Society needs less modern feminism and more dads.
Sunday is Father’s Day. Many children won’t have much to celebrate. Around 1 in 4 don’t live with their father. That’s more than 18 million children.
It wasn’t always like this. In 1960, just 11.2 percent of kids didn’t live with their dad. Starting in 1970, that number began climbing steadily. It topped 25 percent in 1991. It has remained above or around that level since.
This has been terrible for kids. Children who grow up without a dad are more likely to grow up in poverty, drop out of high school, end up in jail and use drugs.
Fatherlessness isn’t evenly distributed. In 2023, 44.2 percent of Black children lived with only their mothers. For Hispanic kids, it was almost 25 percent. For white children, it was 16.1 percent.
These facts aren’t in dispute. But a sure way to start a dispute is using them to draw some obvious conclusions.
For one, the government has failed at fatherhood. It has spent decades trying to solve the unintended consequences of out-of-wedlock births and the resulting surge in single mothers. But government welfare and education programs failed to fix the problems fathers would have prevented.
Why has lavish government spending failed? Why is it so controversial to observe this?
These two questions have the same answer. Men and women are different. A single mom plus government welfare can’t adequately replace a mom and a dad because each sex brings something different to parenting.
The belief that men and women are functionally equivalent — absent the nefarious influence of the patriarchy — is a core tenet of modern feminism. It’s infused popular culture, too. Most leftists have internalized that belief even if they don’t articulate it. Pointing out that children need a mom and a dad is a rejection of their worldview. To avoid this cognitive dissonance, they’ll frequently attack those who note that all family structures aren’t equal.
Highlighting the importance of dads doesn’t devalue moms because men and women are different. Men and women aren’t in competition with each other. God designed them to complement each other — creating together something neither could on their own. A dad can’t replace a mom. Children need both.
Another obvious observation is that fatherlessness is a major factor in the racial disparities the left obsesses over. Yet, most leftists are loath to mention this, let alone work to solve it. It’s hard to blame high fatherlessness in the Black community on systemic racism. Further, acknowledging that individual choices determine group outcomes undercuts critical race theory. What a shame that leftists prefer to cling to their dogma over promoting the values and choices that would produce better outcomes for Black children.
In some circumstances, an intact family isn’t possible — such as when a parent dies. In other cases, it isn’t the best option — when a husband is physically violent, for instance. These exceptions don’t invalidate the general principle. And when you’re discussing something involving hundreds of millions of people, you have to talk in generalities.
Look at the failures of the past few decades. Both kids and society need fathers.
Contact him at vjoecks@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4698. Follow @victorjoecks on X.
