s Day

2 Comments

Jennifer Roback Morse is one of my favorite writers on family issues, because she is just so positive about men and the roles that men play in the family, and the challenges that men face while performing those roles.

She wrote this article in appreciation of her husband, and it’s a must-read, especially for men looking for some appreciation and encouragement.

Excerpt:

The feminist movement introduced an unbelievable amount of tension into the relationships between men and women. Feminism gave us women permission to nag and criticize our husbands, which most women can do just fine without any special permission. The legacy of the feminist movement has been to turn the home, which should be the place of cooperation, into a sphere of competition between men and women. And ironically, feminism, which was supposed to be about getting beyond stereotypes, supported the most negative of stereotypes about men.

I have my own pet theory about the stereotype of men dragging their feet about getting married. The socio-biologists claim that men want to invest their seed in as many women as possible, and therefore do not want marriage. I think this is only a dim shadow of the whole truth. The whole truth must include this great fact about men: They are capable of heroic loyalty. When men finally do marry, they are capable of committing themselves to the care of their wives and children. Many men spend a lifetime working at jobs they don’t like very much, for the love of their families. When men marry, they take it very seriously. It is women who initiate most divorces. It is divorced men who commit suicide at twice the rate as married men, while divorce has little impact on the suicide propensities of women.

When women marry, we get things that we want and value. We get the opportunity to become mothers. We get a home, our nest for our little ones. What do men get? They get the right to throw themselves on a live grenade for the protection of their families. Or, as St. Paul suggested to the Ephesians, husbands get the right to be crucified.

Most men, with an insignificant number of exceptions, are capable of this heroic loyalty. We women can call this out of our men. We don’t achieve this by nagging. We certainly don’t achieve it by competing with them over who makes the most money, or by keeping score with them on who does the most household chores. We need to build them up, as St. Paul says. Watch them sit up straighter and taller when we appreciate and admire them.

We need to build up our marriages because our children suffer from broken relationships or non-relationships. We now know that father absence inflicts a wound on children that social science can measure, but only partially fathom. We are finding that even the children conceived by artificial means long for a relationship with their fathers.

So if we are going to honor fathers, we women have to honor our husbands, as husbands. And sometimes, just sometimes, we will find that they will honor and build us up as well.

A woman cannot go wrong by studying what men do, why men matter, and what men want from women and children. Creating the conditions for a married man to thrive in his roles is an important goal for women, after their goal of pleasing God. To get the man to perform, a woman has to create the ideal conditions for him to perform. And that means providing the right environment and loving him as if she had never been hurt. Dr. Morse knows what men are supposed to do, and she knows what she has to do to create the conditions where her husband can perform. Wives need to create the right incentives for husbands to performing their roles, and to fill them up with love by encouraging, acknowledging, recognizing, affirming, accepting and desiring them. If men don’t get the things that they need from their wives, then they won’t be able to perform. They’ll just go silent and withdraw.

Dr. Morse’s podcasts are here, and the recent interview with Warren Farrell is worth listening to for those who would like to understand men a little better.

Commentary

What is the meaning and purpose of Father’s Day?

Leave a comment

Father’s Day is the day that children and wives are supposed to honor fathers by giving them respect for being providers, protectors and moral/spiritual leaders. One of the best ways to motivate this duty is by studying research to find out the difference that fathers make.

Some statistics on the importance of biological fathers from Fathers.com.

Excerpt:

Some fathering advocates would say that almost every social ill faced by America’s children is related to fatherlessness. Six are noted here. As supported by the data below, children from fatherless homes are more likely to be poor, become involved in drug and alcohol abuse, drop out of school, and suffer from health and emotional problems. Boys are more likely to become involved in crime, and girls are more likely to become pregnant as teens.

For a summary, I’ll just list one fact from each of the six categories they listed.

1. Poverty

Fact:

– Children in father-absent homes are five times more likely to be poor. In 2002, 7.8% of children in married-couple families were living in poverty, compared to 38.4% of children in female-householder families.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Children’s Living Arrangements and Characteristics: March 2002, P20-547, Table C8. Washington, D.C.: GPO 2003.

2. Drug and Alcohol Abuse

Fact:

– The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services states, “Fatherless children are at a dramatically greater risk of drug and alcohol abuse.”

Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. National Center for Health Statistics. Survey on Child Health. Washington, DC, 1993.

3. Physical and Emotional Health

Fact:

– Unmarried mothers are less likely to obtain prenatal care and more likely to have a low birthweight baby. Researchers find that these negative effects persist even when they take into account factors, such as parental education, that often distinguish single-parent from two-parent families.

Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Public Health Service. Center for Disease Control and Prevention. National Center for Health Statistics. Report to Congress on Out-of-Wedlock Childbearing. Hyattsville, MD (Sept. 1995): 12.

– Children in single-parent families are two to three times as likely as children in two-parent families to have emotional and behavioral problems.Source: Stanton, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. National Center for Health Statistics.”National Health Interview Survey.” Hyattsville, MD, 1988.

4. Educational Achievement

Fact:

– After taking into account race, socioeconomic status, sex, age, and ability, high school students from single-parent households were 1.7 times more likely to drop out than were their corresponding counterparts living with both biological parents.Source: McNeal, Ralph B. Jr.”Extracurricular Activities and High School Dropouts.” Sociology of Education 68(1995): 62-81.

5. Crime

Fact:

– Children in single parent families are more likely to be in trouble with the law than their peers who grow up with two parents.

Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. National Center for Health Statistics. National Health Interview Survey. Hyattsville, MD, 1988.

6. Sexual Activity and Teen Pregnancy

Fact:

– A white teenage girl from an advantaged background is five times more likely to become a teen mother if she grows up in a single-mother household than if she grows up in a household with both biological parents.Source: Whitehead, Barbara Dafoe. “Facing the Challenges of Fragmented Families.” The Philanthropy Roundtable 9.1 (1995): 21.

Now take a look at this Wall Street Journal article that explains some of the ways that fathers have beneficial effects on children.

Excerpt:

As an estimated 70.1 million fathers prepare to celebrate Father’s Day in the U.S., recent research shows that their distinct style of parenting is particularly worth recognition: The way dads tend to interact has long-term benefits for kids, independent of those linked to good mothering.

[…]The benefits of involved fathering are known: improved cognitive skills, fewer behavioral problems among school-age children, less delinquency among teenage boys and fewer psychological problems in young women, based on an analysis of 16 long-term studies of father involvement, published in 2008 in the scholarly journal Acta Paediatrica.

Some of dads’ behavior may spring from their roles as family breadwinners. Although mothers play a significant role in the workforce, men are still the primary breadwinners in more than three-fourths of married-couple households.

And 48% of working fathers spend less than six hours a day with their children, compared with 31% of working mothers, according to a recent poll of 459 working adults by Workplace Options, a provider of employee-assistance and work-life programs in Raleigh, N.C.

As a result, fathers may be less familiar with their children’s nonverbal cues. Such dads tend to challenge children more to express themselves in words, helping foster the better cognitive skills researchers have found in 2-year-olds with involved fathers.

Parenting patterns may be rooted in neurological differences. Under stress, research shows, men’s brains are wired to respond to challenges physically, leaping into action. Women are more likely to withdraw or shut down.

Because fathers have had to learn to manage their own impulses to strike out or react physically to frustration, they may be better equipped than mothers to help children manage their own urges to behave badly, Dr. Pruett says.

Indeed, fathers typically aren’t as upset as mothers by kids’ tantrums or bad behavior, based on a 2009 survey of 1,615 parents by Zero to Three, a nonprofit child-development research and policy organization. Only half as many fathers as mothers say their children’s temper tantrums are one of their biggest challenges.

Fathers matter, so women need to choose men who will be good fathers. And that means having an idea of what fathers do, and knowing how to evaluate a man to see if he can do what fathers do. There’s more to fathers than handsomeness and fun!

Related posts

Commentary

Gay manager at Cisco Systems gets Dr. Frank Turek fired

16 Comments

Dr. Mike Adams explains how a gay manager at Cisco Systems got Dr. Frank Turek fired for opposing same-sex marriage. Adams explains what happened in a letter addressed to the President of Cisco.

Excerpt:

I want to bring to your attention a recent decision made by your HR team that I think does not reflect your leadership of Cisco. Dr. Frank Turek was fired as a vendor for his political and religious views, even though those views were never mentioned or expressed during his work at Cisco.

[…]In 2008, Dr. Turek was hired by Cisco to design and conduct a leadership and teambuilding program for about fifty managers with your Remote Operations Services team. The program took about a year to conduct, during which he also conducted similar sessions for another business unit within Cisco. That training earned such high marks that in 2010 he was asked to design a similar program for about 200 managers within Global Technical Services. Ten separate eight-hour sessions were scheduled.

The morning after completing the seventh session earlier this year, a manager in that session —who was one of the better students in that class—phoned in a complaint. It had nothing to do with content of the course or how it was conducted. In fact, the manager commented that the course was “excellent” as did most who participated. His complaint regarded Dr. Turek’s political and religious views that were never mentioned during class, but that the manager learned by “googling” Dr. Turek after class.

The manager identified himself as gay and was upset that Dr. Turek had written this book providing evidence that maintaining our current marriage laws would be best for the country. Although the manager didn’t read the book, he said that the author’s view was inconsistent with “Cisco values” and could not be tolerated. (Dr. Turek is aware of this because he was in the room when his call came in.) The manager then contacted an experienced HR professional at Cisco who had Dr. Turek fired that day without ever speaking to him. The HR professional also commended the manager for “outing” Dr. Turek.

This firing had nothing to do with course content—the program earned very high marks from participants. It had nothing to do with budget constraints—the original contract was paid in full recently. A man was fired simply because of his personal political and religious beliefs—beliefs that are undoubtedly shared by thousands of your very large and diverse workforce.

Chastity vs sexual immorality

Let me tell you about the difference between chastity and sexual immorality. In my life, I have decided to be chaste, and what I have found is that there is a constant stream of negative judgments coming from the culture, the education system, and so forth disapproving of my decision to be chaste. But you will never see me trying to use the law to censor and coerce people who disagree with me. That is because I know that chastity is a virtue, and that chastity is necessary for a stable marriage – strictly on the peer-reviewed research.

No amount of disagreement from anti-chastity activists will make me feel bad about what I have decided to do, because I have the facts. I am not offended by incorrect views because it’s a factual question, and I’m right. And I also don’t want other people who disagree with me to celebrate my views, because they don’t hold my views. And I don’t mind that they disagree with me – my Christian worldview has a place for tolerance. Even God himself allows people to rebel against him – he doesn’t swoop down on sinners and demand obedience. He lets people decide for themselves. I want the right to voice my disagreement with others – I would not force anyone to agree with me and celebrate my views against their own will.

I think we can all see how sexual immorality is different from chastity. When people do something wrong that they know is wrong, they have a different response to being judged. Instead of ignoring the judgment as I do, they try to censor, coerce and overpower those who disagree with them. This can include the use of courts or even the use of force. The feeling of being offended is so strong for some sexually immoral people that any concerns about tolerating diverse opinions, or permitting disagreement goes out the window. Even to hear the words of disagreement is sometimes too much for a person in rebellion.

Consider this passage from Matthew 14:1-2:

1 At that time Herod the tetrarch heard the reports about Jesus,

2and he said to his attendants, “This is John the Baptist; he has risen from the dead! That is why miraculous powers are at work in him.”

3 Now Herod had arrested John and bound him and put him in prison because of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife,

4 for John had been saying to him: “It is not lawful for you to have her.”

5 Herod wanted to kill John, but he was afraid of the people, because they considered John a prophet.

6 On Herod’s birthday the daughter of Herodias danced for the guests and pleased Herod so much

7 that he promised with an oath to give her whatever she asked.

8 Prompted by her mother, she said, “Give me here on a platter the head of John the Baptist.”

9 The king was distressed, but because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he ordered that her request be granted

10 and had John beheaded in the prison.

11 His head was brought in on a platter and given to the girl, who carried it to her mother.

12 John’s disciples came and took his body and buried it. Then they went and told Jesus.

Notice that this coercion can happen with all kinds of sexual immorality – in this case, incest. The desire to not be judged about the means of pursuing pleasure is strong. No one wants to hear about the potential harm they are causing. They just want to do it, and you just need to shut up and affirm them in their self-indulgence. Celebrate Anthony Weiner. Celebrate Bill Clinton. Celebrate Tiger Woods. Celebrate Elliot Spitzer. Celebrate Arnold Schwarzenegger. Celebrate John Edwards. OR ELSE. Very few people are brave enough to talk about the victims of this adult self-indulgence. And those who do will be taken under fire for it.

Same-sex marriage and coercion

And that leads me to the question that gay activists often ask supporters of traditional marriage: “how would allowing same-sex marriage hurt your marriage?”. And now we know the answer. Same-sex marriage would likely,  criminalize free speech that promotes traditional marriage over same-sex marriage, as it has in other countries with same-sex marriage, such as Canada. If you are a working husband, and you are responsible for a family, you will be under a constant threat of termination should your pro-marriage views become known to your colleagues and supervisors. Also, if you teach you children to favor traditional marriage, you may be persecuted by the state.

I would like to be able to provide for my family if I choose to marry, and I would like my children to favor traditional marriage over cohabitation, or any other arrangement, because traditional marriage is best for children who need a stable environment with two loving biological parents (if possible). But if it becomes the law that my view is “offensive” and “discriminatory”, then that would affect my marriage. Sometimes, I am very glad that I am not married, because getting married in a society that is offended by marriage takes a lot of courage. It seems to me that many Christians, especially the uninformed emotional ones who would rather read vampire fiction and Dan Brown than peer-reviewed research, prefer to redefine Christianity to mean “affirming destructive behavior so that you feel good and more people like you”.

Let Dr. Turek’s story be a lesson to all of you who prefer traditional marriage. Don’t allow your opinions on marriage to be linked to your true identity, because some sexually immoral people will try to separate you from your livelihood if they can. It’s no longer safe to express a preference for traditional marriage in this society. If you do it, you are taking chances. Just look at the vandalism and stalking of Prop 8 supporters. If you want children to grow up with a mother and a father in this society, then you are a marked target to those who put adult hedonism above the rights of children – including many Christians who enjoy singing and schmoozing in the church. Just this week I got an anguished e-mail from someone who blogs under his real name who is now in the cross-hairs for expressing his preference for traditional marriage in public.

Note: Comments to this post will be strictly filtered in accordance with legislation passed by the Obama administration limiting the free discussion of sexual morality, which many liberal Christians voted for in 2008.

Related posts