Men Aren’t Going Away, But What Will We Do With Them?

There were several thought provoking pieces getting a lot of play right now related to the increasing disconnection of both working class and disadvantaged men from jobs and family responsibilities. I will give you the links to the three pieces, a highlight from each, and then make a simple point.

Naomi Cahn and June Carbone wrote a piece in Slate:  JustSay No: For white working-class women, it makes sense to stay single mothers. Cahn and Carbone argue that, for many women with young children, it makes little sense to marry any man, including the father of their child, because the men available are not great candidates for making the lives of these women any better.

KJ Dell’Antonia writes a blog called Motherlode for the New York Times, and she digs in on some of the arguments Cahn and Carbone make. Her piece, entitled Working-Class FathersShouldn’t Be So Easily Dismissed, is excellent.  Here’s the part that I think is crucial:  

These are not foolish women or bad men. More and more young women are already making the choice to raise children alone, but while that choice may be rational, we as a society should hesitate before embracing it as a way forward or even accepting it as a done deal. In respecting the decision makers, we let both the causes and the costs of the choice off the hook, and risk normalizing a situation that presents real consequences for the overstressed mothers, the uninvolved fathers and the children caught up in their wake.

The implications of writing off these men are huge.

Here’s one more article if you want to complete the trifecta; these three pieces are a good bet to get you thinking about what’s happening to working class and disadvantaged men.

Michael Jindra is an anthropologist who wrote a piece for the blog of the Institute for Family Studies, entitled Why Working-Class Men are Falling Behind. He aims at the nexus of issues affecting the opportunities of scores of young men in our society: family structure, education, and declining industrialization. In all three of these domains, there are declines in tools and structures that bring about positive socialization. Jindra also discusses how trends in entertainment—especially video games—may be crowding out the abilities of boys to take advantage of what opportunities they might have (e.g., reading). Of course, video games, while a common focus for young men from all walks in life, are also going to be a way to cope with a world of lost opportunity through some semblance of adventure or impact—even if the impacts are based in the modeling and practicing of atrocious behavior (e.g., Grand Theft Auto).

My favorite section from his piece is this:

All of these things mentioned above—early reliance on stimulating entertainment, lower educational attainment, disconnection from families and role models, and the attractions of different, “edgy” subcultures—contribute to a widening gulf between those more connected to family, work, and society, and those without these commitments. While men are losing connections, women continue to participate in the labor force, attend religious services more often, and belong to other community and civic organizations. This is partly because many have dependent children and need to support them, whereas men can to a large extent avoid this responsibility.

Connection to children can foster responsibility behavior in other domains, and this seems to be largely happening now for women but less and less for men.

It is easy to think of all these themes as merely reflecting the opportunities and choices of individuals. But I think we are watching some negative trends of historic proportions, with men being increasingly disconnected from roles and responsibilities regarding work and family. I have long thought of this simple fact: When men do not have positive roles to play in society, they do not just sit around and do nothing. Many get in trouble. Not all, but many. This concern applies to women as well, but the trends right now seem especially concerning for men.

We need to keep talking a lot about men. These are not just changes in individual lives that are unfolding but changes in important aspects of how society functions. I do not have any simple suggestions, though my diagnosis is that we are seeing both a real net loss of opportunities compared to the past while at the same time seeing the failure of institutions such as family and schools that serve to structure how individuals can benefit from the opportunities life presents.

To use a play on the words from the title of Hanna Rosin’s work and book, there is a growing problem because there really is not going to be an end to men.

Worth Reading: On Fatherhood and Challenges Where Things Have Come Apart

Whatever your politics or beliefs about policy strategies, this piece by Charles Blow is excellent for describing the pain involved for men and their children, and the immensity of the challenges that exist for those seeking to restore fatherhood in some of the most highly disadvantaged contexts.  Fathers’ Sons and Brothers’ Keepers by Charles Blow.

*

“I'll take anyone.”

You might have seen this story. If you have not, take a look here or here.

Davion Navar Henry Only is a 16 year-old young man, without mother or father or family. What he does have is guts and a deep desire to be loved. Last Sunday, with the encouragement of his case-worker, Connie Going, Davion went to church and made a request. It’s not so unusual to go to church and make a request. In my experience, however, those requests most often are sent God’s way, not expressed with such pathos directly to the congregants. Davion made a direct request to those he stood before. He asked for a family. Imagine what it might be like to do such a thing. The terror in asking, as a child, to be loved.

As the stories note, Davion said, “I'll take anyone. Old or young, dad or mom, black, white, purple. I don't care. And I would be really appreciative. The best I could be.”

You don’t hear every day of a 16 year-year old asking for a family. Yet the power of this story lies in the fact that it is very much an every-day story. There are scores of children who would love nothing more than to have a family to belong to and to love them.

I almost didn’t read this article because I knew it would be painful to absorb. Like so many others, Davion has a lot going against him in life. His mother gave birth to him in prison; nothing is said in the news stories of his father. In fact, as reported, he never knew his mother or father, and has been raised in various temporary homes for his whole life. He just discovered this year that his mother had passed on, which one of the stories suggests motivated him to wait no longer for what could not come from those quarters.

Not surprisingly, Davion has had some difficulties with anger and managing his behavior. But as the stories make clear, he’s attempting to turn that all around. If the stories are accurate, his motive is not only to be a better person but to earn what many children can take for granted. The poignant part is the obvious part. A young man pleads for what he’s never had, which is something too many children never will have: stability and love.

I usually write about statistics and trends and policies and personal behaviors that impact one’s odds of lasting love. I usually write without putting a face on the pain that is behind the ever-increasing numbers of children who have the hard luck to be born in what I clinically call “low-commitment contexts.” That’s a tidy and descriptive term for the increased odds of pain that come when children do not have adults committed to raising them. When I use this term, I do not mean to judge the parents of such children harshly. What would be the point? Many people who have children in low commitment contexts are hardly adults themselves (and I merely mean, age-wise), and many of any age grew up in contexts filled with family instability. While one can easily understand—hopefully with actual compassion—the difficulties that lead so many children to be exposed to unstable or even dangerous homes, that understanding does not lesson the consequences to individuals, society, and the hearts of children.

I wanted to draw attention to the story of Davion because he says so clearly what is rarely put into words. He wants a family, and he knows he’s running out of time to experience one as a child.

For those of you who work to help others better understand relationships, love, and commitment, Davion is the face of why your work matters. You are doing something important. And for those of you who have adopted and taken in children like Davion, you are heroes.  I cannot think of a more apt word for the love you dare to send into the world.

*

Fatherlessness and Vulnerability: Observations on Sandusky's Crimes

Many things go together. Ice cream and apple pie. Peanut butter and jelly.  Bacon and eggs.

Here’s another. The growing trends in unmarried childbirth and family disintegration go hand-in-hand with fatherlessness. As my recent posts on Isabel Sawhill’s op-ed highlight, the trends are alarming no matter where you are coming from in how you see it.

If you want the stats, you can go to the National Fatherhood Initiative’s webpage.  There is a lot of great information there.

I was thinking about this related to the story of Jerry Sandusky at Penn State.  He’s the long-time assistant in the football program there who started a foundation to work with young males—and who just got convicted for sexually assaulting, abusing, and taking advantage of scores of teenage boys.  That’s all horrible.

One really sad part of this all jumped out at me from several of the news accounts. It’s about the young men that he preyed upon.  He went after vulnerable young men who already were disadvantaged; who did not have a caring, responsible, involved father or father-figure in their lives.

In a story in the Daily Beast, one reads:

Theirs was a three-year-long relationship, the young man told the court, encouraged by his mother as a way for him to have a male figure in his life. Staring at the floor with his one good eye, the witness said that physical, sexually-charged contact with Sandusky started almost immediately. 

The Daily Beast story noted of another victim:

Like most of the other accusers, the 25-year-old sergeant in the Army National Guard who took the stand with a close-cropped military haircut had no father in his life. When Sandusky showed interest by taking him to football games and family functions, he told the jury, “It was awesome. I loved it. He was like a father to me.” . . . With his head hanging and in a whispered tone he said, “I was enjoying the other things I was getting too much. I loved him.”

A story in the New York Times noted this fact:

A jury in Centre County Court convicted Sandusky, 68, of sexually assaulting 10 boys, all of them children from disadvantaged homes whom Sandusky, using his access to the university’s vaunted football program, had befriended and then repeatedly violated.

These stories made me profoundly sad for these young men and their obvious desires to connect with an older, trustworthy male. Older and male they got; trustworthy, not at all, and this doubtless added to the pain in their lives.  And these young men were the ones who could find the strength to come forward and testify in court. There are so many others touched by these dynamics even if never touched by Sandusky.

As I noted in my post some time back about the perfect storm, I do not see how these kinds of vulnerabilities cannot be accelerating throughout American society.  We’re going to need multiple strategies on many levels to even begin to cope with this new reality.  The dynamics are not new, but the percentage of those affected by them has to be skyrocketing.

*