Growing Pains in the Men’s Movement
A few years ago, I was Secretary of ACFC, and essentially in the same position as Dr. Stephen Baskerville is – wanting to do a lot more than work on the shared-parenting issue. At the time, I could not understand why ACFC did not want to expand the scope of work. The reason is simple: it costs more money to take on other issues, and ACFC simply does not have the financial resources to do that.
In speaking with Mr. Baskerville, Mr. Roberts, and John Maguire, it became clear to me that ACFC and the men’s movement is going through another round of growing pains. Since I have been there, done that (the hard way), I am in a position to comment on it.
At the time I left ACFC, the men’s movement was not connected with the world of politics or academia. Many thought my leaving ACFC was the end of the men’s movement. It was not. I went on to build bridges into major think tanks and political networks, while ACFC went on to begin driving shared-parenting initiatives in many states.
During his tenure as President of ACFC, Stephen Baskerville brought our issues into the academic world – resulting in our first peer-reviewed published articles. In about a month, his book will be available – published by a well-known conservative publisher. If all goes well, this will lead to even closer policy relations with conservative think tanks and political leaders who, at the time of the Republican Revolution, did not have a clue about what to do with welfare reform other than to send women to work and collect child support. But, it appears to me that Stephen’s calling is in the larger world of academia and politics – working a larger scope of issues than ACFC does.
I must point out that Stephen’s term of office as President of ACFC expired in January this year. ACFC is overdue for elections – because it has been so busy doing other things. An election is overdue.
In my analysis, whether Mr. Baskerville remains as President of ACFC is relatively unimportant. ACFC will continue to aggressively work for shared parenting within the constraints of its philanthropic resources. Steve will continue aggressively working academic and political circles. Even if Stephen is not President, he will likely remain a policy advisor, and continue working the wider scope of issues independently of his work with ACFC. In this case, ACFC will probably seek a president who is very savvy with the media and can put shared parenting initiatives over the top in the future in public media battles.
But this is not the only “growing” change occurring in the movement. Most readers are aware that I have recently begun working with Heritage and Family Research Council. These think tanks are beginning to realize that our legislative suggestions are what they have needed all along. They recently realized that two of the major goals of welfare reform were not addressed in the 1996 reforms – reducing illegitimacy and improving marriage rates. Out answers go towards implementing these goals.
We were not on the horizon in 1994 – the National Congress for Fathers and Children was the “leading” organization in those days. NCFC was falling apart due to very serious internal corruption, and not interacting with the world in any meaningful way. Father’s rights did not register on the political landscape — and still is largely unrecognized today – because our approach as a “special interest” does not spill over into the larger political diaspora well.
Stephen Baskerville and I have worked closely for many years now. Stephen agrees that “Marriage Values” can open more doors for us than any possible combination of “father’s rights” language. It seems that he and a few other respected leaders of this movement are moving towards working from a marriage reform platform.
As we execute on this plan, this movement may finally have the well-financed “umbrella group” it has been seeking for many years. A marriage-based organization covers all the issues, and does so from a bulletproof political position.
Men’s organizations will remain an important part of the marriage reform movement effort – even though their work does not work in this vein directly. Men’s organizations have always worked on relatively narrow areas of focus – such as litigation, shared parenting, protesting, child support reform, and no-fault divorce reform. This level of specialization is, of course, a necessity when working on very small budgets and a relatively small number of individuals. Therefore, leaders of these organizations must continue to discourage criticism of other groups or leaders who do not focus on issues the way they do.
Men’s groups will continue their greatest work – which is to harness all that anger and turn it into activism and love. Fathers who cannot be fathers have plenty of time and anger. It is our duty to change America and leave it a better place for our children. We have been drafted into the war on marraige. We have a responsibility to end this war. Those who do not find a support group are the ones who sometimes go ballistic and often end up in prison for the rest of their lives. Outreach to troubled brothers (and sisters), and organizing them to effect this change, is tremendously important work.
Leaders often fail to understand how to make their groups successful. Getting members and telling them what to do always ends up in failure. The most successful groups take each member, find out what that member wants to do and is good at doing, and then letting them do that in an organized way with perhaps a few necessary constraints. Correspondingly, members should be willing to live within those constraints, or figure out something else they would like to do within the goals of their organizations — and be willing to work independently where their calling falls outside the goals of the group.
As activists, we all do the best we can with the tools we have at the time. Over the past 19 years I have seen major advances in the movement. Granted, they are not paying off as fast as we imagine they should. Such is the nature of overcoming the inertia of mass culture and politics. Patient persistence is required.
Folks always become jittery when change takes place. It goes without saying that “maintaining the status-quo” is not a good idea at this point in time because we have not yet won the war on marriage. Change is good — so long as it occurs for the right reasons. It appears this is one of these occasions.
We do know one thing: there will always be many opinions about how an organization should be run. These perennial discussions are largely moot and often counter-productive. The bottom line is the deciding factor — he who provides the major funding to an organization gets to make that decision — because that decision immediately translates into a financial obligation.
One thing I am certain about after my conversations with other leaders over the past couple of days – this movement will not repeat the mistakes of the past. Everyone involved will do the right thing, for the long-term benefit of the movement.
————————————————-
David R. Usher is Senior Policy Analyst for the True Equality Network and President of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children, Missouri Coalition
| More from David R. Usher
Stumble It!
