Father’s Day is coming up as well as Juneteenth, a reminder about the sad situation of many fathers, especially black fathers, who are not involved in their children’s lives. Two issues in the news lately directly related to this are the Supreme Court’s forthcoming opinion reversing Roe v. Wade and an epidemic of mass shootings, particularly school shootings. People are rushing to propose solutions, but most of them fail to mention the glaring elephant in the room — absence of fathers. Hardly anyone ever talks about fathers’ rights to their babies when abortion is brought up, and hardly anyone ever observes the common denominator when it comes to school shootings; the lack of fathers in the troubled teenage boys’ lives.
One man has been tirelessly talking and educating people about this crucial aspect for years, Dr. Warren Farrell. Farrell is author of The Boy Crisis, which he briefed the White House on under President Donald Trump, and which led to legislation on the Fatherhood Crisis being signed into law in Florida by Gov. Ron De Santis.
Farrell studied school shootings and determined the factor that should be looked at — instead of blaming access to guns, Great Replacement-style hatred, mental illness, or violence in the movies and video games — is whether the boys had their fathers in their lives. We know the backgrounds of six of the seven school shooters in the 21st century who killed 10 or more people, and all six of those boys were deprived of their biological fathers.
Uvalde shooter Salvador Ramos’s father was rarely present in his life. The teen suffered from a speech impediment that he was bullied over, and barely failed to graduate from high school. He got into a dispute with his grandmother over not graduating, which led to him shooting and killing her before he went on his shooting spree at the school. The guns were his way of saying, “I have a type of power,” Warren said, “they’re compensations for his powerlessness.”
All 63 of the largest developed nations are suffering this boy crisis. Guns merely serve to magnify the problem.
Now look at teenage girls, Farrell advises. “Our daughters live in the same families, with the same family values, and have the same access to the same guns, and the same video games, and the same media, and they suffer similar mental illnesses.” So why aren’t there teenage girl shooters?
“Boys whose pain is ignored will communicate their pain as loudly as they can, with guns as large as they can get,” Farrell believes. In school, boys often learn about toxic masculinity, male privilege, the oppressive patriarchy and that the future is female. This does not inspire a boy for their future. In all 63 developed nations, boys fall behind girls in almost every academic subject, especially reading and writing, which are the biggest predictors of success or failure.
Conservatives say toxic masculinity is a myth, whereas liberals talk about male privilege. But Warren says there is such a thing as toxic masculinity, it just doesn't come from male privilege. It comes from training our men to be disposable in war, where you have to disconnect from your feelings. It’s a social bribe to devalue yourself. For example, he explains, “If a sergeant in the army makes a racist comment about your background, and you object, you are laughed at and punished.”
Farrell said several months ago a young man contacted him and thanked him for his book, told him it stopped him from going on a mass shooting spree. He said he’d even written a manifesto in preparation. Through Farrell understanding what was going on in his head, it took away his energy of needing to be heard. Farrell, who specializes in couples counseling which he provides at Esalen, said about 80% of relationship issues can be solved by just hearing the other person out.
In regards to abortion, no one is considering the fathers’ rights, Farrell says. It’s a false dichotomy to make the choice only between the right to life vs. a woman’s body and the right to choose. We leave out the third right. That’s the right of the dad to allow the fetus to live, which should trump the right of the mom to kill the fetus.
He describes it as the ABCs of abortion: Abortion, Birth and Caring. Caring is the dad’s right to be informed immediately that the mom is considering abortion, so he has a timely choice to legally decide whether he will legally affirm that he will care for the infant both emotionally and financially from birth to age 18. It’s not right that mothers get an exclusive right to decide whether to abort a child or put it up for adoption. Mothers only have to deal with the nine months of pregnancy, they can drop the baby off at a fire station and will not be required to pay child support.
As for the B, Dads should have birth control responsibilities, but sadly pharmaceutical companies have shown no interest in marketing a birth control pill for men, despite the technology finally becoming available.
Unfortunately, when Farrell goes into court to testify about fatherlessness, many mothers’ attorneys shut him down, they try to stop him before he even starts talking. They do everything they can to distract the judge and interrupt him. The reality is, the court of law is the last place where we should be addressing this, he says.
Farrell said the 1965 Moynihan report is still true today, which found that the breakdown of marriage in black communities was responsible for poverty and related problems. The left is hurting black families the worst by not acknowledging the need for fathers; while 19% of white children live in a single-mother household, over 50% of black children do.
Those familiar with Farrell’s work can’t decide whether he’s stating the obvious or something revolutionary. I think it’s both — something that’s just gone under the radar, since for various, unfair reasons society has not encouraged this type of thinking.
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