Saturday, April 12, 2008

Another feminist fantasy

The Liz Library website sports a section clearly intended to counter Western society's growing re-discovery that children need fathers in their lives: http://www.thelizlibrary.org/fatherless/research-fatherless-children.html


It does this by citing some dubious stories about eminent people who lost their fathers in childhood, in one way or another.


Dubious? Well, take the very first entry by way of example. Read it and you'll find it cites one Alexander Hamilton as a man who turned a debt-ridden, wounded collection of thirteen bickering colonies into a world-class economic power inside three years. A neat trick, huh?


The important point, though, is that none of the people Liz's Library refers to grew up in societies that endorsed or encouraged fatherlessness. Unlike the society currently being built by feminists.


Peer-reviewed studies show children want and need both parents. No studies show sole parenting by a mother serves children's best interests. Every credible sociological study on record demonstrates without ambiguity that if there is a single sure indicator for success in adulthood, it is the presence of a father in a child’s life from the time he or she is old enough to negotiate a path through the world. If there is a sure indicator of failure – dropping out, drugs, promiscuity, crime – it is not poverty, it is fatherlessness.


Highlighting (with bias) some exceptions does not disprove this persistent tendency, it just evidences a deep misunderstanding of natural variety.