I’m sure most of you have heard the story of the twelve-year-old boy who is now accused of murder in Nebraska. He had joined his half-brother’s gang, and they killed a man over drugs.
As I read this story, I realized while upset by it, I was no longer surprised. This type of behavior from children is becoming the norm. And what’s to blame? No doubt, lack of parenting. This young man’s father is sitting in a prison cell for murder himself. He blames the influence of gangs on his children.
Maybe it’s more the issue of no father being in his life. Fathers are needed to show their sons how to grow to become good men. Too often is the case these days women are left alone to bring their sons up. And most women are not strong enough to raise a boy to be a man.
Ephesians 6:4 reads, Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
Children should be raised by two parents who can show them how men and women are to behave. Men need to show their boys how to deal with what the world throws at them. How to lose graciously. How to live with heartbreak, and how to deal with life’s ups and downs without relying on drugs and hatred.
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A boy needs a father to show him how to be in the world. He needs to be given swagger, taught how to read a map so that he can recognize the roads that lead to life and the paths that lead to death, how to know what love requires, and where to find steel in the heart when life makes demands on us that are greater than we think we can endure. – Ian Morgan Cron
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We, as a nation, have tossed fathers out of the family. In the media, they come across as stupid and useless. Single women households have become the norm, and the government has become the man-of-the-house.
The influx of gangs in our cities is proof that the government doesn’t know how to raise children. And children want to belong to a family. They want someone who will mold them and tell them right from wrong. Too often these young boys turn to male gang leaders to learn what it means to be a man.
We need to start a movement where fathers are just as important as mothers. The government needs to 
stop supporting children, instead forcing parents to do that. Make welfare a helping hand, not a lifestyle. And if you have more than two children who are supported by the government, you should be required to get permanent birth control.
It is not cruel and unusual punishment to require a woman on welfare to get her tubes tied so she has no more children. And men who father more than two children on government assistance should be made to have a vasectomy.
The cruelty is to continue to have children who feel so unloved they turned to gangs in order to have a family. And they in turn end up dead or spending the rest of their lives in jail.
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Very insightful post. However, to this comment: “And most women are not strong enough to raise a boy to be a man.” I feel most women are plenty STRONG enough to raise a son, but let’s face it, mothers were never boys and we don’t think like boys or men. It’s hard to anticipate the things a boy will consider doable or appropriate and counsel them about. I more or less raised my son on my own and he turned out to be a wonderful, responsible, well-adjusted man, but there were moments I found myself shaking my head wondering what on earth possessed him to try that? That always being something I would never have even thought of or do.
Men and women aka Father and Mother are NOT interchangeable. As you point out, boys need a man to model themselves after and to teach them how to be a man in today’s world. But little girls need Daddy’s too. Daddy is her first boyfriend and if he’s a loving, caring dad, that’s how she learns what to expect from a man in her adult relationships. This is one of the reasons I have a problem with the gay/lesbian marriage issue and children growing up with two daddys or two mommys. We don’t have years of experience to draw conclusions about same-sex couples raising kids long term, but we have more than enough evidence that boys who grow up without fathers are more prone to getting into trouble, joining gangs and ending up in prison. And our welfare system is set up to encourage the absent father – it needs to be changed.
Great response, Skye. You are right, women are strong enough. Thanks for the insight.