The View from the North: All Fathers Matter
Photo: crosswalk.com
By SILVIO CANTO, JR.
The year 2020 marks the fifth Father’s Day since my dad passed away in late 2015.
It’s my day to remember a great man who taught me about life and where we came from. He also taught me how treat women and behave properly at work, at home or the baseball field.
My father was quiet, a super gentleman, but he never hesitated to lay down the law very effectively. He knew what was right and wrong, and did not accept excuses for bad behavior.
Yesterday, I read that more statues of great men were torn down in the United States, historical leaders from President Ulysses S. Grant (who led the Union Army against the Confederacy during the American Civil War) to the Father of the Union States and its first president, George Washington, to Abraham Lincoln (who emancipated the slaves after the Civil War). Protesters now want to go after statues of Thomas Jefferson as well,
So what is the formula or the method to their madness? I can’t really find one, but all of the mobs seem to have a common denominator: they are mostly young people who could use a little a history lesson and a man in their lives!
In this context, maybe it’s time to remind everyone that fathers matter a lot. After all, it is our fathers who teach us about our heritage, where we come from and that you don’t destroy public property.
According to a Heritage Foundation report — which showed that more and more children in the United States are growing up with a dad in their live — America desperately needs more fathers in the country.
The report found that “children raised without a father are at a higher risk of having behavioral problems, are four times more likely to live in poverty, are more likely to be incarcerated in their lifetime, are twice as likely to never graduate high school, are at a seven times higher risk of teen pregnancy, are more vulnerable to abuse and neglect, are more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol, and are twice as likely to be obese.
“From education to personal health to career success,” the report said, “children who lack a father find themselves at a disadvantage to their peers raised in a two-parent household.”
I can’t prove it with a poll, but my guess is that a lot of those young people burning buildings and tearing down statues do not have a father to come home to.
How do I know this? Because my dad would have beaten me with a baseball bat if I had done something stupid like that. He would have grabbed me by the neck, read me a Cuban Spanish riot act that only Ricky Ricardo could understand, and then driven me to the police station for accountability.
Yes, fathers matter, a lot.
Happy Father’s Day to the Pulse News Mexico family.
Silvio Canto, Jr. is a Cuban-born U.S. citizen who teaches English at a north Texas college. He is the author of the book “Cubanos in Wisconsin” and has a daily online radio program and blog dealing with U.S. and Latin American politics, as well as sports and historic events, and is a regular contributor to American Thinker.
…June 21, 2020
Children do not need a “man” in their lives nor a parent who would “beat” them with a baseball bat. I raised my children alone as woman, never beating them, and they are outstanding professional adults today with master’s and doctorate’s. I find this article endearing as far as admiring our parents (my father was my hero), but in the end, it is misogynst and a poor example in regard to to “beating” a child to lead an upright life. Children do not need a man to guide them, they need good examples from both parents. Happy Father’s Day from a mother-who-was-also-the-father.
Well said. I too was a single mom. Just for the record, I think that Silvio was just being facetious when he made the reference to the baseball bat. I know him and I sincerely doubt he would encourage anyone subjecting a child to violence. Thank you for reading Pulse News Mexico.