We need our dads

I took a really good 6 week course once called Raising Boys. One of the main points of the class was how integral the role of a father was in the life of a boy. They told us a true story that I found very interesting. Apparently, a few years back, a major card company decided for Mother's Day to donate cards to the inmates at a men's penitentiary. The effort was a great success, enormous numbers of cards were sent by the inmates to their mothers. The company was so pleased by the response their donation recieved that they decided to do the same thing for Father's Day. Father's Day came and not one single inmate chose to send a card. None. How telling is this? If you look at the statistics, the percentages of boys that were raised without a father in the home that get involved with crime, drugs, alcohol, drop out of school....are staggering when compared with boys that had a father in the home. Boys raised in fatherless homes are more than twice as likely to become male adolescent delinquents. Boys need a dad, and if there isn't a dad who's interested in being involved in their life, then it's incumbant upon their mother to be sure they have a good, positive male role model. The theory that a woman can do just as good a job as two parents is, quite simply, wrong. She can be the best mother on Earth, but unless she can be a man, she can not be everything her son needs. She will never be able to show him through actions and example what it means to be a good man. Now, I don't mean to belittle the efforts of single moms who, by no fault of their own, are raising their children alone. I know women who's husbands decided to forsake the role of father and are struggling to raise their children on their own. They are good women and good mothers, but, in addition to the lack of a male role model, the very stress of their situation prevents them from being as good of parents as they'd like to be. I would strongly exhort them to do anything in their power to make sure their sons have a good man to look up to, whether it be a grandfather, uncle, church leader....someone that can set an example for him of what a man should be. What I do mean to belittle is the whole "I don't need a man to raise a child" notion. It's not a question of what WE as women need, but what the child needs, and a child, especially a son, needs a father.