This is part three in a four-week series on the non-respecter of person issue, fatherhood. 

Week one (linked in online version) I shared the privilege I have of being the fourth generation in my family to sit on the same porch – to ponder all that life has to offer: the joys and sorrows, sickness and healing, new births and deaths, amazing economic times and economic depressions, peace time and war.

Week two, I shared the biological fact that the human race regenerates itself from one generation to the next through sexual activity.  Stated differently, sexual activity creates life. In the resulting inter-generational baton race, of which we are all a part, the man and woman can then choose to work together to pass their values, goals, desires and dreams to their next generation.

But, I shared that we have a huge population of males within our republic, who after begetting children, lack the fortitude to become real men, fathers. I stated my belief that this is a national security issue.

This weekend we head into Independence Day, today, more commonly referred to as July 4^th Weekend.  Maybe we don’t call it Independence Weekend because never in the 240-years since The Declaration of Independence was signed have we had a larger percentage of our citizenry dependent upon our centralized government for their very sustenance. We have a shrinking work ethic and a growing such dependence.
As my boys, now young men, finished up High School, I witnessed first-hand the advertisements, via e-mail, telephone, direct mail and even social media urging me to enroll them in the free-breakfast and free-lunch programs in our county public schools, almost as if the school and perhaps the administrators of the programs were financially incentivized for increasing the percentage of those dependent on government provided food.

Even after I lost my job during the great recession, and was considering my next career steps, every time I received those robo-calls, or a direct mail piece, I couldn’t help but think of my father’s words when I was growing up, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.”

Do not hear what I am not saying.  We have a great need for private charity in our republic. We have an obligation to serve the needs of our neighbors and people in our faith communities who are hurting, especially in our current economy.

Personally, I believe one of the greatest ways we can attack the issue of poverty with the required accountability is at the lowest level of civil governance, family to family, within the local community, providing mentorship to help boys become men, to realize the importance, indeed the virtue of independence – and to create within them the desire to do the manliest thing of all – to be the provider for their family.

Google the word fatherlessness, and your heart will break. Fatherlessness leads to dependence – not independence, which we celebrate this weekend.  This is a National Security issue.  More next week.

I hope you have a blessed week!

Scott Cooper

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