Comments on: Being a Father

By: Paul

Paul — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 18:31:24 +0000

I like the post and I agree. The two previous commenters have brought up an issue which I thing deserves further scrutiny. The right to vote, economic emancipation, and the legal availability of abortion have all greatly contributed to the increased irrelevancy of men in society. There are too many women who simply do not appreciate all we’ve given up for them. It’s important to note that up until 1973, no society in the history of the world had EVER given women 100% of control over when they had children. Apart from the lack of medical ability, this served the purpose of making sure men were important in the family structure, like the main post indicates. It is unnatural and simply unfair to give women all the say in child birth and child rearing. Looked at in this light, Roe v. Wade represented a radical departure from the way things had been, and it has had profoundly disturbing social consequences, such as the marginalization of men. This is why that horrible decision needs to be overturned and replaced with a more reasonable standard that allows men some limited legal authority. We must begin the long march back to parity so we can increase the role of men in their children’s lives. And we must ignore the shrill cries of the feminists with their manufactured distorted account of history.

By: Lukobe

Lukobe — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 06:23:14 +0000

Hey Days,
A couple of points:
1) If abortion is illegal *no one* has that control. Yes, legalization gives women the ultimate choice, but the good ones *will* consult the fathers first. Anyway, keeping it illegal doesn’t keep it from happening, as I’m sure you know.
2) Of course men will never stop being policemen and firemen, if only because that means *men’s* property and lives would be in danger, too.
3) What about Confucianism–or does East Asia not count as the Third World anymore? (I suppose it might not.) At any rate, Christianity doesn’t have a monopoly either on patriarchy or on “family structure.”

By: Days of Broken Arrows

Days of Broken Arrows — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 05:32:19 +0000

I hate to be negative here, but having “been there done that,” I don’t think fathers have a place in modern day America.

When we legalized abortion, we gave women total control over who gets born and who doesn’t. Men get no say in this. Why should they take any responsibility? If it’s a woman’s choice, it should be her responsibility. Men have something to do with pregnancy, obviously, but since women can call the shots, men should get an “opt out” option.

Why is it that men are always told to “man up” to some responsibility, while women get to relish whatever choice they have any given second? It’s almost like men are forced to be stuck in the old Judeo-Christian culture that flourished in the 1950s, while women are legally allowed to move beyond that into some amoral Orwellian world.

This goes beyond fatherhood and into the legal realm, where men do far more prison time than women for the same crimes. My feeling is the only way to change this is to stop any act of Christian chivalry. Men need to empty out the fire departments and police need to stop answering calls. If women want to run the world, we should give them the chaotic Third World matriarchy they desire (and if you look, the Third World is the Third World largely because the concept of Christian patriarchy never caught on and the family structure never became a backbone of those societies).