The root of fatherlessness is deep and wide, but it ultimately rests in two things: our culture’s dismissal of men as valuable human beings who have something unique to offer—on the one hand, we tell them to ‘man up,’ and on the other we tell them manhood is the problem—and its dismissal of marriage as an institution that’s crucial to the health and well-being of children. This long-standing belief has been supplanted by the notion that marriage is about the emotional fulfillment of adults.
It is not. Marriage is about the needs of children, pure and simple. That’s how it began, and that’s how it remains. Children’s needs are the same today as they were one hundred years ago. It is we, not they, who have changed.
