Family
dynamics vary slightly in appearance from one culture to another but the basic
family unit has traditionally consisted of a father, mother, and children. In
time past, the father was generally responsible for the education and spiritual
development of his family. In recent years, the role of the father has
typically been viewed as the provider and protector while the mother has
managed the home, to include the primary care of the children. Currently, there
is an effort to redefine the family in modern society. This paper will explore
a redefining of the family, primarily where the father’s role is diminished or
he is absent and how that affects the children and society in general.
For
the Christian, family is more than a social construct. The Bible contains not
only God’s instructions for the individual’s life but also includes His
familial order and the boundaries. God is social by nature and He created man
in His image; therefore man is social (Gen. 1:27). The book of Genesis records
the creation of the universe, including man. He did this in six progressive,
twenty-four hour days and at the conclusion of each creative day, He stated
that His creation was good. The first mention of something that was not good
was for the man to be alone; thus, God created woman (Gen. 2:18). After God
made a suitable mate for the man, He commanded them to “be fruitful and
multiply” (Gen. 1:28). This was His plan for populating the earth and set a precedent
for the family. Until recently, this plan has been followed, even within
communities that have never heard of the God of the Bible. It appears that
there is an inherent knowledge of the natural order of things. When the natural
order is corrupted, the system begins to fall apart.
Divorce
can wreak havoc on families and children in particular. According to Richard
Behrman and Linda Quinn,
there is, “related and crucial concern about the effects of divorce on
children's emotional and psychological well-being, and on their successful
development and transition to adulthood.”[1]
They do note that not all children respond alike and much of the healing or
transition can be affected by the way, in which the parents handle the divorce.
They write, “Variables that are believed to account for children's adjustment
to divorce include the amount and nature of involvement of the noncustodial
parent, the custodial parent's adjustment to divorce and his or her parenting
skills, interparental conflict before and after divorce, economic hardship, and
other life stresses (for example, moving, changing schools, parental
remarriage).”[2]
The
absence of the father in the home is a major blow to the spiritual health of
the family and Satan knows this. If he can remove the father, his job of
destroying the lives of the children is almost complete. There are various
reasons why the father may not be in the home. Death, divorce, and mothers
choosing to parent alone are a few examples.
Many
judges and court officials have taken a biased approach and typically award
custody of children to the mother simply because they feel the mother is best
suited to care for the children, even in cases where the mother has a less than
stellar or stable history. Numerous studies have shown a clearly biased opinion
towards fathers but according to some experts, this may be changing. Few would
probably argue that a child, especially a very young child, needs its mother
but many argue that the father is un-necessary to the welfare of the child.
Dennis
Vatsis sees this as a problem and, in his article Throwaway, based on his book Throwaway
Dads, claims that fathers are at a severe disadvantage in court cases
deciding custody issues and writes, “There is a societal and cultural dynamic
for the gender discrimination experienced by fathers within the domestic
relations arena.[3] According
to research included in the article (by a special task force commissioned by
the Michigan Supreme Court), judges typically made their decision to grant
custody to the mother based on the ‘tender years doctrine’ which supposed that
the mother could best meet the needs of the child, especially younger children.
This was largely due to the time when the father began working away from the
home and the mother typically stayed at home. As Vatsis points out, today’s
culture sees women just as active working outside of the home but this old way
of thinking by the court still persists.[4]
Vatsis
argues that a child deserves the benefit of having access to both parents.
Unless one parent is proven a threat to the welfare of the child, he advocates
joint custody but as he points out, too many judges disagree. In his closing
remarks, he states:
The United
States and Michigan
constitutions each provide that no one shall be deprived of the equal
protection of the law. The Fourteenth Amendment of the United States
Constitution explicitly provides that no state shall deprive a person of life,
liberty, or property without due process of law, or deny to any person within
its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law. Yet fathers in Michigan are being
denied equal protection and due process and are being deprived of custodial
rights to their children. Equal justice under the law is an illusory legal concept
in the domestic relations arena. This gender bias against fathers has to be addressed
for the benefit of not only the disenfranchised father, but principally for the
children who deserve to have not one, but both parents actively involved in
parenting.[5]
Michigan is not
the only state to fall short in its war against fatherhood. Unfortunately, the
idea that the father is not important in the life of his child seems to be the
trend in many states.
Surprisingly, some feminist groups
have joined father’s rights groups to denounce this bias against fathers but
they say it goes beyond bias against fathers. Cynthia McNeely writes that the
courts largely view the father and mother in a stereotypical way, fathers as
unnecessary and mothers as weak and dependant on a man to support them. She
also blames the court for undermining the family when she writes, “This
state-instituted romantic paternalization of mothers, combined with the
narrowed view of the role of fathers, is largely responsible for the wholesale
destruction of the post-divorce, father-child relationship.”[6]
She continues, “Consequently, the state creates increased psychological,
educational, behavioral, and health disorders for children, and crime and
violence for society.”[7]
The
Bible is not silent on the role or importance of the father. In Deuteronomy,
fathers are instructed to teach their children about the Lord and remind them
of what He had done for them (Deut. 4:9,10. 6:4-9). Solomon, considered by many
biblical scholars to be the wisest man to ever live, sought to instruct his son
when he wrote the book of Proverbs (Prov.
1:8,9). The father is to be the spiritual leader of the home and,
according to Randy Stinson and Timothy Jones, “The father was the key to the
family, and a son was a future leader.”[8]
Stinson
and Jones explain the correlation of the trinity and compare them to the roles
within the family. They point out the headship of the Father and the submissive
roles of the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Son submits to the Father and the
Holy Spirit submits to the Father and the Son, yet each share in equality. The
roles of the family are similar in that the wife is to submit to her husband
and the children are to submit to their father and mother.[9]
Stinson and Jones also point out that the father has a unique role as the
spiritual leader and write, “Husbands and fathers bear responsibility for the
Christian nurture of their households-a responsibility that differs from that
of their wives and from other members of the household.”[10]
Kenda
Creasy Dean, an Associate Professor of Youth, Church, and Culture at Princeton
Theological Seminary, played a key role in The National Study of Youth and
Religion that sought to find answers to why young people appear to be apathetic
to church and faith in general. While the study found common problems related
to youth programs, the church in general, believability of the Scriptures,
etc., the main reason identified was the lack of faith demonstrated in the
home. The respondents simply adopted the belief and faith practices of their
parents. She states, “We must assume that the solution lies not in beefing up
congregational youth programs or making worship more ‘cool’ and attractive, but
in modeling the kind of mature, passionate faith we say we want young people to
have.”[11]
In
another study, conducted by Ken Ham and Brit Beemer, their results were similar.
While many parents and churches blame the universities for leading their
children astray, these survey results drew a different conclusion. The majority
of those youths who attended church prior to college and never came back were
slowly slipping away before they graduated from high school, ninety percent of
them. Between junior high and high school, these kids were already gone.[12]
In
a postmodern culture, sex outside of marriage is accepted, even applauded. Sex
dominates television and the movies; it is even used by advertisers to sell
cars and hamburgers. American public schools teach “sex education” and “safety”
rather than abstinence, even unsafe and unhealthy practices. Numerous unmarried
young women become pregnant through one nightstands or casual sexual encounters
and have no desire to seek a relationship with the child’s father. Some opt to
abort while others choose to become a single parent. Many feminists promote the
idea that men are merely sperm donors and are not necessary for child rearing
but ironically, they fight for the rights of two men to adopt children claiming
that they can provide an equally loving and nurturing environment as a single
mother or two mothers.
There
has not been a great deal of study to support or deny this claim but at least one
study has shown that this is not the case. Dr. Mark Regnerus, a sociologist at
the University of Texas in Austin, conducted
a study that provided substantial proof that contradicts this notion. His study
concluded that children raised in a home with homosexual parents fared worse
than those children raised in homes with heterosexual parents; even worse than
homes where divorce had occurred.[13]
With
the problem of fatherless children and fathers who are content to entrust there
sacred responsibility of teaching their children to others, most churches, especially
those in the inner city, have adopted programs in the church to meet the
growing need for spiritual training. Unfortunately, “in many cases, churches
are focusing on family ministry as a reaction to dismal retention statistics.[14]
The
Christian family, comprised of a father, mother, and child/children, is the
best model for: (1) carrying out God’s plan for populating the earth, (2)
producing Godly offspring, and (3) maintaining a Godly society. However, it
must be noted that even during Israel’s
years of wandering through the desert, the people strayed despite the
leadership of Moses and a strict adherence to the law. No plan, no amount of laws,
or the enforcement of such can guarantee a Godly society but it can produce the
most conducive environment for it.
The
Bible says that a man is to leave his family and join himself to his wife so
that they become one flesh (Gen. 2:24; Mat. 19:5). Sadly, many today want all
of the benefits of marriage and may sincerely believe that they are in love,
only to abandon the relationship when times become difficult. When considering
the practical application of this verse, there is clinical proof to support
staying together may be the better choice:
In a study released in 2002, Waite and five
colleagues analyzed data from the University
of Wisconsin’s
National Survey of Family and Households. They discovered that adults who said
they were unhappily married in the late 1980’s and got divorced were on average
still unhappy or even less happy when interviewed five years later as compared
to those who stayed in their marriages. Most of those who stayed in their
marriages had on average moved past the bad times and reached a happier stage.
After controlling for race, age, gender, and income, the researchers found that
divorce usually did not reduce symptoms of depression, raise self-esteem, or
increase a sense of mastery over one’s life. The general conclusion is that
divorce does not make unhappy married people any happier. Therefore, people who
stay in an unhappy marriage are at least as well off as those who divorce.[15]
While
many argue for nontraditional-family lifestyles, the evidence is clear. A home
where a father and mother love one another and commit to one another is the
most suitable environment for raising happy, healthy children. Both Christian
and secular studies show this to be the case. Those who truly love children
should put the best interests of the child above their own desires to have a
family if they live outside the boundaries that are most conducive to healthy
child rearing.
Without
absolute truth, of which the Bible clearly advocates, modern society is easily
led into believing that there is no standard or absolute moral code for
behavior. This attitude of postmodern thought suggests that individual choice
trumps any other type of behavior including God's design for marriage. This
mentality suggest that people can do what they want, make of life what they
will, and break all the rules without any thought to the consequences of their
actions. The problem with this mentality is that when people do whatever they
want, someone else has to pay.
When
adults adopt lifestyles that veer outside of biblical and conventional wisdom,
it creates an unhealthy environment for not only the adults but the children as
well. Satan seeks to destroy the family. When the family is redefined, Satan
wins. Thus, divorce as well as cohabitation; homosexua1 marriage or other
modern definitions of marriage destroy the very foundation of Biblical marriage
and family. Children that are raised in any environment outside of the
God-ordained family unit, which includes the husband and wife model, will
suffer to some degree. Furthermore, as spiritual leader, provider, and
protector, the father plays a vital role to the psychological, spiritual, and
physical health of the family. When you remove the father from his God-given
role, the family stands unguarded, and is open to Satan’s attack. The result is
evidenced clearly; broken families make broken societies.
Bibliography
Balswick,
Jack O. and Judith K. Balswick. The Family: A Christian Perspective on the
Contemporary Home. Grand Rapids: Baker
Academic, 3rd ed. 2007.
Behrman,
Richard E., and Linda S. Quinn. "Children and Divorce: Overview and
Analysis." The Future of Children: 4, no. 1 (1994). Accessed May 5, 2015.
http://futureofchildren.org/publications/journals/article/index.xml?journalid=63&articleid=407§ionid=2773.
Carey,
Benedict. "Debate on a Study Examining Gay Parents." The New York
Times. Accessed April
19, 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/12/health/study-examines-effect-of-having-a-gay-parent.html?_r=0.
Dean,
Kenda Creasy. Almost Christian: What The
Faith Of Our Teenagers Is Telling The American Church. New
York: Oxford University Press,
2010.
Ham,
Ken, Britt Beemer, and Todd Hillard. Already Gone: Why Your Kids Will Quit
Church and What You Can Do To Stop
It.
Green Forest, AR:
Master Books, 2009.
McNeely, Cynthia A. "Lagging Behind the
Times: Parenthood, Custody, and Gender Bias in the Family Court." Florida State Law
Review 25 (n.d.): 891-956.
http://archive.law.fsu.edu/journals/lawreview/downloads/254/mcneely.pdf.
Stinson,
Randy, and Timothy P. Jones, eds. Trained in the Fear of God: Family
Ministry in Theological, Historical, and Practical Perspective. Grand
Rapids: Kregel Publications, 2011.
[1]. Richard E. Behrman and
Linda S. Quinn, "Children and Divorce: Overview and Analysis," The
Future of Children: 4, no. 1 (1994), Accessed April 4, 2015, http://futureofchildren.org/publications/
journals/article/index.xml?journalid=63&articleid=407§ionid=2773.
[2]. Ibid.
[3]. Dennis G. Vatsis,
"Throwaway Dads [article]," Michigan Bar Journal no. 9
(2001): 54, HeinOnline, EBSCOhost
(accessed May 2, 2015) 56.
[4]. Ibid., 56
[5]. Ibid. 58.
[6]. Cynthia A. McNeeley, "Lagging Behind the Times:
Parenthood, Custody, and Gender Bias in the Family Court," Florida State Law Review 25 (n.d.): 891-956, http://archive.law.fsu.edu/journals/lawreview/downloads/254/mcneely.pdf.,
[7]. Ibid.
[8]. Randy Stinson, and Timothy P.
Jones, eds., Trained in the Fear of God: Family Ministry in Theological,
Historical, and Practical Perspective, (Grand Rapids:
Kregel Publications, 2011) 38.
[9]. Ibid., 68.
[10]. Ibid., 68.
[11]. Kenda Creasy Dean, Almost Christian: What The Faith Of Our
Teenagers Is Telling The American Church, (New York:
Oxford University
Press, 2010) 3,4.
[12]. Ken Ham, Britt Beemer, and
Todd Hillard, Already Gone: Why Your Kids Will Quit Church and What You Can
Do To Stop It, (Green Forest, AR:
Master Books, 2009) 31-2.
[13]. Benedict Carey,
"Debate on a Study Examining Gay Parents," The New York Times,
Accessed April 19, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/12/health/study-examines-effect-of-having-a-gay-parent.html?_r=0.
[14]. Randy Stinson, and Timothy
P. Jones, eds., 18.
[15]. Jack O. Balswick, and Judith K. Balswick, The
Family: A Christian Perspective on the Contemporary Home, (Grand
Rapids: Baker Academic, 3rd ed., 2007) 299.
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