Is Fatherlessness Child Abuse?

HT-Bookering Blog-

Yes, asserts the Washington, D.C.-based conservative blogger Lashawn Barber: "Losing a father through death is awful, but it’s not the same as losing him through divorce or being born into a fatherless home. In whichever case, a child will feel abandoned, but losing a father through divorce and being deprived of one from birth are deliberate acts of abandonment, worse than death in a sense.

When a family loses a father through death, they keep his memory alive. His authority lingers. The children grow up knowing he loved them and their mother, made sacrifices for their well being, and did not walk out on them to pursue his own interests. Three out of four black babies are born in the United States to women who aren’t married to the fathers. Fatherlessness leads to a multitude of problems, the worst of which is the repeated cycle of fatherlessness.

You’ve read the studies. Even if you haven’t, you’ve seen firsthand the effects of fatherlessness on children, especially boys. Despite what selfish and shameless adults think, children want fathers. They need fathers. They need masculine men in their lives who love them and would do anything to protect them, men who live with them, raise them, and sacrifice for them. Millions of children grow up without being loved or care for by the men who sired them. It makes me angry, bitterly so."

She continues her commentary: "I reviewed a book called Raising Boys without Men: How Maverick Moms are Creating the Next Generation of Exceptional Men, about lesbians and 'single by choice' mothers raising boys. The author is a psychologist and married mother, and I don’t know what possessed her to write a book praising fatherless boys.

The book got my blood boiling so much, I wanted to fling it across the room. Read the review. Anyway, the point is this: No matter how much the author tried to tip-toe around it, the boys she wrote about wanted and needed masculine men in their lives. Fathers. Because the mothers weren’t with the men who impregnated them, they had to seek out inferior 'father figures' for their sons....As James [White] alludes later in his post, perversity will become the norm, and anyone speaking out against it is viewed as the problem. No one wants to be reminded of his sin, so he tries to shut out and shut down criticism. On an individual level, that’s no threat. But when people organize as groups and push their debasement into government policy, that’s a BIG problem.

That’s why I speak out against homosexual 'marriage' (and having babies out of wedlock) and will continue to do so, no matter what it costs me. It’s not just because it is a mockery of God’s intentions, it deprives children born into such unions the basic necessity of masculine and feminine love of a mother and a father. Freedom of speech will erode in this country, make no mistake about that."

~I agree with LaShawn concerning the distinctions between loosing a father to death and one to divorce. My father passed away not to long ago and during my parents relationship they separated but came back to each other. As a child I was devastated because it shattered my undertadning of stability. Children need stability and need to expect certain things. Waiting for a father to return from work or family summer trips are routines a healthy child needs. The utter damage a child faces when a father is ripped from there life is enormous. Lashawns argument for denying gay people the tools to empower there lives seems misguided.

She seem to think that by gay people getting married they devalue marriage and as consequence create a morally corrupt culture that only encourages more faithlessness and divorcee.This slippery slope argument is absurd. If any thing it should shame black folks to take marriage and fatherhood more serious.The fact that gay people are fighting for marriage while black folks ignore it is quite telling. I personally know many gay and lesbian people who are white who are raising black children and doing every good job.

Richard