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| Do children need a father?
Posted: 5/26/2009 1:42:59 PM |
I had both my biological parents and still would be able to be thought of as "promiscuous"
Just cause daddy is still at home does not mean he was a decent influence. Lots of dads are in the home, but fail to participate in their child's upbringing. That can have a profound an impact on the female child as going without. Since children learn to behave and love from their parents, parents who are there, but do not participate still impart issues that the children will eventually have to recognize and overcome.
Lord knows I have a boatload of girlfriends with parental issues (myself included). It's not just good enough for dad to be there, he has to be there participating every step of the way and he's the one who puts his foot down once and for all. He shows a girl how a man treats a lady (and expects her to behave as a lady and points it out when she does not behave appropriately and WHY!). If more women had dads like mine...there'd be alot more good girls running around. | |
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| Do children need a father?
Posted: 5/26/2009 1:43:39 PM | , thanks for writing such a comprehensive and thorough response.
you are welcome
One of the major causes of poverty is out of wedlock childbearing. Women have children with men who are not financially stable, and the women are left alone to bear the costs of raising children alone. This means yet another generation grows up in poverty.
If these women had waited until they married before they had children, they would have 2 incomes instead of one with which to support their children, especially if they put off marriage until both parties could secure their educations and decent jobs.
I don't agree with your premise. Poverty is a result of lack of drive AND opportunity. Welfare programs gave the poor and opportunity to live better, albeit still meager existences...more children = more money. The children of the first were raised in poverty and the saying I love is "Children learn what they live...." This is why caring about the existing mothers and children is so damn important....ignoring them ensures the cycle will continue on and on and on. Imagine for a moment, you were dirt poor and lacked post-secondary education or quality childcare, would you really find it that easy to get to work and earn more working than you ever did on welfare? Add to that scenario a low sense of self-worth. Now how successful will you be? Add to that the pre-existing stereotypes you have to face every single day you venture out of the familiar poverty into non-poverty (go outside your neighbourhood), would you really want to feel that stigma? People do what is comfortable for them and they are quite comfortable believing they can't achieve more and waiting for the cheque to arrive. Imagine though you saw your child excelling in school and having dreams that they could be someone.....there are few parents alive who at the core of their being doesn't want their children to live a better life. The formula for success does work for some poor kids who escape the pattern and go on to better things so it is possible.
As for the issue of whether or not a man can and will embrace fatherhood is an important one to consider. Most would if their role as a father was respected and they weren't made to feel like a walking wallet. Unplanned/accidental pregnancies do happen and it is scarey for most women, why would it not be for most men? We as a society must begin to value fathers a hell of a lot more than we do today, starting with the women who bear their children. The courts are slow to react as you know but in truth, if we don't ask for the courts involvement, they won't be knocking on our doors anytime soon demanding to be involved. Do you ever wonder why men generally want to wait until they are married to pro-create? Marriage provides a sense of security for men. Married men don't have to worry about living in poverty while they pay huge amounts of child support for the children they are only allowed to see every other weekend. As a mother, I wouldn't want that arrangement and if I was told that was what I would have to endure, I might seriously consider abortion.... Why the hell should it be any different for a man?
I have been on this site for a number of years and I've read alot of what men have said, and I believe what they write when they talk about how hurt they are by the bias in the courts and the way they are treated. I know more than a few men in the real world who live in fear of the mother's taking their children from them and sticking it to them in court. That is NOT an environment to encourage men to embrace impending fatherhood.
The court system is antiquated, the tender years doctrine is not universally applicable to each situation and yet that is what they use as a baseline (at least in Ontario). That is slowly beginning to change. The child support guidelines are a joke here in this province. Do you realize that when you have a Custodial parent who makes more than a non-custodial parent, the non-custodial parent has to pay support to the custodial parent AND be in a position to provide space for the children and provide for their needs while the children are with them? That is absolutely ridiculous. A better way to calculate child support is to always, without exception apply the tables as a set off amount....
ie Parent A - $600/month to Parent B per child
Parent B - $200/month to Parent A per child
Net: Parent A pays Parent B 400/month per child REGARDLESS of who has what custody......
Imagine that........lol.......I wonder how many women would realize using the bias to have the children to get more money was now irrelevant........hmmmm....makes you wonder, doesn't it? | |
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| Do children need a father?
Posted: 5/26/2009 1:50:59 PM | I haven't read your whole post yet, but I just wanted to respond to something first:
One of the major causes of poverty is out of wedlock childbearing. I don't agree with your premise. Poverty is a result of lack of drive AND opportunity.
I think sometimes you misread what I am saying. I think you read this statement:
"One of the major causes of poverty is out of wedlock childbearing."
as this:
"The cause of poverty is out of wedlock childbearing.."
Do you see the difference? | |
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| Do children need a father?
Posted: 5/26/2009 2:04:42 PM | I see the difference.
Lack of drive and Opportunity + welfare = single parent to make more $$$$ that is my premise for what could be considered one of the major reasons for poverty......
out of wedlock childbearing stats are higher in poverty than in non-poverty, right? So using my logic, out of wedlock childbearing doesn't cause poverty, poverty encourages out of wedlock childbearing because for some it is seen as necessary for survival while in poverty.
If the cause of poverty was out of wedlock childbearing, how could you possibly explain all of us single parents who had children out of wedlock and live above or well-above the poverty line? I suspect most of us were not raised in poverty although I have no stats at hand to back up my hypothesis. We learned what we lived.....I was raised middle class and so my goal was middle class or higher. Is my standard of living now lower than my parents was? Maybe but my quality of life is the same, actually better....imagine that eh? My children are not growing up affected by alcoholism or frequent domestic violence. My parents instilled in me a strong work ethic and a desire to excel so I could get the hell away from them....lol, their intention was good but I don't think they knew my motivation...haha | |
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| Do children need a father?
Posted: 5/26/2009 2:23:12 PM |
I see the difference.
Lack of drive and Opportunity + welfare = single parent to make more $$$$ that is my premise for what could be considered one of the major reasons for poverty......
I'm not sure I understood that equation. Here is how I view it:
Lack of drive and Opportunity + lack of education + out of wedlock childbearing(which sometimes is the cause of lack of education) + other factors=poverty.
These are excerpts from another thread here on POF:
http://forums.plentyoffish.com/datingPosts3747700.aspx
"Most people are poor in the United States because they either do not work or work too few hours to move themselves and their children out of poverty. More specifically, the heads of poor families with children worked only one half as many hours, on average, as the heads of nonpoor families with children in 2001, according to the Census Bureau (table 1)."
"Another striking difference between the poor and nonpoor is the much smaller proportion of the poor who are married. In 2001, 81 percent of nonpoor families with children were headed by married couples. This compares to only 40 percent among poor families with children (table 1). In part this reflects higher marriage rates among the better educated or more skilled and in part it reflects the fact that such families increasingly have two earners, lifting them out of poverty whatever the size of their individual paychecks."
"Still a third difference between the poor and the nonpoor is in levels of education. The average head of a poor family with children is a high school dropout, while the average head of a nonpoor family has completed some college (table 1). While lack of education is commonly cited as a prime source of poverty, it as we will see is less important than work and marriage in depressing family incomes.
Finally, poor families have more children than the nonpoor, requiring that their limited incomes support more people."
"A Vision for the Future
Looking beyond the circumstances of today's single mothers and focusing instead on a vision for the future leads us to suggest a comprehensive, behavior-based strategy for reducing poverty. The strategy is based on a set of normative expectations for the youngest generation. They would be expected to stay in school at least through high school, delay childbearing until marriage, work full-time to support any children they chose to bear outside marriage, and limit the size of their families to what they could afford to support. "
out of wedlock childbearing stats are higher in poverty than in non-poverty, right? So using my logic, out of wedlock childbearing doesn't cause poverty, poverty encourages out of wedlock childbearing because for some it is seen as necessary for survival while in poverty.
If the cause of poverty was out of wedlock childbearing, how could you possibly explain all of us single parents who had children out of wedlock and live above or well-above the poverty line?.
But I didn't say that out of wedlock childbearing causes poverty. I said it was a major cause, which implies there are other causes.
I suspect most of us were not raised in poverty although I have no stats at hand to back up my hypothesis. We learned what we lived.....I was raised middle class and so my goal was middle class or higher. Is my standard of living now lower than my parents was? Maybe but my quality of life is the same, actually better....imagine that eh? My children are not growing up affected by alcoholism or frequent domestic violence. My parents instilled in me a strong work ethic and a desire to excel so I could get the hell away from them....lol, their intention was good but I don't think they knew my motivation...haha
And you are a success story.
Read that other thread I referenced above. It pretty well outlines what I have been trying to say. | |
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| Do children need a father?
Posted: 5/26/2009 3:06:56 PM |
Bolstering the inner city educational system is a great idea and I am all for it. However, it has to be done in conjunction with decreasing the illegitimacy rate, because young girls dropping out of school to have babies won't be in school to benefit from the better educators.
I agree that decreasing the illegitimacy rate among teens is a priority. Before you can find a solution to that problem you need to define the main reasons it happens in the first place. If you don't know why, you can't fix the problem and all you can do is band-aid solutions which only make most problems worse over time, not better. The root cause of the problem must be determined and that is what the solution must target. You will not eliminate teen pregnancy overnight but as it stands right now, many schools won't allow pregnant teenagers to attend school. That is wrong on so many levels.......what better deterrent is there for teenage pregnancy than to see the struggles of another pregnant teenager up close and personal. What better way to end life-time welfare dependence than to encourage a teenage mom to complete high school.
For instance, one that you mentionned before (can't remember where ... ), they want a baby. Wanting a baby is a symptom of a root cause, not the root cause. The root cause may be that they don't feel loved and want to have a baby to have someone to love them...not good logic but most teens aren't that logical to begin with at times. That is a tough one to find a solution to....but perhaps having teachers identifying at risk youth and intervening by getting them involved in extra-curicular activies, in-school counselling, setting them up with a mentor (Big Brothers/Big Sisters) or involving social services if there is abuse/neglect at home, anything that can bolster their self-esteem.
The root cause may be that they are struggling in school and don't see how they could possibly support themselves for the rest of their lives ... oh wait...if I have a baby I can get a cheque.....that is my ONLY option. The solution there is two-fold and rather obvious I'm sure....ensure they don't struggle by getting the help they need to learn (tutoring, counselling, social services intervention when necessary, medical assessment for learning disabilities, etc....) and giving them other options besides having a baby to support themselves. Perhaps co-op placement in high schools for youth at highest risk can empower them to believe they can do more than collect a welfare cheque.
Education is the key to opening the eyes to the many possibilities that exist in this world. The more you educate yourself, the bigger your world gets..... | |
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| Do children need a father?
Posted: 5/26/2009 3:26:02 PM |
what better deterrent is there for teenage pregnancy than to see the struggles of another pregnant teenager up close and personal. What better way to end life-time welfare dependence than to encourage a teenage mom to complete high school.
You would think so, but it is not the case for many teens. Seeing other teens with their babies INCREASES the desire for other teens to want to have a baby, in many instances. If you have time, read the posts on this forum and you will see how many young girls WANT babies, and some want them because their friends have them and they are jealous:
http://ehealthforum.com/health/teen_pregnancy.html
For instance, one that you mentionned before (can't remember where ... ), they want a baby. Wanting a baby is a symptom of a root cause, not the root cause. The root cause may be that they don't feel loved and want to have a baby to have someone to love them...not good logic but most teens aren't that logical to begin with at times. That is a tough one to find a solution to....but perhaps having teachers identifying at risk youth and intervening by getting them involved in extra-curicular activies, in-school counselling, setting them up with a mentor (Big Brothers/Big Sisters) or involving social services if there is abuse/neglect at home, anything that can bolster their self-esteem.
Those are good ideas.
The root cause may be that they are struggling in school and don't see how they could possibly support themselves for the rest of their lives ... oh wait...if I have a baby I can get a cheque.....that is my ONLY option. The solution there is two-fold and rather obvious I'm sure....ensure they don't struggle by getting the help they need to learn (tutoring, counselling, social services intervention when necessary, medical assessment for learning disabilities, etc....) and giving them other options besides having a baby to support themselves. Perhaps co-op placement in high schools for youth at highest risk can empower them to believe they can do more than collect a welfare cheque.
Education is the key to opening the eyes to the many possibilities that exist in this world. The more you educate yourself, the bigger your world gets.....
Also good ideas. It is a very frustrating problem. The availability of welfare money was one reason for many out of wedlock births among the poor, that is why there was Welfare Reform in 1996.
Now we must find other solutions. | |
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| Do children need a father?
Posted: 5/26/2009 3:35:00 PM | Root causes change over time so when new ideas are needed, you have to start over identifying the root causes for the current generation...by comparing those of past generations you might see one or two that is common to all ..... the main root causes.
Welfare was a band-aid solution destined to fail. Welfare reform only deals with saving tax-payer dollars really....not the root cause of why so many stay on it. Punitive sanctions against those on it without giving consideration to why will naturally lead to an increase in criminal activity?
Being a teenage mom does look easy when they aren't mature enough to consider long-term consequences for their children because they are stuck in that "nothing bad can happen to me, and by extension by child mentality that teens are known for"..... We can't slam them for the way they think....it is developmental to a large degree and when combined with so many other factors (especially lack of hope for something better) it is really bad. Still, there are teenage success stories....what do those teach us? Are we looking at those even harder than we look at the failures or are we like so many who prefer to look at tragedy over good? | |
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| Do children need a father?
Posted: 5/26/2009 3:56:50 PM |
Being a teenage mom does look easy when they aren't mature enough to consider long-term consequences for their children because they are stuck in that "nothing bad can happen to me, and by extension by child mentality that teens are known for"..... We can't slam them for the way they think....it is developmental to a large degree and when combined with so many other factors (especially lack of hope for something better) it is really bad.
That is exactly right. Those beliefs are called "myths" and "fables" that teens tell themselves. This is one major reason why I blame many of the parents of these teens for their poor decisions. Too many parents readily accept a teen pregnancy because they did it themselves and see nothing wrong with it, and also they want grandchildren.
Still, there are teenage success stories....what do those teach us? Are we looking at those even harder than we look at the failures or are we like so many who prefer to look at tragedy over good?
Just because some people don't die in car crashes because they didn't wear a seat belt doesn't mean that anyone should stop wearing theirs. Teen parent success stories do nothing for me because they shouldn't have had to struggle so hard to begin with, they should never have gotten pregnant. | |
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| Do children need a father?
Posted: 5/26/2009 5:28:50 PM | | You might want to consider what their formula for success was though....what made them different from the rest? Therein may lie a possible solution to the problem by identifying what was missing from the others .... | |
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| Do children need a father?
Posted: 5/26/2009 6:36:37 PM | You might want to consider what their formula for success was though....what made them different from the rest? Therein may lie a possible solution to the problem by identifying what was missing from the others ....
Well, that sounds like a good idea except for one thing, I think the best solution is to STOP teens from having children in the first place. I mean, it should just flat out NOT be tolerated. Anyone under 18 who hasn't graduated from high school and cannot support themselves should not be having a child. If they do, the child should either be put into the custody of the teen's parents or be put up for adoption. | |
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| Do children need a father?
Posted: 5/26/2009 6:52:34 PM | "Anyone under 18 who hasn't graduated form high school and cannot support themselves should not be having a child. If they do, they child should either be out into cunstody of the teen's parents or be put up for afoption."
Brilliant idea.
Even the Cuban government never implemented that for doctrinal method. | |
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| Do children need a father?
Posted: 5/26/2009 7:14:23 PM | | well considering one has to be of legal adult age to enter into a contract, I wonder if there could be an implied contract between parents and children........, thereby removing the right of anyone under the legal adult age to keep their children......sometimes tough love works but honestly, in this scenario.....they would just have another at the legal age if that is what they really want to do....you have met some teenagers, right? | |
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| Do children need a father?
Posted: 5/26/2009 7:31:43 PM | | How can minors be PARENTS? It doesn't make any sense. The parents or guardians of the teens should be the guardians of the teens's children, because the teens themselves are minors. | |
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| Do children need a father?
Posted: 5/26/2009 8:18:28 PM | Minors having children and the idea that fathers are not needed for the uprising is the reflection of the problem, not the problem itself.
Politic is perception. Never underestimate the sistematic campaing of the influencial power from the media and/or lobbyist groups for the manipulation of the mass mentality. (Political Science 101, under chapter Propaganda) | |
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| Do children need a father?
Posted: 5/26/2009 9:35:14 PM | | I agree with you that the mass media can have a powerful effect on the masses. | |
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| Do children need a father?
Posted: 5/28/2009 8:05:39 PM |
Men cheating on their wives(that is totally wrong). But why?? Because their wife doesn't satisfy his husband.
LOL! Maybe the woman is cheating because the husband didn't satisfy her.
Children without a father is a sin.
I don't think most women set out to purposefully have children without having a dad for the child. Most women don't want the men to leave when they become pregnant or shortly thereafter, but many of them do.
Why don't you get angry at the men who leave their children and mothers of their children? | |
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| Do children need a father?
Posted: 5/28/2009 8:11:31 PM |
Why don't you get angry at the men who leave their children and mothers of their children?
I could ask you the same question.........holy cow you blame women for getting pregnant and try to absolve all male responsibility in other threads and then post this? No offense but get off the fence! | |
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| Do children need a father?
Posted: 5/28/2009 8:13:56 PM | I could ask you the same question.........holy cow you blame women for getting pregnant and try to absolve all male responsibility in other threads and then post this? No offense but get off the fence!
Well, this guy is furious at women for something that many of them didn't do. Why is he so mad at women? Only a tiny fraction of women use sperm banks and purposefully have babies with no fathers.
In reality, if many women waited until they got married to have children, many more children would have fathers. But that doesn't mean that these women DON'T WANT fathers for their children. | |
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| Do children need a father?
Posted: 5/28/2009 8:24:49 PM |
many more children would have fathers.
All children have fathers futureshock!!!! Even those born from a withdrawal from a sperm bank......the only difference is they don't mind being a father to a child they will never know exists or meet.
I'm glad to see you can defend some women at least but then weren't you prepared to go and buy sperm to have a baby if Mr. Right hadn't come along.....I guess you are biased eh? | |
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| Do children need a father?
Posted: 5/28/2009 8:26:40 PM |
I'm glad to see you can defend some women at least but then weren't you prepared to go and buy sperm to have a baby if Mr. Right hadn't come along.....I guess you are biased eh?
Yes, and then I would have been one of the women that the poster would have been screaming at. Why does that make me biased? I don't get what you are mad about here.
Why is this so confusing?
1. Guy yells at women for not wanting fathers for their children.
2. I explain that most women don't set out to have children and then not want their fathers to be around.
3. The only group of women that legitimately choose to have children with no fathers in their lives are the ones who go to sperm banks.
4. I have no problem with women who go to sperm banks. If this poster wants to yell about them, I don't care. Even if I had a baby that way, let him yell at me, because I would have been a woman who had a child with no father around.
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| Do children need a father?
Posted: 5/28/2009 8:34:08 PM | Regarding sperm banks............
So hypothetically speaking, you visit the same sperm bank as another woman and buy sperm from the same sperm donor...... Years later your daughter meets her son and they have sex and have a child..........think about the ethics there for a second....I'd rather KNOW who the father of my child is thank - you. | |
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| Do children need a father?
Posted: 5/29/2009 3:27:47 PM |
So hypothetically speaking, you visit the same sperm bank as another woman and buy sperm from the same sperm donor...... Years later your daughter meets her son and they have sex and have a child..........think about the ethics there for a second....I'd rather KNOW who the father of my child is thank - you.
So now you think sperm banks and single mothers by choice are immoral? LOL!
Anyway, the chances of that (what you asked in your post) happening are the same as a guy fathering different children by different mothers and having those kids meet up and have kids with each other. | |
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| Do children need a father?
Posted: 5/29/2009 5:03:00 PM | Saqman4u
The main reason why the divorce rate is over 50%, why kids are having unprotected sex, why kids are getting in trouble with the law, and why your daughters are turning into little whores is because they have NO FATHER in the home.
Perhaps if the father had been in the home more, the parents would not have gotten divorced.
Because of women's lib, the gay movement, women wanting MORE "freedom", more time OUT of the home than in the home, unsupervised kids at home(mom's working), is the MAIN reason why a kid(s) NEEDS a FATHER.
So let me get this right....because women wanted to be more than housewives who had no economic independence and no respect for their brains but rather for how clean they kept a home, how well they cooked, how well they parented the children, the role of the father was lessened somehow? I don't see the correlation here so you may need to clarify exactly what you meant because you are simply coming across as very chauvinistic.
I used to believe a mother was the best thing for a "family". But NOT anymore. Look at the divorce rate. Men cheating on their wives(that is totally wrong). But why?? Because their wife doesn't satisfy his husband. Mothers who have sons can "do no wrong". Mothers with daughters just bang heads, especially in the beginning of each and every month.
But if the home had a father, he would straighten out little Johnny or Billy real fast. And dad's little girls would be just that...angels from heaven. And not pole dancers likesome of their mothers.
So if you believe a mother is not the best thing for a family, what do you see her role being today in the family?
Sexually satisfying the needs of our partner is a responsibility of both partners, isn't it? Why are you implying that a man is justified in cheating on his wife because his needs aren't being met? Perhaps she is not as concerned with satisfying him sexually since she is working hard at satisfying his other fantasies to be "king of the castle", waiting on him hand and foot, cooking and cleaning and caring for the children so he can relax after working hard all day long (in spite of the fact that she is also working all day long).
As for mothers being able to discipline their children....the only parents I've ever heard utter the words "boys will be boys" were fathers excusing the behaviour of their sons.
I certainly agree that fathers need to be involved in the lives of their children in and out of marriage. Children do fare better when both parents are involved generally. I reject your argument that fathers are better parents than mothers though. We each have something of value that a child requires to give to our children.
Yeah, women MIGHT be able to multi-task....that's nice. But they generally can't think on their feet, but men can. That is just the way we are built.
Can you prove this statement? We women think on our feet all the time, we are evolving and learning from our mistakes as we do things we haven't done before....now that we simply cannot rely on men anymore.
A husband and a wife get married have kids get divorced and YOU women get EVERYTHING and the man/husband/father gets *hit. He has to move out of "his home". Must live in a shoebox and more times than not have to pat child support(and he should) PLUS alimony. So let me get this right. I have to pay you as your sleeping with some other guy. What are you smoking???
That is one scenario of what happens.....but it is not all cases. What you describe is not fair, but if both are working and both are contributing, it is not "his" home, it is "their" home. More and more divorcing couples are remaining under the same roof until the decisions are made regarding custody, access and support of the children, the marital assets are liquidated and split among the two. A system is only unfair when someone doesn't protect their rights and gives away a lot of their power to the other. Providing their is no domestic abuse, there is no need for either to move out.
AFATHER is the backbone of every family. The mother is the nurturer and the emotionally core of the family.
Yeah sure, maybe once upon a time a long time ago.......that is not the case today. Today people do not have to assume traditional gender roles unless they choose to. Did you know that in some families, the fathers are the stay at home parent and the moms work? Shocking eh?
Don't worry......the world is not crashing down around you. There are plenty of women still around who want to have a man who will take care of them financially and have no desire for anything but the old "traditional" role of wife and mother. I still believe in the value of those roles and commend those couples who value the raising of their children enough to give them a stay at home with them parent. I just don't think that stay at home has to be Mom. | |
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| Do children need a father?
Posted: 5/30/2009 2:04:58 AM | Children without a father is a sin. Fathers need to unite and take a stand and be heard. We are all tired of the *hit women have put us thru and get away with.
^^^I'm thinkin SagMan didn't get the memo?....lol
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