Posted on 06/15/2014 4:17:53 PM PDT by Kaslin
This isn’t going to be one of those sentimental Father’s Day articles, even though that is what I would prefer. This article will have a bit of an edge to it. Please excuse my bluntness, but fatherhood is serious business, and for me to sugarcoat or evade the truth about it would benefit nobody.
Here goes: What does my peculiar title mean? Aren’t all fathers men? No, they are not. All fathers are male, but not all fathers are men. Maleness is a biological identity, a physical reality, a matter of hormones and organs. Manliness, on the other hand, is a matter of character, an intangible quality, a demonstrated achievement of maturity that not all adult males attain.
Several years ago, I wrote about an appalling situation in our country—the fact that the second leading cause of death of pregnant women in the U.S. is homicide, usually perpetrated by the father of the unborn child. Some males are so selfish and antisocial that they reduce their lover to an object that they will destroy rather than allow her to give birth to the precious life that they have conceived together.
It is a socioeconomic fact that one of the two leading causes of long-term poverty in America is for women to bear children out of wedlock. (The other leading cause is failing to complete high school.) For a male to use a lover for a few moments of pleasure and then abandon her to a lifetime of poverty because he doesn’t want the responsibilities of fatherhood is cruelly selfish. Don’t do it, fellows.
Fatherhood is one of life’s most momentous choices. Males can become men by accepting the responsibilities of fatherhood, by marrying and committing themselves to full-time partnership in raising, teaching, and financially supporting their offspring. Alternatively, males can opt for bachelorhood, “freedom” (from responsibility) and let their lover bear the psychological and financial cost of intimacy.
Let us salute the fathers who are men—those who have accepted the responsibilities of raising their children. These are the men who become genuine dads to their children—loving them, spending their hard-earned pay on them, and most importantly of all, being there for them both in times of joy and times of need.
I can vouch for the irreplaceable role a dad plays in a child’s life. “Pop,” my uncle, gave my mother and me a home in the absence of my biological father. Pop was a man in the fullest sense of the word—hardworking, unselfish, and always willing to serve above and beyond the call of duty. In addition to giving more than a decade of his life in hazardous military and military-related service to his country (no desk jobs for Pop!), he also committed himself to raising me. Many males would have balked at raising another man’s son. Pop’s thought process would have been this (he never told me, but I know how he thought): Here’s a boy who, through no fault of his own doesn’t have a father; his mother, my sister-in-law, even though we don’t get along, has neither the income nor skill set nor emotional capability to raise him by herself; ergo, they’ll live with us and I’ll help raise the boy.
The dear teacher I had for first and second grades, Mrs. Talley, told me years later that I was rather undisciplined and unfocused during most of my two years as her pupil. Pop was gone then. He was working in the bleak Arctic, superintending construction of the DEW (Distant Early Warning) Line—the string of radar installations at the northern extreme of North America. According to Mrs. Talley, as soon as Pop’s work was completed and he returned home, I shaped up. Pop set the tone. He enforced standards of right and wrong, and he demanded that I meet his expectations of me. The result? I started to fulfill my potential.
For some men, being a full-time dad to children is the greatest joy in life. For others, it isn’t easy. But to each good man who sticks it out, who loves his children and helps to raise them, you have earned our respect and appreciation. Your work as a dad has blessed your children and strengthened our society. Happy Father’s Day, men!
Tom catting, and what do women do? They want to turn themselves into even bigger and bigger prostitutes. Folie a deux, or something like that.
Hats off to Jim Bunning, who threw a perfect game 50 years ago on Fathers’ Day, 1964, Shea Stadium. Jim was also a great Senator for 12 years beside being a Hall of Famer. Great man, loving father, and solid conservative. We need more like him today—in and out of politics. 82 years young, he threw out the first ball at the Phillies game today.
True... all dads especially stepdads are men, all men are not dads. Dads on this special day should be treated like kings.Not that we DEMAND it, but because dads should be told thanks dad.
Robert Vaughn & Christopher Buckley, call your office. Mr. Mfume...ditto.
Happy Fathers Day, Pop!
Indeed, good point. Women have reduced themselves to mere females, so that they can reject men and replace them with mere males.
Takes two to tango, and is is extremely unpopular amongst the female set to have absolutely anything to do with a real man these days. Divorce your husband, screw an underaged teenager and go lesbian - anything, absolutely anything but even admit men exist, let alone are desireable. The words "man" and "men" are to be used for jokes and hatred only, among females today.
And they are dead serious about it - because it's the only concept that protects them from actually having to take responsibility for their sordid, rotten little collective hive-coven lives.
That, and booze and antidepressants. So there's market shares to protect here, too.
I’m sure fellows like him weep to see the follies of today.
Ultimately our salvation cannot be in a country, or in a mere document, or even a nominal religion.
It has to be in the actual, genuine God. The intent to dedicate oneself to this God has dwindled over the years, and the results show. One does not need a perfect faith to have a greatly effective one.
The misuses of the juices and the pills are side effects. They aren’t primary causes of our troubles.
Men used to be looked to for chivalry by women (and since they usually met women frequently, this kept them in practice), and the modern forms of women’s liberation have arbitrarily chucked the baby out with his bath water. Far from belittling the women, this gave them the honorable position of bringing out the best in the men.
Happy Father’s Day to you, my day (Mother’s Day) was last month
Ironically we can look at the “pecuniary” medium of the greeting card industry for helping keep up what sentiment there still is in this direction.
God doesn’t give up easily, even if it’s through Hallmark cards. We are quickly losing something, but there still is time to take a fresh outlook, based on more than cards.
Vater werden ist nicht schwer.
Vater sein, dagegen sehr.
Which means it is easy to become a father, but very difficult to be a father
The poet Wilhelm Busch.
Well put. Truth unadorned stands in your words.
But otherwise yep, by teaching women to reject chivalry, the Left help create the very thing they claimed all men were - and got foolish young women to create their own social destruction at the same time.
I often reflect on the fact that the utter cynicism of the Left in coercing and rewarding and counting on women to act in exactly the stereotypical way feminism claims women don't act, is how the Left got women to becomes feminists.
No one hates women more than a feminist. If only woen could understand that.
But alas.
I was in the Hallmark store the other day, picking up a card for the father-in-law, and I saw a card that said, "For Mom on Father's Day."
???
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: What did he say?
Igor: 'What the hell are you doing in the bathroom all day and night? Give someone else a chance!'
A young man I know who is 19 just married a girl he’s known for 3 whole months against his parents advice. And he’s leaving next month for boot camp. I wrote him a very long, blunt and honest letter about what his responsibilities are now. They are living in her parents house. Big mistake. I told him that he needs to establish his household, not be under his FIL’s roof.
I also told him that he made a rash lifetime decision and t’s now time to man up.
I apparently didn’t work. His new wife, who apparently wears the pants texted me with a “dear Shutup” letter saying I don’t know him and their situation. I didn’t pull the knowing him for a decade vs. 3 months card. After a few back and forth texts, she settled down. I offered to pay their way to an upcoming marriage conference through Family Life ministry.
Sadly, I’m sure his pride will prevent him from going. I hope to get a phone call at some time telling me my advice was dead on, I only hope it’s not after he’s no longer married.
Hat’s off to all the mothers who are women....
Rednecks do it best again... and they get hated for their predominant whiteness (though rednecks come in many colors)
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