Lowering teenage pregancies through father involvement after divorce.
My letter to this Washington Post article is below
Ronald Regan once said “The most fearful words any American can hear are: Hello, I am the Government and I am here to help you…” Government can't find money to provide the basics: Roads, healthcare, condoms or fund a legal system that empowers you to exercise rights without going bankrupt. Nowhere is that more so than Family Court. Fathers are routinely jettisoned out of their daughters (and sons) lives every day: We fathers are all violent brutes that don’t love our wives and kids and are irresponsible and nothing but deadbeats.
Yet statistically, women initiate the relationship, marriage and now divorce. Very often, they are used as naive pawns by their lawyers; The heartbreak of these pregnant teenage girls is a result because we “ADULTS REALLY SUCK: when it comes to our values and politics as they affect our kids. Those daughters are more likely to not have a father in their life after all is said and done in Family Court whose systems are about money NOT family and children.
The National Organization of Women (N.O.W.) is the source of the problem of rising teenage pregnancy. Men can't have equality in the family but women want it in the workplace. N.O.W relies upon long discredited research by Lenore J. Weitzman, author of The Divorce Revolution. This spawned two of the most well intentioned, yet ill considered pieces of legislation ever: The Bradley Amendment – Debtors Prison for Fathers; and VAWA – both which work to make teenage daughters fatherless and these daughters are more prone to pregnancy.
A father and daughter's relationship is the best first defense to lowering teenage pregnancy, because no one can explain boys better to a girl than Dad. My daughter has made it to 20 and isn't pregnant yet. However all of her other friends without exception have been, and in every case there is no dad in the home. Daughters who have solid relationships with their fathers are better prepared for the consequences of teenage sex. They learn from dad about boys and
have taken dad's advice – “No Glove - no love...”
Let’s connect the dots:
1. Fathers parent differently than Moms. Both are essential to a child's life and doubly so to a teenagers.
2. The reality is that teenage pregnancy is compounded problem of our politics.
3. Corrupt government in bed with a corrupted women's movement blindly accepting "facts” without questioning their basis or legitimacy.
When N.O.W. advocates programs for daughters missing their dads, paternal grandmothers who can no longer see their grandchildren, step-mothers who want to make peace with the ex-wife, teenage pregnancy will drop quicker than any condom for our daughters, who need the necessary guidance, insight and knowledge that fathers impart to daughters about sex, consequences and boys. And a family all on the same page about boys. Only then if condoms are available on every corner, will girls insist on boys using them, because their self-esteem will be enormous - They'll have a father who loves them, protects them and teaches them about how boys can be.
Danny Guspie
Executive Director - Fathers Resources International
www.divorced-dad-daily.com