We’re Raising Our Boys to be “Dangerous” Men

My wife Michelle and I have three sons and one daughter. Much to the dismay of foolish, so-called “feminists” like Jody Allard, we’re raising every one of them to be “dangerous,” though, not in the sense that Ms. Allard imagines. It’s worse—much, much, worse.

In case you missed it, Ms. Allard is the infamous mother who—while longing for “safe,” “feminist men,” and lamenting the allegedly numerous men who populate the so-called “rape culture,”—has more than once publicly shamed her two sons. I suppose the young men—both in their late teens—should at least be thankful that their angry, deceived, corrupted-by-liberalism mother didn’t kill them in the womb.

Last year, in a piece for the Washington Post, Ms. Allard stunningly declared, “My sons are part of the [rape culture] problem.” What makes her conclusion so stunning is that this mother deems her own boys “part of the problem,” not because of some wicked sexual activity, but merely because they are males and they refuse to participate actively in ending the “rape culture.”

This year, Allard followed up her 2016 hyperbole with this:

If the feminist men — the men who proudly declare their progressive politics and their fight for [e]quality— aren’t safe, then what man is? No man, I fear. 

I know I’m not supposed to cast an entire sex with a single paint brush — not all men, I’m sure some readers are thinking and preparing to type or tweet. But if it’s impossible for a white person to grow up without adopting racist ideas, simply because of the environment in which they live, how can I expect men not to subconsciously absorb at least some degree of sexism? White people aren’t safe, and men aren’t safe, no matter how much I’d like to assure myself that these things aren’t true. (Emphasis mine.)

Of course, unsafe men include her own sons. Again, Ms. Allard intolerantly labels her own boys unsafe because they have a penis and because they refuse to acknowledge the “rape culture” their mother insists exists.

There is a terrible bit of tragic irony here. Because they’ve been raised by an extremely liberal mother and without a father, almost certainly Ms. Allard’s sons are saddled with a psychology and a worldview that most likely will take them down regrettable paths. As I’ve often noted, the absence of fathers has had a devastating effect on children in America.

Among many other sad outcomes, fatherlessness is one of the leading predictors of future criminal activity. Children living with their married biological parents are the least likely to commit criminal acts. On the other hand, according to Effects of Fatherless Families on Crime Rates,

Children of single-parent homes [almost always without a father] are more likely to…engage in questionable behavior, struggle academically, and become delinquent. Problems with children from fatherless families can continue into adulthood. These children are three times more likely to end up in jail by the time they reach age 30 than are children raised in intact families, and have the highest rates of incarceration in the United States… 

According to Rolf Loeber, Professor of Psychiatry, Psychology and Epidemiology at the Western Psychiatric Institute in the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, “A close and intense relationship between a boy and his father prevents hostility and inappropriate aggressiveness.” This inappropriate aggressiveness is an early indication of potential delinquency later on, particularly in boys.

According to Edward Kruk at Psychology Today, among other “disastrous” results, fatherless children are much more likely to be involved in violent crime (such as sexual assault). Kruk reports that “85 per cent of youth in prison have an absent father; fatherless children are more likely to offend and go to jail as adults.” As Maggie Gallagher warned in the late 1990s, “Fatherless Boys Grow Up Into Dangerous Men.”

Additionally, multiple studies note that fatherless children (and children from broken families in general) are FAR more likely to themselves be victims of violence and sexual assault. The National Children’s Alliance reveals,

Family structure is the most important risk factor in child sexual abuse. Children who live with two married biological parents are at low risk for abuse. The risk increases when children live with step-parents or a single parent. Children living without either parent (foster children) are 10 times more likely to be sexually abused than children that live with both biological parents. Children who live with a single parent that has a live-in partner are at the highest risk: they are 20 times more likely to be victims of child sexual abuse than children living with both biological parents (Sedlack, et. al., 2010).

In spite of these sobering facts—that anyone with a sound biblical worldview did not need to read—liberals like Ms. Allard continue to wage war on the family in America. What does the perverse redefinition of marriage achieved by liberals reveal if not that they believe that fathers and mothers don’t really matter? The sexual sin and violence that plagues our culture are the direct result of the efforts of liberals across the U.S —from our campuses to our courts. In other words, on sexual assault (or “rape culture”), liberals like Ms. Allard are mourning a culture that they helped to create.

Ms. Allard claims to have talked with her boys about “consent, misogyny and rape culture since they were tweens,” but has she talked to them about what it truly means for a husband to love his wife and for a wife to love her husband? Has she taught them to remain sexually pure until they are married? Has she warned them about the dangers of promiscuity, pornography (and its link to sexual aggression), and the homosexual lifestyle?

Among many other lies and perversions promoted by modern liberalism, my wife and I are warning our children about these dangers. What’s more, we are raising them to be agents of truth in this era of lies. We are teaching them to obey the Word of their Creator when it comes to marriage, sex, the family, and so on. We are teaching them to be witnesses to the world of all that is good and right, but given where we are with the sad state of the family in America, this is especially true of matters in the sexual realm.

In other words, we are teaching each of our four children to be “dangerous” to the cause of the “father of lies” and all of those who aid and abet him in this world.

(See this column at American Thinker.)

Copyright 2017, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

The Fatherless Effect

Over the last several months—and especially the last few weeks—much has been made of the “Ferguson effect.” The phenomenon is now so widely discussed that it has its own Wikipedia page (though I wouldn’t suggest visiting it for an explanation). St. Louis police chief Sam Dotson coined the phrase in November of 2014, but Heather MacDonald popularized it in a Wall Street Journal op-ed in 2015. In early 2016, she again described the Ferguson effect:

Since the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., in August 2014, the conceit that American policing is lethally racist has dominated media and political discourse, from the White House on down. Cops in minority neighborhoods in Chicago and other cities have responded by backing away from pedestrian stops and public-order policing; criminals are flourishing in the vacuum.

In other words, because of the lies of liberals, many American policeman have taken their nightsticks and their nine-millimeters out of some of the most dangerous areas in the U.S. and criminals are taking full advantage. As I pointed out a couple of weeks ago, given that black Americans typically live in the most dangerous parts of our nation, it is black Americans who are suffering the most from police disengagement from “discretionary enforcement activity.”

In my last piece I barely mentioned the effects of the absence of fathers on black children in America. The current political and moral climate in the U.S. demands that we give this grave issue more attention. Again, out-of-wedlock births in the U.S. are at historic highs, and the vast majority of black children in America are born to single mothers. And just as criminal gangs and other undesirables fill the void of absent police officers in American neighborhoods, the same thing happens—but on a much larger and more destructive scale—when fathers are absent from the family.

There are over 100 cities in the U.S.—from Atlanta to Utica—with populations north of 50,000 in which more than half of the households are headed by single parents. Of course, the vast majority of these households are led by single moms. These cities are the most dangerous places in the U.S. Given the rate of black out-of-wedlock births, and with most black Americans living in large U.S. cities (about 75%), millions of American black children are growing up fatherless in the most crime-ridden places in America.

Among many other sad outcomes, fatherlessness is one of the leading predictors of future criminal activity. Children living with their married biological parents are the least likely to commit criminal acts. On the other hand, children from single-parent homes (almost always without a father) are “more likely to…engage in questionable behavior, struggle academically, and become delinquent.  Problems with children from fatherless families can continue into adulthood. These children are three times more likely to end up in jail by the time they reach age 30 than are children raised in intact families, and have the highest rates of incarceration in the United States.”

As the breakdown of the family has been hotly debated in the U.S. for years now, you’ve almost certainly heard the above stats before. However, long before the rampant disintegration of the family in America began, researchers were revealing what common sense and sound morality always knew. As authors Kevin and Karen Wright point out:

Research into the idea that single-parent homes may produce more delinquents dates back to the early 19th century…. [O]fficials at New York State's Auburn Penitentiary, in an attempt to discern the causes of crime, studied the biographies of incarcerated men. Reports to the legislature in 1829 and 1830 suggested that family disintegration resulting from the death, desertion, or divorce of parents led to undisciplined children who eventually became criminals.  

Fatherlessness is the single greatest cause of poverty in the U.S. As Robert Rector pointed out years ago, “Being raised in a married family reduced a child’s probability of living in poverty by about 80 percent.” In order to further their big government agenda, modern liberals often point to education as the answer to poverty in America. However, marriage is a far better weapon against poverty than is education. Again, as Rector points out, “being married has the same effect in reducing poverty that adding five to six years to a parent’s level of education has.” In addition, a child living in a single-parent home where the parent is a college graduate is nearly twice as likely to live in poverty as a child living with their married parents whose highest level of education is completing high school.

Marriage provides the safest environment for children. In addition to being much more likely to live in crime-ridden communities, children born to single moms face much more danger inside the home than do children living with their married parents. As marripedia points out:

• The rate of physical abuse is 3 times higher in the single parent family.
• The rate of physical abuse is 4 times higher if mother is cohabiting with the child’s biological father (unmarried).
• The rate of physical abuse is 5 times higher if the child is living in a married step family.
• The rate of physical abuse is 10 times higher if the mother is cohabiting with a boyfriend.

The rates for sexual abuse are even worse than physical abuse:

• The rate of sexual abuse is 5 times higher in the single parent family and when both biological parents are cohabiting (i.e. unmarried).
• The rate of sexual abuse is 8.6 times higher if the child is living in a married step family.
• The rate of sexual abuse is 20 times higher if the mother is cohabiting with a boyfriend.

Contrary to popular belief, the most likely physical abuser of a child in a single-parent home is the mother. Because they lack the financial, emotional, and other support of a husband and a father in the home, single moms are more likely to experience anger, impatience, anxiety, and feelings of helplessness. Additionally, single moms are more likely to be depressed and feel rejected by their children than are women who have a husband.

As tragic as the outcomes of the Ferguson effect are, the fatherless effect is much more wide-ranging, common, and deadly in American society. The good news, though: if we solve the fatherless effect, there is not even an opportunity to experience the Ferguson effect. 

(See this column at American Thinker.)

Copyright 2016, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com