Parentless kids, emasculated leaders

[Prodigal_Son]

I think it’s pretty undeniable that more and more children in this culture are without parents, and certainly without dads. As a boy who grew up without a dad, this breaks my heart more than I can say. It’s not uncommon for such children to encounter unique challenges, and God knows there are plenty of challenges that the culture is throwing at our kids, fatherless or not. In decades past, one thing that would happen in these situations is that an adult would “stand in the gap” and be like a parent to an aimless or disadvantaged young person. With young boys, I think this often happened by the intervention of someone like a sports coach, a priest, a scouting leader, a teacher, or the like.

But now, I want you to imagine being such a priest or coach or leader, and recognizing that a child in your care is deeply troubled or needy. How can you help them? They need someone to talk to, and they probably would feel more comfortable talking, the more private the context is. But in this climate, do you think a male leader would be willing to risk that kind of interaction? My feeling is they wouldn’t. And the advice they’ve been given – “never be alone with a child”, “don’t touch a child” – may be good advice, pragmatically. But when a child is starved for love, this kind of standoffishness isn’t really what they need. It’s certainly not the way that a dad or a mom would behave.

I’m guessing that 50 years ago, there were a lot of healthy mentoring relationships of the sort such kids need, and I’m guessing that was one of the bedrocks behind the social stability of society in years past. But what do we do now that adults are too cautious – reasonably cautious – to engage needy kids in this way? Is this an acceptable situation? Do we just tell the kids, “too bad, so sad”, and move on? Or what can we do, to address the needs of children in a way that does not put either the children at risk of abuse or the adults at risk of false accusation?

 

[Mavzylor]

I think anybody that truly cares would form a relationship with the child’s guardians and work through it with them involved, or gain custody of the child if necessary.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

I think anybody that truly cares would form a relationship with the child’s guardians and work through it with them involved, or gain custody of the child if necessary.

Thanks for the response. I don’t know that most people in these situations have been able to change their lives entirely for the child, though. It’s usually just having an impact and being a listening ear, not adopting or the like.

 

[Mavzylor]

If they can’t change their life for the child, then I don’t know as they should act as as a “stand in” parent. If I were a coach, and knew that a kid didn’t have a father, and he was opening up to me, I would talk about it with his single mother. Once she knows me, then I don’t see any problems arising from me listening to her son. It’s the coaches that walk away from the kids when parents show up that are sketchy. I would also encourage the kid to talk to his mom about whatever we talk about.

 

[redbetta]

As a young woman a week from being 21, I wish I had a mentor. My dad is a good provider, but emotionally distant and my mom was always too tired being the household servant to a family on par with the Kardashians in terms of dysfunction. On top of that, we had a langauge barrier. I could have sought guidance from my peers, who knew as much as I did or I could have chosen whatever was popular. I dove into books and rediscovered my religion. Growing up, we were asked to do reports on a hero in our lives for homework all the time and I could not even do the cop-out and call my parents my heroes. I was just being honest. Now, Benedict XVI is the only man that I feel is a hero to me and to a lesser extent other Catholic figures. I have no one of my own sex that I admire. In fact, a lot of the female figures touted as heros nowadays don’t represent me at all.

I have a dream of adopting an older male child to be my son. I want an older child/teenager because everyone wants to adopt little kids and babies and I want a boy in particular because girls enjoy a lot of institutional support and boys are cared about less despite falling behind in educational achievement and being more likely to get sucked into a life of crime. However, I am worried about not finding a husband, because I would not be able to give the poor kid what he needs on my own. It just pierces my heart that I want to help boys, but, by the fact that I am a woman, I cannot give them what they need. Meanwhile, I’d have no problem with a male mentor and would actually prefer it.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

I’m not thinking about the role as being a “stand in” parent, just as providing SOME of the things that a parent does, some of the time. As a fatherless son, I can tell you that no one was going to be able to become my “stand in dad”; it just wasn’t going to happen. But I needed men in my life who showed real concern for and interest in me, and I didn’t have men like that.

 

[Mavzylor]

I’m sorry that you didn’t, and I think you are right that many don’t. Maybe it is because people are scared of being accused of something, or maybe it is because a lot of people just don’t want to disrupt their lives for a troubled person. Either way it is very sad.

 

[Norseman82]

My personal observation is to add the following thought: years ago, children became parentless due to the death of one or more parent. Today, the tragedy is there is an increase in parentless children because their parents divorce or they are born out of wedlock and the parents never marry (add to that adoption/IVF by same-sex “couples”)… Whereas the situation years ago was brought about by chance, today’s situations are often brought about by choice, and not good choices at that!

 

[JimG]

A good point. Many fatherless or motherless children today are in that situation because of choices made by adults.