200 years ago, fathers readied their sons to be fully able and willing to assume adult responsibilities even in their early teens. In contrast, today's young men, products less and less of the home and more and more of the state, are infamous for being unwilling and apparently unable to step into adulthood. Even in their late twenties and early thirties, many men are not ready for responsibility, but would rather go on in perpetual irresponsibility, and they seem only too willing to hand their children off to the same institution that raised them. So many teachers feel that they are being expected not just to teach their students, but to parent them as well. It is no coincidence that, in this drug-worshiping culture, those children were fed almost four thousand pounds of Ritalin in 1990 alone. And by 1995, those children were fed almost 23 thousand pounds of Ritalin, an over 500% increase. America's institutions now feed more than 1.3 million children this chemical, which is methyl phenidate, better known as Ritalin.* Teachers know that no matter how hard they try, the state's institution is no substitute for Christian families. What we need is so much more than just money and blankets for the fatherless; we need fathers for the fatherless. And God means to use Christian men to lead this generation out of drug dependence and into Christ-dependence. We need men of God who will hear the call to be fathers to the fatherless; and they are all around. There are so many problems with youth in America; all these unrelated things all happening to our kids at once; yet they all trace back to the fatherlessness of American children:
America suffers deeply from an epidemic of fatherlessness. The fatherless appear to be very vulnerable. What is even more tragic is that many women are choosing to bring children into the world without the presence and support of a father. This new trend, which seems to have started in Hollywood, is spreading into the culture at large. While the lack of a father (biological or adoptive) certainly does not guarantee behavioral or developmental problems, it is definitely not something we should deliberately choose for a child. Many wonderful individuals have come out of single-parent homes, but they are the exception rather than the rule. Mothers need help. They need the strength and leadership of a father for their children. They need good role models for their sons. They need support and encouragement. The answer is not more government programs or state-funded "homes" for fatherless children. The answer is for Christian men to step up to the plate and start taking responsibility for those around them who need help. We do not need better welfare programs; we need to wake up to the needs of the fatherless and the widow, just as Scripture commands: "Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world
* Ritalin
is classified by the U.S. Department of Justice, the Drug Enforcement
Agency, and the World Health Organization in the same addictive category
as cocaine and methadone. The U.S. Department of Energy's Nobel-prize
winning Brookhaven National Laboratory recently found that Ritalin
affected the brain's dopamine system with more potency than cocaine.
Psychotic symptoms developed in more than 9% of the children treated
with methylphenidate, in a recent 5 year retrospective study. When
children don't fit the institution, they can be made to fit or drugged
to fit in, as is the plight of a number of elderly patients thrown away
in nursing homes.
© Copyright 2003 by LAF |
