Contributor Post Created with Sketch. Recommended by Ricochet Members Created with Sketch. Mothers and Fathers

Henry Racette
By Henry Racette
Henry Racette Contributor
I'm a fifty-something father of six who divides his time between writing industrial automation software and opining cantankerously about the precariousness of western civilization and the enemies, many unwitting, arrayed against it. I'm fascinated by words, evolution, emergent behavior, the challenge of Islam, the absurdity of the trans movement, and saving the most successful nation and culture in history. I'm a climate empiricist: I'll believe in global warming when I see evidence of global… [more]
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34 COMMENTS
 

My number four son is now a police officer, a few months into his first year on the job. He spends his evenings and nights driving his patrol car around a New England city, staying awake, keeping the peace.

He tells me that about once a week he responds to a domestic call involving a minor. With few exceptions, they’re variations on the same theme: a single mother with one child, a son, who is unruly and defiant and whom she can’t control. My son tells me that his department responds to at least one of these every day — this in a relatively small city.

He had one case where the boy was ten years old. The lad refused to put on his seat belt, so his mother called 911.

I think it’s hard for most women to discipline children, particularly sons. I think some women fear that they’ll lose the love of their sons if they say “no.” Beyond that, I think many, perhaps most, women simply don’t want to be the heavy, the no-nonsense voice of authority. It’s a role many men don’t mind playing (and one I always enjoyed), but one mothers would rather delegate to fathers.

Boys and girls need fathers. But we can’t talk about that, about the roles fathers play, if we have to pretend that men and women are the same, or that their differences are trivial and mutable.

And that is perhaps the most important reason why we should reject calls for respectful compliance with the trans nonsense, and encourage a clearer understanding of sexual reality — of men and women and how we differ.

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  1. Seawriter Contributor
    Seawriter

    Pony Convertible (View Comment):

    Seawriter (View Comment):
    With single mothers, if the separation was involuntary (the father died) the adverse affects of single-parenthood appear to be mitigated.

    I have not seen data about this. My personal experience with knowing a few adults who lost their father due to cancer when they were very young, indicates the adverse affects still happen.

    Mitigated.

    • #31
    • December 4, 2019, at 10:53 AM PST
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  2. Full Size Tabby Member
    Full Size Tabby

    Seawriter (View Comment):

    Pony Convertible (View Comment):

    Seawriter (View Comment):
    With single mothers, if the separation was involuntary (the father died) the adverse affects of single-parenthood appear to be mitigated.

    I have not seen data about this. My personal experience with knowing a few adults who lost their father due to cancer when they were very young, indicates the adverse affects still happen.

    Mitigated.

    It’s been some years, but I do remember seeing some data from researchers who tried to parse out the data on a number of father-related bases, and used completing high school, grades, and convictions for criminal activity as measures of outcome. Obviously, research data is going to be statistical, and any individual case may differ radically from the statistical average or median. My recollection is that:

    • boys who grew up with both of his biological parents married to each other and living in the household had [statistically] the best outcomes;
    • boys who grew up in a single mother household in an environment with a high proportion of single mother households had [statistically] the poorest outcomes;
    • boys who grew up in a single mother household but in an environment populated with mostly married parents around him (whether residential neighborhood, church, scouts, or other social tribe) had outcomes almost (but not quite) as good as the boys who lived with both biological parents;
    • boys who grew up in a single mother household because the father had died had statistically better outcomes than the boys whose fathers had left by choice of either mother or father, but not as good as boys who grew up with both biological parents (the researchers made some speculation about how widows talk to their children about the dead father in comparison to how a divorced or never married mother talks about her ex-husband or the man who never married her);
    • boys who grew up with a stepfather in the household had outcomes that were better than the single mother households, but not very much better (that the outcomes for boys who grew up with a stepfather were not closer to the outcomes for boys with two biological parents is the piece of data that surprised everyone the most).
    • #32
    • December 4, 2019, at 11:25 AM PST
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  3. Ralphie Member
    Ralphie

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):
    don’t think that the problem is limited to single mothers being unwilling to discipline a child, especially a boy. There’s an added problem that, by the teenage years, a mother is generally physically incapable of controlling a boy. The exact timing of this varies with the individuals, but my general impression is that by age 12 or 13, most boys are able to dominate their mothers physically.

    That was my initial thought on reading the post. I know that courts recognize that a mother cannot physically make her child visit a father if they don’t want to. I learned that from my sister’s divorce.

    • #33
    • December 4, 2019, at 12:27 PM PST
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  4. Skyler Coolidge
    Skyler

    Ralphie (View Comment):

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):
    don’t think that the problem is limited to single mothers being unwilling to discipline a child, especially a boy. There’s an added problem that, by the teenage years, a mother is generally physically incapable of controlling a boy. The exact timing of this varies with the individuals, but my general impression is that by age 12 or 13, most boys are able to dominate their mothers physically.

    That was my initial thought on reading the post. I know that courts recognize that a mother cannot physically make her child visit a father if they don’t want to. I learned that from my sister’s divorce.

    States may differ, but in general, if the visit is ordered then the parent must make every reasonable effort to enable the visit. For instance, one case I researched involved a child exchange in a parking lot. Mom brought children to the rendevous point, put their properly packed luggage on the sidewalk, and had the children exit the car. Father appeared and children refused to get in his car. After some efforts to convince them, kids got back in mom’s car and were brought home. Appeals court ruled that mother complied with the order, it was up to dad to convince the children to get in his car.

    I would caution any parent that unless there is a real danger involved with a visit, that arbitrarily refusing a visit can get them into real trouble if brought to court for enforcement.

    • #34
    • December 4, 2019, at 6:59 PM PST
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