Dads Matter

A recent secular study in England determined (oh my!) that kids whose dads actually interacted with them during childhood had higher IQ’s and more social mobility than those whose dads were not involved.  An article documenting the findings can be found here. 

Of course, the lead researcher, Dr. Daniel Nettle proposes “The data suggest that having a second adult involved during childhood produces benefits in terms of skills and abilities that endure throughout adult life.”  Note the subtle anti-Dad bias here.  It’s not really the biologically male person who matters, just “a second adult” who is “involved.”  Interestingly, that’s apparently not what this researcher’s own data indicated.  Yet, in the politically correct environs of academia and the media we are not permitted to claim dads matter in some specific and special way because that would, definitionally, be sexist, misogynist, and homophobic (because it would be biased against lesbians raising children).  I’m sure I’m leaving off some other utterly horrible things it would be to actually conclude that the male of our species interacting with his children in a routine and regular way is somehow beneficial to the children.

As the cartoonist Walt Kelly said many years ago, we have seen the enemy and it is us.  In our zeal to promote raw individualism, where every person’s individual desires matter above all else, we have, as a society promoted rampant fatherlessness.  Our insane divorce laws make marriage almost pointless, something not lost on the many millennials who simply live together rather than bother entering a marriage they pretty much assume will end in divorce.  Fathers and children are often pulled apart, with Dads slowly fading from the picture, sometimes on purpose, sometimes because it’s just how it works out. Our inner city problems are often made out as education problems, economic problems, or racial problems when the more simple and more likely explanation is a fatherlessness problem.  Young men don’t know how to grow up and become real men because they don’t have a father at home to teach them.  Can a single mom raise a decent young man.  Yes.  Is it likely?  No.  The proof, as the old saying goes, is in the pudding.  We don’t need some British researcher to tell us Dads matter, when the past 50 years or so of American experimentation through a system that unfairly and improperly incentivizes young women to have children out of wedlock is evidence enough. 

Every economic indicator I’ve ever seen shows that stable, married couples are, on average, better off financially in the short and long run than those who are not married.  If for no other reason, our government should encourage men and women to get married and stay married because of its economic benefits.  But, of course, there’s more.  Both boys and girls need Dads who actually take some interest in their lives.  Dad doesn’t have to be a superstar – we’ve all heard that it’s T-I-M-E that counts for as much as anything.  Whatever legacy any Dad should want to leave, it should be that his kids will always say my Dad had time for me.

Dads matter.  The Bible puts a premium on dads doing two things: treating their wives as Christ treats his church and treating their children with dignity (see Ephesians 5:22 through 6:4 for example).  The Proverbs are full of sayings about how dads should deal with their children.  Moreover, the Bible provides vivid examples of how NOT to go about raising children (King David’s massive failures as a father detailed in 2 Samuel make the point – and there are others).

Instead of President Obama tearfully whining about gun deaths on television, how about tearfully and remorsefully apologizing to dads for our country treating fatherhood as if it were some sort of moral evil?  Any number of feminists have, over the years, suggested men are truly unnecessary except as a means of perpetuating the species.  Too many popular media presentations show dads as bunglers and morons who are mostly incapable of handling the day to day affairs of life without full intervention from their wives and kids.  That doesn’t mean children can’t sometimes help out their dads (I confess my own need for occasional help from my teenager with technology!) but neither of my sons were ever the moral, spiritual, or economic arbiter in our household.

So then, what should we do?  First, as a people we must simply acknowledge that dads matter. My dad never did anything “earth shattering” but he sure did make himself available any time I needed him and he taught me things about being a man, through his words and deeds.  Secondly, we need to reinvigorate masculinity as a virtue.  YES, a virtue.  I can’t for the life of me understand why any woman would want the kind of wimps most men are portrayed as in much of our media.  I don’t mean that men are hair-grabbing Neanderthals but there ought to be a bit of an old John Wayne movie hero in every guy.  He ought to want to protect his wife and children; he ought to want to go down guns-a-blazing rather than drip, drip, dripping away; he ought to want people to know that he’s prepared to stand on principle for things that matter, even when it costs him something meaningful; he ought to want to provide for his family, even when his wife has the capacity and ability to do so.  Third, we ought to encourage Dads to spend time with their kids – that can be as mundane as playing a video game with them, grabbing a burger or milkshake with them, riding bikes together, fishing, walking around the park, or just reading to them.  The key is to spend some time with the children.

The craziness here is that the Bible already tells us Dads matter.  Yet, we seem to think we need a “study” to tell us what the Bible has been telling us for thousands of years?  It’s odd that when some expert does a study there are gasps and oohs and aahs as if the expert has really hit on something new and exciting.  Another part of the Bible tells us there is “nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes) and when it comes to human nature, there isn’t.  No study will outdo the God of the universe!

Dads matter.  It’s that simple.  Let’s act like it.