It’s a strange thing to watch my fellow lefties erode the importance of male role models, especially fathers, within the socialising and care of children. It’s outrageous to hear prominent politicians like Harriet Harman advocate against fathers, as ’not essential to harmonious family life’. It’s saddening to see enormous feminist organisations such as the NOW; stand in the way of shared parenting laws for generations, again, and again, and again. And it’s depressing to turn on the TV and flick through channel after channel of useless dads, portrayed as clowns, ‘babysitters’, and caricatures for our ridicule. In fact, the problem of ‘inept tv dads’ become so bad that the Advertising Standards Authority had to step in and ban such harmful stereotypes. Gone are the wonderful, sophisticated, and wholesome fatherly role models of Mr Rogers, and Bob Ross; to be replaced with oafish fools like Homer Simpson, Peter Griffin and Hal. We ask more and more of fathers, and yet give them nothing but insults and shaming in return. We expect fathers to take equal responsibility for children, but have yet to give them equal rights, or equal parental leave. We ignore the essential importance of fathers; yet scratch our heads confused when the wider impacts of fatherlessness wreak havoc on society. Addiction, suicide, violent crime, youth delinquency, gangs, school drop outs, adolescent behavioural issues, mass shootings, and anti sociality… All of these are tied to fatherlessness, and all remain ignored. We as a society punch ourselves in the face with our own ignorance, and then complain about the black eyes and broken skin our own actions have caused to ourselves. And we continue to vilify and pathologise ‘masculinity’ as something harmful, to be expunged. So is there more to be done for fathers, and the importance of male role models in the lives of children?

~ Impact of fatherlessness Study Study OECD Images Donny Jiang, Black Kiwi Hug, Gradient, Jd Mason, Element5, and Mathias Reding. #dadlife #dadsofinstagram #parentlife

2023-10-08