Warning: Politically incorrect religious reference ahead

Last week I was preparing a lesson to give to the children of my church on Sunday. Part of the lesson had to do with teaching the kids that they are children of God, and that God is the Father of their spirits. In order to explain this to the children in a manner they could identify with and relate to, I asked them ‘Do fathers love their children? Do fathers care for and want what’s best for their children?’ The point being that, just as our fathers here on Earth love and care for us, our father in Heaven loves and cares for us.

It struck me as I was preparing this lesson, that there are very few venues in which I could give this lesson and safely assume that the children knew the word ‘father’ was synonymous with love, kindness and caring. These children all knew without question that fathers love their children; that fathers are good and kind and want the very best for you.

How refreshing and how sadly uncommon to see fatherhood understood and appreciated for what it is…..and how thankful I am that in a world that discounts and undermines everything good and important, such as fathers, marriage and families, there are at least small bastions where the measure of such things is still appreciated and understood.

As I considered all this, I also realized that among these 80 some odd children I would be giving this lesson to, not one of them comes from a broken family. Each and every child lives in a home where their parents are married to each other and where they have continual access to both their father and mother.

While I tend to take this for granted, I do realize how very rare it is. In a typical gathering of 80 children, these children would be in the minority. I mourn this. I mourn that the majority of children will never have what these children have, and, despite what society dictates, what they have is priceless and of infinite worth.

As a committee member, I attended a cub scout training meeting recently where they explained that the entire scout program was changing. Previously, many of the things the boys needed to pass off were things they would do at home, presumably with the help of their fathers. So many boys come from homes now where there is nobody who is willing or able to assist them in passing off these items that the Cub Scout program has needed to be revamped. Now, most everything will be done as a pack and the scout leaders will take the responsibilities that were traditionally delegated to the parents.

I appreciate why the scouting program has opted to do this. I imagine I would also grow weary of seeing young boys being unable to accomplish the goals assigned to them because there was no one to help them do so. In changing the program, they are allowing more boys the opportunity to learn, grow and succeed, but how very tragic that this is where we’re at. How very sad that the norm is no longer a boy working side by side with his father to build a bird house or Pinewood Derby car. How sad that even more of the responsibilities of parents have to be delegated to others because parents either can’t or aren’t living up to those responsibilities.

We are abandoning everything that really matters. Society has undermined fathers to the point that their role is largely looked upon simply as superfluous. We have destroyed our families and homes and devalued our marriages. For most people, there are no more safe harbors. Overwhelmingly, there are no more givens or generally accepted truths about fathers or families, and those that do exist are far from positive. So many children do not know that a father is something safe and wonderful and far too many boys will never work side by side with their fathers building a bird house; learning and growing…..and the world is far, far worse because of it.


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