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I don't think it's so much avoiding the topic than recognizing its lack of relevance. There's no solution for an epidemic of fatherlessness, and besides, lots o

I don't think it's so much avoiding the topic than recognizing its lack of relevance. There's no solution for an epidemic of fatherlessness, and besides, lots of people grow up without their fathers and do great. Just look at Navon from the video. It seems like he's off to a great start. There are tons of stories like him. And as I mentioned before, there are much more obvious problems at work here than fatherlessness. Focusing only on the fact that these kids don't have fathers and ignoring all the other challenges they face is kind of myopic. If you want to discuss an issue, then let's discuss the whole issue.

PKop 9y ago
> There's no solution for an epidemic of fatherlessness Bold claim. > lots of people grow up without their fathers and do great. "Lot's of people" succeed in poor families, in bad schools, in communities with crime. Trends and magnitude matter. If the "single-parent" households were more equal across race, then perhaps it wouldn't be an area to focus on. But they aren't. > ignoring all the other challenges No.. > there are much more obvious problems at work here than fatherlessness > recognizing its lack of relevance. I don't understand people who dismiss disparities between the fundamental societal structure, the core environment a child grows up in, the nuclear family, of one race to another as being insignificant. I really don't understand how people can overlook its impact. It even affects schooling and education, discipline, taking a role in ensuring a focus on "homework" vs getting in trouble / distracted outside of classroom, who children hang out with, why they fall into groups of bad influence as a proxy for male authority figures etc etc etc. (I am NOT saying single mothers have no impact as well or that they are incompetent. Simply, that their job is made that much harder, and fathers have at least as much impact on child rearing as mothers, perhaps more in certain specific areas or for boys perhaps, and so cutting the parental contribution in half might have detrimental effects.) http://educationnext.org/one-parent-students-leave-school-earlier/ http://educationnext.org/one-parent-students-leave-school-ea... "Family structure has grown in importance over time"
- extra88 9y ago
  So many comments about "fatherlessness" with no mention of the discriminatory practices of mass incarceration is suspect.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - tboyd47 9y ago
    Exactly - it's like they'd rather people just talk about the problem only and not the root causes of the problem.
    - PKop 9y ago
      I'm glad we've quickly moved on from denying fatherlessness has significant detrimental impact, and instead are discussing causes of it, which is the first step towards solutions. > There's no solution for an epidemic of fatherlessness
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

PKop 9y ago

> There's no solution for an epidemic of fatherlessness Bold claim. > lots of people grow up without their fathers and do great. "Lot's of people" succeed in poor families, in bad schools, in communities with crime. Trends and magnitude matter. If the "single-parent" households were more equal across race, then perhaps it wouldn't be an area to focus on. But they aren't. > ignoring all the other challenges No.. > there are much more obvious problems at work here than fatherlessness > recognizing its lack of relevance. I don't understand people who dismiss disparities between the fundamental societal structure, the core environment a child grows up in, the nuclear family, of one race to another as being insignificant. I really don't understand how people can overlook its impact. It even affects schooling and education, discipline, taking a role in ensuring a focus on "homework" vs getting in trouble / distracted outside of classroom, who children hang out with, why they fall into groups of bad influence as a proxy for male authority figures etc etc etc. (I am NOT saying single mothers have no impact as well or that they are incompetent. Simply, that their job is made that much harder, and fathers have at least as much impact on child rearing as mothers, perhaps more in certain specific areas or for boys perhaps, and so cutting the parental contribution in half might have detrimental effects.) http://educationnext.org/one-parent-students-leave-school-earlier/ http://educationnext.org/one-parent-students-leave-school-ea... "Family structure has grown in importance over time"

extra88 9y ago
So many comments about "fatherlessness" with no mention of the discriminatory practices of mass incarceration is suspect.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- tboyd47 9y ago
  Exactly - it's like they'd rather people just talk about the problem only and not the root causes of the problem.
  - PKop 9y ago
    I'm glad we've quickly moved on from denying fatherlessness has significant detrimental impact, and instead are discussing causes of it, which is the first step towards solutions. > There's no solution for an epidemic of fatherlessness
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]