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Purplehood wrote:

baldeagle wrote:

Purplehood wrote:

baldeagle wrote:http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/ ... abeeb?pg=1

This story will tear your heart out, both because these children's deaths are being ignored and because you'll know the reason why.

I am confused by the thread title and the gist of the article. I don't see it as immorality but as the lack of guidance from a Father-figure. That guidance, when positive,covers so much more than just what is moral and what is not.

A moral man raises his children properly. An immoral man leaves them and ignores them. Morality IS taking responsibility for those that you father. Does that help?

I stand by my statement. I agree with yours, but still feel it is incomplete.

If one acknowledges that there are fathers who live with their families, and who raise their sons in an immoral behavior, then yes, your point is true. The way I saw it is to acknowledge that without a father in the home, then there isn't any chance at all for a boy. You could say that an absent father is an absence of influence; whereas the presence of an immoral father in the home might also be an impetus for a son to decide not to be like his father......and then maybe to seek that kind of relationship with an unrelated older man.

cheezit wrote:plenty of people make it threw life with out major issues with one or no parent at all around, simply by making better life decisions.

and for the record i do feel bad about the killing of elephants

With all due respect, you're still missing the point at little bit. It is an indisputable fact that the sons of families that have no father in the home are at much higher risk. You are correct in that it is also true that they don't have to wind up as some kind of tragic statistic, and that they can alter the arc of their lives by making good decisions. However, they are far more likely to learn how to make those good decisions in a stable household with a resident father. Without those fathers, they already have a strike against them, and their odds of success go down directly because of that disadvantage. I would go so far as to say that this is a bigger factor than their particular ethnic or economic strata.

Like you, I am also from southern California, and I coached a season of high school football in 2004. The school was Blair High School in Pasadena, and the team was almost entirely black kids, with a couple of hispanics, and one white kid. Those ratios repeated in the general student body. My son was one of maybe 8 or 10 white kids in the school. Those football players who were doing the best in school and were the easiest to work with as a coach were those from stable families with a resident father. Those kids who were struggling the hardest in school, and were the hardest to coach.....and also got in the most trouble away from school.....were the those from households without a father. The very worst troubled young man was a kid who I kind of took under my wing. He lived in a group home because his mother was a crack whore and his father was absent. He was at the same time the toughest AND the most vulnerable kid on the team. He desperately wanted an older man in his life who was a stable person, and for a while, it was my privilege to be that person. I bought him his first suit to go job hunting with. It is inappropriate for the state to be that "person" in a young man's life. In fact, the state is categorically unable to be that influence in a young man's life. But if not a father, then whom?