Few Father’s Days could be more important than this Father’s Day. COVID-19 is a crisis that will require the strengths of dad and the family to restore America to full economic prosperity. COVID has left us with a few hints as to how.
“Even as COVID has deprived many dads of the ability to provide, it has nevertheless allowed many children to value dad’s time as much as dad’s dime,” says Dr. Warren Farrell, author of The Boy Crisis. It has allowed many dads to experience at a deeper level that while their career is for now, their children are forever. And it is creating for some of these dads a reexamination of the “Father’s Catch-22”: the expectation he may feel to love his family by being away from the love of his family.
Since the mid-sixties an ever-increasing number of our children have found themselves separated from their dads. This rise of father absence often leaves:
1. single moms overwhelmed;
2. dads depressed with neither purpose nor love; and
3. children more likely to be damaged in over 50 developmental areas.
As we’ve gone from the Era of Father Knows Best to Father Knows Less, Father’s Day is a perfect time to discover the value of dad.
If either a boy or girl is dad-deprived, though, they are more vulnerable to suffering in fifty-plus areas of development. That said, a dad-deprived boy is likely to suffer more intensely—by emotional withdrawal, depression, obesity, ADHD, imprisonment, and addiction to video games, porn, alcohol, drugs, and death by opioids and suicide.
The cumulative effect is a boy crisis. Boys are 66% more likely than girls to be living at home between ages 25 and 31. They are falling behind girls in almost every academic subject, especially in reading and writing, the two biggest predictors of success. Forty-three percent more boys than girls are dropping out of high school; and even before COVID, more than 20% of these boys were unemployed in their early 20’s—six times the national pre-COVID average.
I had a chance to interview Dr. Farrell to learn more.
Why are fathers so important for children, particularly in the lives of boys?
When we compare boys with significant father involvement—what I call “dad-enriched boys”--to boys who have little or no father involvement—what I call “dad-deprived boys,” the dad-deprived boys suffer in more than 50 developmental areas. This is true even when we control for socio-economic factors such as poverty level of family.
Dad-deprivation is the biggest predictor of suicide, and significantly increases the likelihood a boy will drop out of high school; be unemployed; be depressed; withdraw into video games, porn, and become addicted to alcohol, drugs, or die from an opioid overdose. He is much more likely to be vulnerable to seduction by a gang. The full list of all 50+ areas is in Appendix B of The Boy Crisis.
There are nine important differences between dad-style parenting and mom-style parenting. For example, dads are more likely to bond by roughhousing, game-playing, and exploring nature, and then use that bond to set fewer boundaries than the mom but do more enforcement of the boundaries. This tends to result in both boys and girls having more postponed gratification—the single biggest predictor of success or failure.
How can parents advocate for things in education that their sons need?
By advocating for an equal number of male teachers in childcare centers, elementary schools and junior high schools. Do this by speaking up about this at PTA-type meetings, and creating an advocacy group from among those who agree with you.
Educate the school and the other parents as to the research about the differences in dad-style parenting and mom-style parenting that I report in The Boy Crisis, since those differences will be represented among male versus female teachers. For example, boys learn much better by doing projects, exploring, and taking risks, and male teachers are generally inclined to teach that way; girls are more comfortable sitting and listening to the teacher, taking good notes, and memorizing for written tests.
If the schools are receptive, great. If not, consult with attorneys about potentially suing the school for violating the “equal protection” clause of the 14th amendment by discriminating against your son and male teachers. Once you’ve filed a lawsuit, you become a news item. Write articles in local papers, and have spokespeople for your effort appear on local radio and TV.
If children don't have a father in their lives, what can mothers do to help provide strong male role models?
First, study the importance of the biological dad to her son. Often dads do things, like roughhousing, that a mom has discouraged that has led to the dad feeling undervalued, and then withdrawing. If that’s the case, let the dad know that your son needs him, and his style of parenting. When men feel needed and valued, they respond—as every generation of men did when they were called upon to risk death because their country needed them. If that is absolutely impossible, then…
Get her son involved in organized team sports with a good male coach; have him join the Cub Scouts or the Boy Scouts, or The Boys’ Club; engage him in a faith-based community with a male leader that you have vetted; get him a good male mentor, and invite the mentor over to dinner and follow the guidelines for Family Dinner Nights that are part of Appendix A in The Boy Crisis. Work with the mentor to find her son someone to mentor. Your son being a mentor works even better than being mentored.
Get your son involved in service activities—helping the homeless or an underserved community. Most important, while giving your son a choice of one or more of these types of engagements, do not give him the choice of not engaging. If he refuses, make sure there are consequences (e.g., no desserts; computer removed from his room; no lock on his bedroom door).
If you get remarried to a new stepdad, make sure the stepdad and you negotiate your different parenting styles so that he has an equal say, rather than just an advisory role. And make sure you select a stepdad who advocates for the equal involvement of the biological dad if that is at all possible.
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*Dr. Warren Farrell is the co-author (with John Gray) of The Boy Crisis, plus the former The New York Times bestseller, Why Men Are the Way they Are. He is the only man ever elected three times to the Board of the National Organization for Women (N.O.W.) in NYC. He was chosen by The Financial Times of London as one of the world’s top 100 Thought Leaders.
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