The government solves the fatherhood crisis!

Summary: The family is dying in America. The Federal government is working to save it. Their pitiful efforts show the seriousness of the problem, and how far we are from even imagining a solution.

Your tax dollars at work. They’re laughing at dad, not with him.

“New Campaign with Ad Council and The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families Highlights the Importance of Small Moments Shared Between Dads and Their Children.”

See the moronic press release, “#DanceLikeaDad Encourages Dads to Dance Their Way into the Hearts of Their Most Important Audience–Their Kids“, and the hashtag.

In medicine, there is the “golden hour” after an injury in which first aid is most effective. There are similar moments in battles. The common element is that the window in time between recognition of the danger and the possibility of an effective response. We are in that now. We see that our family system is broken. How America acts in the next few decades might shape our future.

The US government responded by creating the National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse. Their website deserves attention. You will see that these experts have not the slightest clue as to the problem, and their solutions are pitiful. Such as the Dance Life A Father, because they can only see fathers as assistants to women and, when operating by themselves, as entertaining buffoons.

So what do these experts believe that dad’s do? “These programs are helping fathers create loving, nurturing relationships with their children and be actively involved in their lives.” No patriarchy! No authority! Dads dancing is a perfect expression of this ideology. Unmentioned is primary role of dads: to help pay for women’s children. Whether the woman allows the dad to stay in the home is her decision.

The high rate of social pathologies of children from single-parent homes is the problem (the jury is still out on joint custody arrangements). America is not ready to consider the strong measures necessary for a cure. Let’s go to Dalrock for a deeper perspective about our crisis of fathers.

“What are fathers for?“

By Dalrock at his website.

Several commenters have noted the troubling image featured at the National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse {above}. I’m going to partially defend the National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse (NRFC), as we (as a society) have asked them to do the impossible. We ask them to stress the importance of fathers, when we believe no such thing. Since around 1970 we have waged war on the very idea of fatherhood, as part of our war against The Patriarchy. Fathers are no longer accepted as the head of the family, and aside from fulfilling the role of walking wallet we no longer even have a clear accepted definition of what fathers do.

Fathers are now deputy parents, who serve at the pleasure of the mother. Moreover, it isn’t just feminists who have waged war on fathers. If anything, “traditional conservatives” are even more hostile to fathers than feminists are. Just like feminists, the My Lord Mary Lee crowd can’t stand the thought of fathers in charge.

But making this all the more difficult, we are in denial regarding our war against fathers. The official party line is some version of the following.

1. Fathers are better now than they were in the past.
2. Fathers are “absent” for some entirely mysterious reason.

When we ask the NRFC to teach the importance of fathers, something we as a society vehemently disagree with, we are creating a no win situation for them. They dare not speak the truth, and yet they need to be seen encouraging fatherhood or they won’t be able to justify their funding. So it isn’t surprising that the NRFC would lead with an image of fathers as comic relief. Who doesn’t love laughter? And the image of fathers as clowns is one sure to please both feminists and chivalrists.

If you scroll a bit further down the page, there are links to resources, including DadTalk, a blog on fathering.

The most recent DadTalk blog post demonstrates the difficulty of the task we have assigned the NRFC. The post is titled “How Fathers Shape Their Children’s Development: Revisiting the Literature.” First, the post has to deal with the fact that we have done so much violence to the concept of fatherhood; before we can discuss what fathers do, we need to seriously struggle with the question of what the word father even means. This is something I’ve noted before, and for practical purposes in government statistics it often comes down to who the mother is currently having sex with.

In the modern family, the word “father” refers to a series of men who come in and out of the child’s life as their mother makes her way through the modern sexual marketplace. The posts says (red emphasis mine) …

“First, when we revisit the literature about fathers’ involvement, we need to define: what do we mean when we talk about fathers? The definition of who is a “father” has grown and developed alongside the field of fatherhood programming. We could be referring to a biological father or a stepfather, custodial or non-custodial, with a legal relationship to the child or a social one (e.g., a mother’s partner). Each has his own way of shaping the development of a child depending on when he comes into that child’s life and the amount of time he spends with the child on a regular basis.

“What matters most for a father’s relationship with his children is not the specific type of family situation, but how the father chooses to involve himself in the life and well-being of his child.”

Next, the post gets into the tricky question of what the proper role of fathers should be. As deputy parent, this boils down to general parenting assistance for the primary parent (the mother). The blog cautions that “fatherhood practitioners” (I assume this means social workers) need to be “culturally sensitive” regarding the role of fathers.

“Second, the literature informs the question: what is the role of the father in the family? The literature indicates that the image of an ideal dad and notions of a father’s role in the family are diverse, and to a large extent, shaped by cultural and demographic factors. This is especially important to keep in mind for fatherhood practitioners, who should strive for cultural sensitivity and competence. The way a dad sees himself or his position in the family may vary greatly from family to family, and the way you work with or relate to that dad should take his perspective into account.”

With these two questions out of the way, the blog post finally gets to the question of what fathers should do, and what makes them special. This is, after all, the point of the post. It explains that today’s fathers are better than fathers in the past, because they know their place. In the role of mother’s helpers, now fathers focus on generic childcare and playing. This is where the post takes on an edgy counter-cultural tone sure to delight the house despot crowd, because it asserts that fathers play differently than mothers and aunts (etc.) do.

“Third, the literature continues to track the following question: in what ways are fathers involved in their families, and how is this changing? Fathers as a whole are more actively involved in the lives of their children now than they were 50 years ago. In 2016, fathers reported spending, on average, eight hours a week on child care – about three times more than in 1965. While dads previously may have been seen primarily as breadwinners, they are increasingly sharing parenting responsibilities with mothers. This increased involvement could look like any, and often all, of the following …

• • Positive engagement: direct interaction with children, including caregiving and activities.
  • Accessibility: availability to children.
  • Responsibility: participation in decision-making and ensuring that children are cared for.

“While each family balances these dimensions differently, we know that the quality of father involvement and engagement is just as, if not more, important than quantity when we talk about positive impacts on child development. Fathers can increase the quality of their involvement through many different means, including showing affection, teaching and communicating effectively, providing emotional support, sharing interests, and sharing ctivities. Research shows that, on average, fathers tend to be more involved in play than mothers. Furthermore, they tend to play differently than mothers do – engaging in more physical and challenging games and encouraging independence and risk-taking.”

It isn’t just the NRFC that struggles greatly with extolling the value of fathers fathering while agonizing over the question of who fathers are and what fathering is. See for example the National Health Statistics Report Fathers’ Involvement With Their Children: United States, 2006–2010. Like the NRFC, the report’s definition of father is a loose term where men often drift in and out of children’s lives as their mother cherishes her sexual freedom (red emphasis mine).

“Not all men are biological fathers and not all fathers have biological children. In addition to fathering a child, men may become fathers through adoption – which confers the same legal status, protections, and responsibilities to the man and the child as fathering a biological child. Men also may become de facto fathers when they marry or cohabit with women who have children from previous relationships, that is, they are raising stepchildren or their cohabiting partner’s children. In this report, men were defined as fathers if they had biological or adopted children or if step- or partner’s children were living in the household.”

As for what fathers do, the list of activities fits closely with the NRFC’s definition. Note that all of the activities used to measure the impact of fathers would just as easily work if the report were measuring the impact of aunts and grandmothers.

“This report focuses on activities that men did with their children, separately for coresidential and noncoresidential children, in the last 4 weeks. The activities by age group are presented below. For children under age 5, activities include.

• • Eating meals with or feeding the children.
  • Bathing, diapering, or dressing the children, or helping the children bathe, dress, or use the toilet themselves.
  • Playing with the children.
  • Reading to the children.

“For children aged 5–18, activities include.

• • Talking with the children about things that happened during their day.
  • Eating meals with the children.
  • Helping the children with homework or checking that the homework had been done.
  • Taking the children to or from activities.

“Men were asked how frequently they did each activity in the last 4 weeks.”

—————- End of Dalrock’s post —————-

Editor’s afterword

Patriarchy was the keystone of the family system that was one of America’s greatest strengths. We removed it, replaced it with ideology, and now condemn dads as the system crashes.

Problem recognition is usually the most difficult part of the resolution process. We have just begun to see the magnitude of the problem. The problem grows more serious with each passing year. Time is not our friend.

About Dalrock

He is a married man living with his wife and two kids in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. He is very interested in how the post-feminist world impacts himself and his family, and uses his blog to explore these issues. See his website. and his posts about marriage, about fatherhood, and especially these posts ….

• Modern Christian culture’s deep antipathy for fathers.
• Updated U.S. Custody and Child Support Data (2015).
• Erasing “fathers” from Scripture.

For More Information

Ideas! For shopping ideas, see my recommended books and films at Amazon.

If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about women and the gender wars, about marriage, about divorce, and especially these about the modern American family …

1. For Father’s Day: revolutionary words that will forever change the American family.
2. Child support payments create the new American family.
3. Secrets about Father’s Day.
4. Incredibles 2, a Father’s Day gift from Disney.
5. America begins its post-marriage experiment.
6. Becoming a post-marriage America: see the stories!
7. Science tells us why the family is dying – And about the results.

Two major books about modern marriage

The classic: Men and Marriage by George Gilder.

Men on Strike: Why Men Are Boycotting Marriage, Fatherhood, and the American Dream – and Why It Matters by Helen Smith.