Fatherless America

Because feminists teach the lie that women can interchange with men, men are using their natural aggressiveness in unhealthy ways. David Blankenhorn, in Fatherless America, says that this is America's number one problem. Blankenhorn says it is the cause of most of our problems, "from crime to adolescent pregnancy to child sexual abuse to domestic violence against women." He says that nobody understands this: "The most urgent domestic challenge facing the United States at the close of the twentieth century is the re-education of fatherhood as a vital role for men." I don't have the space to go into the reasons men are so out of it, but one of the major ones is that men are hurting because they are not the sole providers. His book is excellent in showing how our social problems are caused by the insanity of throwing out traditional values. He writes, "In sum, over the past two hundred years, fatherhood has lost, in full or in part, each of its four traditional roles: irreplaceable caregiver, moral educator, head of the family, and family breadwinner. As the historian Peter N. Stearns put it: 'An eighteenth-century father would not recognize the ... parental leadership granted to mothers or indeed the number of bad fathers.' Blankenhorn details how men have become unneeded. Feminism has destroyed the role of breadwinner and has therefore destroyed men. Gloria Steinem said it for all those who don't believe in the division of labor for men and women: "We are human beings first with minor differences from men that apply largely to the act of reproduction. The only functional difference between men and women is the woman's ability to give birth; therefore a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle." This is the belief our culture holds for men and women. Interchangeable parts. More and more men are saying, "What's the use?" and checking out.

Blankenhorn is a powerful voice against the feminist's dream of taking the breadwinner role from men: "Does paternal breadwinning burden men? In some ways, of course, yes. A man who embraces the New Father philosophy of employment does indeed unburden himself. He frees himself up to make choices, perhaps to express more emotions, certainly to discover himself apart from externally defined 'roles.' Certainly there is much to commend in this aspiration. Freedom is good. Especially in America, freedom is hard to argue against. But in this case, let me try. "

"For in liberating fathers from the breadwinner role, the New Father model also seeks to liberate fathers from widely held norms of masculinity. At the same time, our elite cultural script notwithstanding, most men in our society simply do not wish to be liberated from their masculinity. This viewpoint is a key to understanding their unprogressive, lopsided commitment to the provider role. "

"Paternal attachment to breadwinning (and I would add, women as homemakers) is neither arbitrary nor anachronistic. Historically and currently, the breadwinner role matches quite well with core aspects of masculine identity. Especially compared to other parental activities, breadwinning, is objective, rule-oriented, and easily measurable. It is an instrumental, goal-driven activity in which success derives, at least in part, from aggression. Most important, the provider role permits men to serve their families through competition with other men. In this sense, the ideal of paternal breadwinning encultures male aggression by directing it toward a prosocial purpose. "

"For these reasons, the breadwinner role has always been, and remains, a basic cultural device for integrating masculinity into familism (does this word sound familiar?) -- the clearest, simplest means for men to act out their obligations to their children. Faced with these stubborn facts, our society can respond in one of two ways. We can, through the New Father model, continue to assault male breadwinning in a root-and-branch attempt to reinvent men and deconstruct traditional masculinity. Or we can endeavor, however imperfectly, to incorporate men as they are into family life, in part by giving them distinctive, gendered roles that reflect, rather than reject, inherited masculine norms -- such as, for example, the breadwinner. "

"The New Father model does not merely unburden men of breadwinning as a special obligation. Ultimately, it unburdens them of fatherhood itself. For, as the example of breadwinning demonstrates, the essence of the New Father model is a repudiation of gendered social roles. But fatherhood, by definition, is a gendered social role. To ungender fatherhood -- to deny males any gender-based role in family life -- is to deny fatherhood as a social activity. What remains may be New. But there is no more Father."

Stu Weber says at Promise Keeper rallies that most young criminals come from fatherless homes: "The root of all the wrongs? Failure in the highest office in the land: the dad. It's the greatest title you'll ever have, and the most powerful office."

Enormous burden of be the sole provider

Helen Andelin writes, "When you work, you rob your husband of his right to meet ordinary challenges, and to grow by these challenges. And, as you become capable, efficient, and independent, he feels less needed, and therefore less masculine. This weakens him. As you lift, he sets the bucket down. "

Helen Andelin teaches women how different men and women look at the world of business in a section titled "His Pressing Responsibility to Provide." She writes, "A woman needs to understand with an all-comprehending sympathy what a man faces in earning the living." She says Dr. Marie Robinson gives an excellent description in her book, The Power of Sexual Surrender: "For the majority of men, when they come of age and marry, take on an enormous burden which they may not lay down with any conscience this side of the grave. Quietly, and without histrionics, they put aside, in the name of love, most of their vaunted freedom and contract to take upon their shoulders full social and economic responsibility for their wives and children."

"As a woman, consider for a moment how you would feel if your child should be deprived of the good things of life; proper housing, clothing, education. Consider how you would feel if he should go hungry. Perhaps such ideas have occurred to you and have given you a bad turn momentarily. But they are passing thoughts: a woman does not give them much credence; they are not her direct responsibility; certainly she does not worry about them for long."

"But such thoughts, conscious or unconscious, are her husband's daily fare. He knows, and he takes the [worrying] thought to work with him each morning (and every morning) and to bed with him at night, that upon the success or failure of his efforts rests the happiness, health, indeed the very lives of his wife and children. In the ultimate he senses he alone must take full responsibility for them."

"I do not think it is possible to exaggerate how seriously men take this responsibility; how much they worry about it. Women, unless they are very close to their men, rarely know how heavily the burden weighs sometimes, for men talk about it very little. They do not want their loved ones to worry."

"Men have been shouldering the entire responsibility for their family group since earliest times. I often think, however, when I see the stresses and strains of today's marketplace, that civilized man has much harder going, psychologically speaking, than his primitive forefathers."

"In the first place, the competition creates a terrible strain on the individual male. This competition is not only for preferment and advancement, it is often for his very job itself. Every man knows that if he falters, lets up his ceaseless drive, he can and will be easily replaced."

"No level of employment is really free of this endless pressure. The executive must meet and exceed his last year's quota or the quota of his competitors. Those under him must see that he does it, and he scrutinizes their performance most severely, and therefore constantly."

"Professional men -- doctors, lawyers, professors -- are under no less pressure for the most part. If the lawyer is self-employed he must constantly seek new clients; if he works for an organization he must exert himself endlessly to avoid being superseded by ambitious peers or by pushing young particles just out of law school and fired with the raw energy of youth. A score of unhappy contingencies can ruin or seriously threaten a doctor's practice, not the least of which is a possible breakdown in his ability to practice. A teacher must work long hours on publishable projects outside his arduous teaching assignments if he is to advance or even hold his ground."

"There is no field of endeavor that a man may enter where he can count on complete economic safety; competition, the need for unremitting year-in, year-out performance is his life's lot. Over all this he knows, too, stands a separate specter upon which he can exert only the remotest control. It is the joblessness which may be caused by the cyclical depression and recessions that characterize our economy."

Helen then says, "Do women who work feel the same pressure men do? Women who work do not feel the same kind of pressure men do. This is because they have a different orientation to the world of work. Whereas a man feels he cannot turn aside from his work with a clear conscience, a woman doesn't feel this same sense of duty. She can resign her job at any time for any reason, without a feeling of guilt. Economic problems may result but she won't have a lower opinion of herself or feel disgraced in the eyes of the public."

"On the other hand, if an able-bodied man were to stop working it would injure his feeling of worth and his image to the public. He and everyone else would consider him a failure if he were to neglect this important duty. A woman feels pressure, but of a different kind -- a time pressure which comes ffrom living a double role. A man feels a binding moral pressure."

Men look at work completely differently than women. Gilder says in Sexual Suicide that the feminist goal of having equal pay for equal work is "extremely difficult to apply." Employers value motivation and career ambition more than anything. And men are more innately motivated because it is their God-given responsibility. He writes, "To most men, success at work is virtually a matter of life and death, for it determines his sexual possibilities and affirms his identity as a male in a socially affirmative way. A business thus can control a man by paying him well and can almost irrevocably purchase his loyalty by paying him above the amount he can earn elsewhere. The business literally has him by the balls. For a female employee the sexual constitution of money is much less important. Her sexual prospects are little affected by how much she makes. Thus even if the woman is a very dependable employee, a payment to her does not usually purchase as great a commitment as does a payment to man." This is why women can take welfare and not suffer as much as men who take welfare. They are biologically and made by God to be more objective and to be provided for. The reason government has grown so big is because the twentieth century is feminized. If our culture was masculine centered instead of feminine centered, if it was centered on the subject instead of the object, then there would be very little government and much more religion.

Fascinating Womanhood 's many testimonies shows it works

Mrs. Andelin has many testimonies from women who wrote to her saying how their life has dramatically changed since reading and living the principles taught in Fascinating Womanhood. The following is one of the letters Helen quotes in her book. As you 're reading it, I hope it motivates you to read her book. I hope it motivates you to do something to get exciting and well-written books on the Principle on the best-seller list like Helen's has been. It's time for millions of Americans to read the truth and the UC can begin receiving letters telling how a book changed their life. A woman writes: "After nine years of marriage I felt I had a good marriage, exactly what was expected for a young successful couple. My husband and I had good jobs, two children, a house, a car, and the necessary ingredients for happiness. But we were not happy."

"The one main event I can pinpoint as a reason for our problems was when I received a promotion into upper management. I felt I owed my company more of my time; therefore, my job became my number one priority and my husband and family were pushed down the priority ladder. As the arguments between my husband and me increased, so did the tension level in our home. As we tried to talk things out my husband kept saying I had changed. I agreed that I had changed, but only into the ideal career woman and working mother."

"After coming home from a ten-day vacation with my husband things were no better between us. The mailman arrived with a flyer advertising Fascinating Womanhood. My mother had highly recommended it so I bought the book and read it. Up to now I thought I liked my job. After reading Fascinating Womanhood and mulling it over, I realized I really did not like my job. My boss pressured me in areas that were compromising my values and family life. After a lot of thought I asked my husband if I could quit my job to stay home and take care of him and the children. He said yes!"

"From that day forward my marriage has been wonderful, marvelous, unbelievable! The tension has left our home, since I'm not trying to be a liberated woman and make my husband do my domestic jobs. I'm not trying to put out fifty percent and wait for my husband's fifty percent to make my marriage successful. As the tension left, my husband and I talked without arguing. I found that my job threatened him as a provider, because I could have supported the children on my salary and he felt I did not need him anymore.

"Thanks to F.W. my life is going in the right direction. My husband is happy, the children are happy, and I am more content than ever before. I take pride in being a Domestic Goddess and look forward to following the teachings of F.W. to become my husband's ideal woman."

The massive numbers of women who have entered the workplace has hurt our economy, contrary to liberal thinking. Mrs. Andelin predicted the economy would get worse years ago. Every few years she updates and adds to her book. In her latest revised edition of Fascinating Womanhood she says, "The working wife has also upset the economy of our country so that now she feels locked into working. In 1975 I made a prediction on national TV. It was a time when women were crying for the choice to work outside the home. I addressed such women with this statement: 'If you don't stop crying for the choice to work, you will so upset the economy of this country that the time will come when you will not have a choice -- you will have to work.' That time has come. Employers have now lowered pay to fit a two-income family. In many cases a mother feels she must work. She seems to have no choice. She feels locked in." She titles her next section: "Solutions." I hope I've whetted a desire to read and reread her book.

Man 's work is number one

Wives should understand and teach their children to understand that a man fulfills his role by focusing on his work and public service. Women and children are to help him by creating a base camp for him to be refreshed as he pursues climbing mountains. Father's first wife did not understand this. Father constantly teaches women to let their husbands go. President Reagan's first wife should have stayed with him. Instead of being bored by his obsession with politics, she should have helped him. Men must be workaholics. They can't focus on their families. They have to focus on the world. The wife's job is to teach that to her children and other women as Titus 2:3-5 says. Women must find daily companionship in a trinity with other women. John Gray is wrong to think men should not give advice and become more feminine. Women need to humble themselves to men and do what they say. Gray is wrong to think men can become more feminine and fulfill their wife's needs. Only other women living together can do that. Helen Andelin teaches this in her book. I can't quote her whole book but here is a sample of the wisdom women need to learn from her: "Although a man may love his wife devotedly, it is not always possible or even right for him to make her Number One, and this is because of the nature of his life. A man's Number One responsibility is to provide the living for his family. Often his work and life away from home are so demanding that it must take priority over all else if he is to succeed. This often means that he must neglect his family .... In reality, he is putting his wife and family both Number One, but women often fail to interpret it this way."

"In addition to making the living, men have always shouldered the responsibility to make the world a better place. They have largely been the builders of society -- have solved world problems and developed new ideas for the benefit of all. This challenging role of public servant is not easy and also demands the man's attention away from his family."

"If you will examine the lives of these noble public servants, you will usually find a wife who was willing to put the man and his work Number One and be content to take a second place. President and Mrs. Dwight D. Eisenhower are a good example of this. Mrs. Eisenhower recalls that during the first two weeks of their 53-year-long marriage, her husband drew her aside one evening and said, 'Mamie, I have to tell you something...My country comes first and you second.' Mamie accepted this, and this is the way they lived. So, when you make a man Number One, you also make his work and outside responsibility Number One. But when the wife takes a second place to the man and his world, she loses nothing. The tender love he returns for her cooperation is more than a compensating reward."

"When a woman fails to fill the man's need to be Number One, when she puts her children, homemaking, career or other interests first, he can suffer a tremendous lack. This is often the very reason a man is driven to another woman. In fact, it is a very well known fact that men are seldom driven to a mistress because of sex passions. It is usually her ability to fill an emotional need, to make him feel appreciated and important in her life."

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