FATHERS: ABOUT YOUR LITTLE GIRLS…

America, let's talk...and keep it real.

Fathers are the main reason I have such incredible job security. Drug and alcohol treatment centers all across the country can tip their hats and send thank you cards to American fathers everywhere. Well, to at least half of the fathers in our nation, anyway. You see, working with recovering addicts and alcoholics for nearly 20 years, I’ve discovered several common threads. One (unrelated to the subject of this article) is that virtually all addicts and alcoholics are above average intelligence. I know, I know, their behavior doesn’t bear that out when they are drinking or using dope. But truly one of the reasons men and women get so self-centered is because they discover that they are more intelligent than most people around them. Therefore, they tend to rely on their own understanding rather than seeking counsel from others. I’ll get more into how self-centeredness manifests in those who suffer from addiction, and for now let’s talk about another major common thread which addicts share: Dad issues.

Divorce typically removes the father from the home. Children most often stay with Mom, and Dad becomes a weekend visitor, if that. Due to Mom’s own desperate need for a father’s love, she will commonly seek someone who will suffice to fill the hole in her heart left by her own father. So due to the divorce, Dad abandons his children in order to escape from his wife, Mom starts focusing on finding another man to fill the hole which can only be filled by her Father, and the children have now lost both Dad and Mom thanks to the divorce. Even when Mom finds what she considers a suitable man to take Dad’s place, the children are still abandoned while Mom gets obsessed with her new “love” (really just desperation- masked lust or the relief achieved because “somebody loves me”). A new battle ensues as children and “new Dad” fight for first position in their mom’s heart. It’s bad enough that Dad is gone, and Mom, if she is intelligent and intuitive and compassionate, should recognize that she now needs to make up for the loss of Dad’s love in their house. Logically, Mom needs to bring more love to the table now in order to insure that her children get the love they need in order to feel secure and cared for, but the same selfishness which contributed to creating the divorce in the first place continues to destroy her childrens’ lives even further as the kids pick up the tab for Mom’s inability to manage a healthy relationship. Adding some stranger to the family does not solve the problem.

Divorce is truly a sign of emotional immaturity. Be it due to initially mistaking lust or acceptance for ‘falling in love’ , or to being unwilling to have the integrity to keep one’s commitments (marriage), it is emotional immaturity that is at the root of America’s high divorce rate. That two adults can’t figure out how to get along or how to fall back in love says volumes about both parents. That isn’t the beginning and the end, however, of this column. Oh no, it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

That the divorce rate hovers around 50% for both religious and nonreligious communities makes some very obvious points which I am grateful for the opportunity to bring to your attention here today. Because American Christianity has been attacked, watered down and diluted almost completely in this day and age, it’s unlikely that even faithful church-goers are really walking the walk Jesus encourages us to walk. And, interestingly, knowing Jesus simply isn’t enough to save a marriage. Knowing anyone isn’t enough to change a person’s life. It is the proactive interaction in a relationship which brings about the wisdom, knowledge, and fruit which love produces, be it friendship, familial or romantic love.

So now about you, Dad: You chose to abandon your children to be raised by a woman you refuse to live with. Do you understand what I just said? You chose to abandon your own children, leaving them to be raised by a woman that you, yourself do not want in your own life any longer. Oh, you’re pretty darned sure that you’ll be visiting your children on weekends, if Mom will let you, and besides, you weren’t that active in their lives anyway. So your sons get to be raised by Mom, influenced most in their lives by someone you refuse to spend time with or even seek help in order to resolve issues in your relationship with her, and your boys get to be raised by a girl. Great. Or is it?

And how about your daughters? Our daughters need their father’s love probably more than you realized when you agreed to that divorce or, worse yet, filed papers in order to abandon your children and resign them to live with this woman you yourself won’t live with. Even when Dad is in the home, if he isn’t actively participating in his little girl’s life, showing up at all of her special events, birthday parties, games (if she plays sports), dance rehearsal and recitals, etc., then Dad has effectively already abandoned his daughter, despite living under the same roof with her. She needs to know Dad loves her. It is a special love that Mom can’t give, this love between a father and his daughter. It is a unique love which will affect this girl for the rest of her life, this Father’s love.

Deny her that relationship and she will oftentimes set out in her teen years to fill that place in her heart as best she can, unconsciously and desperately seeking the unique love that only a father can give her. In that desperate quest, however, daughters commonly begin seeking acceptance and some semblance of love by giving their bodies – and their virginity – to boys they hardly know. They don’t realize why they are making themselves sex toys for boys at school, and if the boy claims to love them, it just seems right to get in bed and give themselves completely – physically speaking – to boys oftentimes not old enough to be employed. Not only are the boys she invites into her life unemployable, but they are oftentimes not the least bit interested in, nor are they capable of the kind of love your daughter is really seeking. They just want to enjoy your daughter’s body. Because you’ve abandoned your daughter when you abandoned your marriage, you’ve now left your little girl to the mercy of boys who likely just want to use her for sex.

These aren’t necessarily bad boys. These boys have got issues of their own, having been raised in dysfunctional America, much like your little girl. That, and the fact that nature tends to call them into manhood in ways that our society has translated into “Go get laid”.

So many girls take this path, and have done so ever since Moms went to work, by the way (in the 1960s), that it actually seems normal now for girls to become the sex objects of boys in Jr. High and High School, with parents defending their kids’ rights to act out sexually and even approving of condom machines in the bathrooms. You see, your ex-wife isn’t capable of protecting your daughter from the boys who wish to prey on your daughter. Your ex-wife is likely to consider it normal for your daughter to act out sexually through her teens, even if she becomes a whore at school. It’s normal to her, and with good reason: She probably didn’t have a relationship with her dad, either. She went through school looking for love in all the wrong places too. It’s “normal” to your ex-wife that your daughter is being used for sex by boys who couldn’t care less about your daughter’s feelings or her future.

It’s called a “generational curse”. Liberals and Progressives have surrendered to this sad behavior, and they are the parents who are demanding that condom machines be put into Jr. High bathrooms, so their sons don’t get your daughter pregnant. They are the parents who want sex education taught to kindergartners and want gradeschoolers to be taught that homosexuality is “normal” when it’s clearly not. Do you understand the dynamic of what you’ve created now, Dad? By abandoning your wife and family, you’ve abandoned your children. You’ve left them unprotected by your love and your presence, and you’ve left them to the mercy – if there is any, and usually there is not – of the boys who grow to become sexual predators because – oh, that’s right, there’s more – they were abandoned either physically or emotionally by their Dads and they are unconsciously seeking love in all the wrong places, too. Love, of course, which can only be provided by you: Dad.

So let’s review: By refusing to learn how to love your wife, and refusing to make a study of her like God’s word tells us to, you abandon the woman you’ve committed your life to in front of God and all your friends, and you abandon your children to be raised and/or at least affected by whatever jerk your ‘unfit’ wife is going to bring into their home. You assign your daughter to a life with a hole in her heart that you were supposed to fill, and you deny her the experience of what it’s like to have a father who loves her more than anyone else on the planet will ever be able to love her.

Your sons, as well, get to be raised by a woman who doesn’t understand what it is to be a man, so you’ve assigned them a lifetime of dysfunctional relationships with women as they try to sort out for themselves what it is to actually be a man. Oh, and the woman you’ve forced them to be raised by is the same woman you refuse to live with. Interesting.

Seem fair? Does that seem like the actions of a man of integrity who cares about his children? Have your children earned what you’ve forced on them, really? But hey, you’ve got your FREEDOM, right? You can resume your quest for love in all the wrong places, picking up (predator) new unsuspecting women who have no idea that you’re simply engaged in that generational curse left to you by your father, not realizing that you really don’t love them at all but just want to get them in bed so you can use their bodies and pretend you matter because someone is willing to share themselves with you sexually.

But if it was really about love, this life of yours, Dad, wouldn’t you have stayed in the home with your children to raise them and protect them, humbling yourself in whatever way you needed to so that your daughters and your sons had the benefit of a loving Dad in their home and in their lives who cared so much about them, and who loved them so much that no sacrifice was too great to make on their behalf? If this was about being a stand-up man, a man of integrity, wouldn’t you have invested in however many counselors or couples retreats it might have taken in order for you and your (now ex) wife to raise your family together, to raise your children together, to grow closer as a couple and to learn how to overcome your differences and abandon your individual selfishness? I mean, so that your children could see what a man of integrity looks like up close, and what a great father looks like up close, so that your sons could become like you – because they will – and so your daughters could seek out a young man of integrity to make her husband one day?

Yeah, I’m sure it was so difficult to get along with “her”. I know how “she” was. No, really. I know. I’ve been there and done that too, Dad. I’m not speaking from a place of judgment right now, although it might seem that way to you as you read, if you’re even still reading what I’ve written here. Yes, I know “she” was difficult and unreasonable and hard to live with and impossible at times. I know that. I know that because I’ve been those things too. All of them. And guess what…

So have you. But you didn’t have to abandon your little girl just because you didn’t have the courage to walk through some problems in your marriage. Your little girl shouldn’t have had to pick up the tab for your “freedom” from the commitment you made on your wedding day to your wife, to God and in front of your friends. She is picking up the tab, however. She’s likely going to turn out exactly like your ex-wife, too, in large part because you aren’t there every morning and every night to raise her. Your ex-wife did that. Your ex that was so impossible stood in there with your sons and daughters, and raised them as best they could, regardless if you paid your child support or showed up on weekends or ever other weekend to put in some token time with them. So your daughter, being raised by a woman who was abandoned by her dad and now her husband, is in someone else’s hands now, not yours.

Not only that, but it’s likely that I might get to meet your daughter or your son one day. You see, I work in drug treatment. Long-term, residential drug treatment where the most broken kids who have grown into broken adults show up every day, asking for help, and love, and a chance to start a new life, because the life they were dealt didn’t meet their needs. With anger issues, abandonment issues, self-esteem issues, sexual issues, drug problems, alcoholism, with children of their own who have been taken away by the system which doesn’t know how to fix these problems, your kids end up at my facility.

The good news? My staff and I love them like you didn’t. We point them to another Father who loves them more than life itself. We teach them a new way to live, in spite of their brokenness and their issues with men and issues with women and their anger and resentment and their court records and their inability to even express their deep sadness and regret about their relationship or lack of relationship with Dad. We teach them how to find the words in order to express themselves, so that they can hear themselves say it, and so the nightmare can become real and they can cry the tears that it takes to resolve a life with or without you, Dad. Yes, the good news is that we love them like our Heavenly Father loves them…because we were them, too, at one time. We lived much of what they lived. We got to learn about our Father who art in Heaven, who loves us as much as He loves your children. And we got to experience His love and healing which only He can facilitate.

And we get to introduce your children to Him, too, to our Father, which art in Heaven. And that is the most amazing love any of us have ever experienced. But how much more might we all have enjoyed His love if we didn’t have to meet Him in all of our brokenness, but instead perhaps because our own Earthly father might have introduced us to Him so that we might have experienced all of the love which our Creator intended for us in the first place?

Are you considering divorce right now? Please, don’t. It’s not that I don’t want to meet your son or daughter. I do. I’m blessed by every person who makes it us who doesn’t OD or end up in prison for a long, long time. But before you file those divorce papers, ask yourself if this is how you want your story to go. Do you want to leave your children behind, because that’s what you will do if you divorce your wife, leave them behind, become a part-time dad, subject them to whomever your wife might meet and bring home, and turn them loose at school to become either a predator or prey for other broken kids like them.

Your story doesn’t have to go like that. It really doesn’t. If you need help, email me or call someone. Call a marriage and family counselor and take the time to interview them. If they don’t seem right, call and interview another, and another, until you find someone that you believe can help you stay in your marriage. The truth is that you’re just going to take all your problems into the next relationship, should you decide to divorce now. It will be like Groundhog’s Day, only different people, but the same problems. It doesn’t have to go that way, this story of yours called Life.

Be a man. Get help. Do it for your children if you aren’t willing to do it for yourself. But do it. Learn how to be a good husband and stop worrying about what a bad wife she is. When you learn to become a good husband, a man of integrity, a good father and provider and partner, then she will become a good wife.

I guarantee it.

Al Sharpton: Pathetic and Needy

Tonight Fox News associate Geraldo Rivera interviewed Al Sharpton and asked him candidly why the teen pregnancy rate is nearly 300% higher for minority teens than for white teens. Sharpton responded with his usual vague, double-talk nonsense that really said nothing at all. Using typical Sharpton gobbledygook terms like “…not having the right kind of infrastructure…” Yes, that’s what Al said. In fact, that was Al’s explanation. Oh, really, Al? Black kids and Hispanic children don’t have “the right kind of infrastructure” but white kids do? Do you actually believe we at home watching this interview are not catching the ridiculous foolishness and nonsense coming out of your pie hole?

Al Sharpton, from many people’s perspectives, is an arrogant, ignorant fool who craves media attention – even negative attention – and has taken advantage of and ridden the wave of silly Political Correctness in two ways. Thanks to Political Correctness, one might get the impression that (1) Black people can get away with saying foolish and ridiculous nonsense, no matter how absurd, and the media won’t call them on it solely because their skin is black. (2) All minorities have permission to be ignorant, belligerent and racist when speaking in a public forum and those who subscribe to Political Correctness (including the media) will say nothing, pretend to take these “spokesmen” and “spokeswomen” seriously, nod their heads and smile and never bring it up again, even in private. You see, Political Correctness (PC) lacks any semblance of accountability, shows extreme favoritism toward blacks and Hispanics (and Democrats and atheists and gays), shows blatant and obvious unfairness, bias and bigotry against white people, Jews, Christians, conservatives and anyone who advocates publicly for personal responsibility and/or good morals or ethics, commonly  ignores the truth completely and supports lies and liars when the lies are generated by either black, liberal, Democrat, atheist, gay or Hispanic people. The truth is so horribly misrepresented by the Politically Correct left on such a regular basis that most normal American people now consider the mainstream media completely unreliable, intentionally misleading and no longer a trusted source for information about anything.

Al Sharpton is a perfect example. The man is a racist ambulance chaser who, for someone who is obviously very ignorant and consistently biased against conservatives, white people, Christians and Jews, gets more airtime than virtually every conservative, white person, Christian or Jew. Jesse Jackson enjoyed the same favor for years thanks to Political Correctness, until he fell out of favor with the media due to his infidelity and children born out of wedlock.  Well, not so much due to his infidelity and children born out of wedlock, but more specifically due to those things becoming known. That is, Jesse got caught, and that was the cause of his downfall and fall from grace.

You see, the correct answer to Geraldo Rivera’s question tonight was this: Collectively speaking, black fathers have historically had a higher incidence of abandoning their children than white fathers. When little girls grow up without a father in the home, they almost inevitably become promiscuous in their early teens, trying to fill the hole in their heart that has “Daddy” written on it. Because black men seem to have the highest rate of caually impregnating their girlfriends and then abandoning them, their children naturally have the highest rate of teen pregnancy due to the emotional problems commonly caused by Dad’s abandonment coupled with their seeking love in all the wrong the places, thinking some other boy/man can fill that place in their heart that only Daddy can fill. Thus, the cycle is repeated generation after generation.

Al Sharpton doesn’t have the courage to tell the truth about this issue, which is why he blamed it on “infrastructure” when speaking to Geraldo Rivera. Subscribing to Political Correctness has apparently rendered Al incapable of rigorous honesty. Al could not bring himself to tell the truth about men in the black community, and so chose to be vague about this issue. Those on the left who subscribe to Political Correctness seem to have no real affinity for the truth, nor do they feel obligated to tell the truth. To the left, the end justifies the means, and so lying is commonplace. That the left owns the majority of the mainstream media is what is at the root of the death of real journalism: Political Correctness has killed journalism in America.

A product of a broken home himself, Mr. Sharpton doesn’t appear to have done the personal emotional work necessary to facilitate true emotional and psychological recovery from his own childhood abandonment issues. Instead, he continues to exacerbate this issue by choosing not to be frank about it, like he did tonight while being interviewed by Geraldo Rivera. Another clue which brought me to publicly express my suspicion that Al is the product of a broken home (before I googled “Al Sharpton’s parents” and found that I am indeed correct, that is) is that those who are abandoned by their fathers typically become very, very needy of attention. Not having a doting father around to encourage and support and pour love into a little boy or girl’s heart leaves a gaping, empty hole in the child’s heart. Attention-getting behavior, promiscuouity, acting out sexually or otherwise, rebelliousness, criminal and even negative attention-getting behavior are all common to children who have been abandoned by their fathers. Al exhibits virtually all of those symptoms, and yet he continues to be sought out to speak on behalf of the black community.

When a child grows up but does not endeavor to work through the emotional issues caused by abandonment and/or parental neglect or abuse, the result is people like Al Sharpton, who isn’t even embarassed to stand before a camera with a national audience and arrogantly lie, speaking boldly about issues about which he really is totally clueless. Tonight Sharpton actually explained to us all that the reason that minority teen pregnancies are almost 300% higher than white teen pregnancies was “…not having the right kind of infrastructure…” Yes, that’s what Al said. I have to wonder what kind of “infrastructure” Al was referring to, because the reason for such a disparity in teen pregnancies is due to a lack of relationship with Dad. That’s all it is.

The reason black and Hispanic children have nearly a 300% higher rate of teen pregnancy than white children is because of a higher rate of fathers abandoning their children and/or their pregnant girlfriends. It’s not about “infrastructure”. It’s about relationships, Al.

The media will call me “racist” and will deny that what I’ve said is true, but you and I both know that what I’ve said is true. I don’t care about what the media says, nor do I care what people who subscribe to Political Correctness think about my columns. Those people need serious emotional, psychological and Spiritual help which they aren’t willing to seek. I can’t help them anymore than I can help Al Sharpton. No one can help someone who isn’t willing to accept help.

So we pray for them and wait for them to ask for help. Until then, the media and clowns and fools the media chooses to fill air time with will continue to look America in the face and lie about virtually everything. Their collective and individual Denial rendering them incapable of honest personal inventory, they will remain both deceived and dishonest until such time as they seek help for their own personal emotional problems.

And I will continue to ignore ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and MSNBC who are the bastions of Political Correctness, propaganda and dishonesty in journalism. If you ever wondered why such an obvious clown and buffoon such as Al Sharpton continue to get so much airtime regarding issues about which they clearly know absolutely nothing, now you know.

Allowing dysfunctional people who appear to be suffering from lifelong emotional problems, as well as anger and racist issues, to speak publicly on behalf of millions of black people on national television is a travesty. That Rivera even sought this man out in order to use him in his little circus tonight says volumes about the lack of integrity under which Geraldo Rivera conducts himself. That Fox News allows Rivera to use such an obviously affected man who has never made much of an attempt to walk closely to the truth is a disappointment to me. It shows a lack of integrity on the part of Fox News, Geraldo Rivera, and the star supposed “expert” of Rivera’s segment tonight, Al Sharpton.

The media continues to lower the bar daily, showing a complete lack of integrity and instead proving again that the media can no longer be entrusted with the responsibility of keeping we, the people informed about anything. Using Al Sharpton to misrepresent such an important social issue as teen pregnancy is proof of that. The media simply isn’t in the news business any longer. As far as entertainment is concerned, it is failing in that arena, as well.

The title of this column should have read “Al Sharpton: Pathetic, Needy and Dishonest” because that’s what he is.

THE STATE OF OUR NATION (Part 2)

Many parents, it seems, simply no longer have time to devote to really discerning who each child really is, how sensitive or overly sensitive they might be emotionally, what talents they might have which could – and should – be nurtured, what needs and/or challenges they have for closeness or intimacy which may not be being met on a given day. Our own careers, our want for recreation (drinking with friends – call it “a barbecue” or “visiting” or whatever you want, when alcohol is always involved, it’s really about medicating with friends), and our own self-centeredness robs us of important time and energy which might have been devoted to learning more about who our children actually are, and what their actual needs might be, so that that our children could grow into healthy adults and the multi-generational cycle of abuse and neglect might be broken.

I see the results of unhealthy upbringings every day where I work. Sweet and wonderful men who didn’t have the benefit of having had parents who truly took an interest in who their child was because they were too busy trying to get their own still unidentified needs met, who didn’t really care so much about what their child’s individual needs or sensitivities might be – who their child really is – but really just wanted their child not to be a pain in their behind and did their best to force their child to be obedient, to control their child, and to get their kids to submit to their (parents’) will. Children were perceived largely, if you will, as problems much of the time, not as sensitive little Human Beings who might be acting out because they had needs which weren’t being identified or met.

The reason I’m spending so much time on this before I get into the details of The Miracle is simple. As I’ve worked with others over the past 20 years, helping them to identify their own brokenness and find healing after lifetimes of unmet and even previously unidentified needs, God has shown me some surprising and startling – disturbing, even – things along the way. (a) That it isn’t just drug addicts, alcoholics, sex addicts or sex offenders who display obvious symptoms of childhood abuse and neglect. (b) I see evidence of the same symptoms in stores, on the roadway, in public schools and virtually everywhere I look.

I’m not saying everyone has suffered from generational abuse or neglect or hasn’t had their needs met growing up, but I am suggesting that this description describes, in my observation, the vast majority of us. Healthy child rearing is the exception in America. To one degree or another, virtually all of us have grown up without the benefit of healthy parents raised by healthy parents. Do you understand what I just said? Alcoholism, control issues, egos, inferiority complexes, drug addiction, anger issues, power struggles, superiority complexes, fear, general dysfunction which comes from generations of unhealthy childhoods and the struggle to keep up with the Jones’s at all costs – all were present in the homes we grew up in, collectively speaking, and our parents were as oblivious to it all as we’ve been. Sadly, it’s the children who pick up the tab for this dysfunction, who then grow into dysfunctional adults, who in turn raise more dysfunctional children. If you ever wondered why the divorce rate is so high in America, it’s because Americans don’t value principled living anymore…again, collectively speaking.

Whether adult or child, the demand for attention is evidence of self-centeredness and reveals an individual who didn’t get enough or the right kinds of attention early on. Look at the public school playgrounds, particularly middle schools and high schools. Children are collectively crying out for attention like never before, acting out in unhealthy ways like no generation before them. They are so hungry for real love, emotionally needy and so lacking for truth that they’ll believe practically anything that is told to them which appeals to their own self-centeredness. This generation in schools today is experiencing the results of ongoing generational abuse and neglect exacerbated by Mom being driven out of the home (forced into employment by perceived financial neediness) by political correctness 40 years ago. The desire to have a career and keep up with the Jones’ took priority over “Who is going to raise our children?”, leaving children (a) to be raised primarily by daycare workers who typically do not love them, and (b) with parents who were raised by their own parents who believed that fear was a good tool which was utilized liberally in order to try to control their own children.

Then look at the groups of adults who demand our attention most. Who comes to mind? The incessant demands for attention are caused by the same issues: lack of real and intimate connection with parent(s) growing up, needs not met, dictatorship parenting styles, abuse, neglect and abandonment (emotional or physical – i.e. dads not in the home) including emotional disconnect with parents who are still in the home, but who are emotionally unavailable to their spouses and children.

I’m sure no one wants to believe I’m referring to them. If you live in America, however, the odds are good that I am referring to you. The odds are great, in fact. The only reason Liberalism has been allowed to drive our nation toward Socialism is because Americans don’t value principled living anymore, collectively speaking. The worship of Self is due to the lack of healthy relationships in our homes. Read it and weep if you must, but it’s true. Dysfunctional adults are teaching our children in public schools, many of whom have abandoned God out of their love of Self. Our children are being taught to be codependent like the teachers, to revere sexual dysfunction and pretend it’s normal, to mock and ridicule or at least ignore God in favor of pretending Evolution is proven science, which it’s not. While all of this is going on, where are we, the parents? Having been raised on the same dysfunctional crap, many of us are home watching American Idol hoping our children will just leave us alone tonight.

Our posterity has been hijacked, and collectively speaking we, like Patty Hearst, have now joined the hijackers and aid and abet them in their sickness. America is only going to get worse until Americans decide that humility and self-control, rigorous honesty and love and acceptance and faith – all of the Spiritual principles we’ve abandoned – are valuable again.

THE MIRACLE: Let’s get started with what we can do about this state of generational dysfunction. If you’ve been reading with me so far, the pump ought to be primed by now, so let’s start with Humility – next…