From Ned Holstein on MLK Day—Do You Respect Yourself as a Father?
From Ned Holstein, MD, MS, Executive Director of Fathers & Families:
Self-Respect, MLK, and Fathers — Do You Respect Yourself as a Father?
Boston, MA–I have a hunch that huge numbers of fathers in America do not respect themselves as fathers. They may respect themselves as employees, as churchgoers, as guitarists, tennis players or friends, but not as fathers.
If men truly respected themselves as fathers, why would so many meekly accept second-class parenthood after separation or divorce? Why would so many watch television shows and ads that insult fathers? Why would so many vote for candidates who insult fathers? Why would so many in intact relationships routinely defer to mom’s judgment about what is best for the kids? Why would so many have children out of marriage, denying them any meaningful legal rights to their children?
I don’t know how many fathers this affects, except that the number is large. And I believe this lack of self-respect is at the heart of why the fathers’ movement is still a marginal force in society.
It was not always so. When the feminists complain about a history of “patriarchy,” they are talking about an era when fathers made most of the decisions about children. And if the parents parted, the children stayed with dad.
Somehow, we have swung from one extreme to another, from patriarchy to matriarchy. We need to find the middle. (I most definitely am not calling for a return to patriarchy. Fathers & Families’ principles are clear: we believe in shared responsibility for children if both parents are fit.)
About two years ago, I gave a short speech at one of our General Membership Meetings, attended by the usual crowd of 90 or 100 people. The topic was “Shame.” I thought it was a topic of mild interest to our members, but worth thinking about. To my astonishment, it generated perhaps the strongest reaction of any talk I have given. Some people were tearful, and many emailed me the next day to tell me how powerfully my words had affected them personally.
I think there is a lot of shame among fathers. And I think it gets in the way of reclaiming our fatherhood. Thus, it causes us to shortchange our children.
This brings me around to Martin Luther King. He was shot in Memphis in 1968. He was in Memphis to support a strike by garbage collectors, who sought better wages. To this day, I remember the photographs of the picket lines: old, forlorn, beaten-down black men carrying signs.
Here is what struck me and has stayed with me. The signs did not say “Higher Wages.” They did not say “More Paid Holidays.”
They said, “I Am A Man.” The men holding these signs wore their Sunday best.
It was a statement of pride among men who were accustomed to shame and defeat.
Our movement today will succeed when men all over the country throw off shame and say with pride, “I Am A Father.”
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Martin Luther King did a speech that was well ahead of his time: “I must be about my father’s business”. King was primary referring to the ending of racism at that time.
As we know now — with radical feminism borne within the Women’s Ku Klux Klan (and very much a part of the emotional dynamic causing brute hate of blacks) — the only difference between racism and sexism is the target for wanton social and economic repression. The WKKK used the same sexual imagery against black men that are today used against all men.
When feminists left the Klan in the mid-1930’s, they simply repointed their hate at all men. through the 1940’s and 50’s, they picked up Marcusian and Frankfurt School philosophies, “scientifically buttressed” their views with Freudian pseudo-science, and then learned how to use sex as both an irresistable carrot and an entitlement tool by adopting Kinsey’s attitudes toward full-blown sexual liberation. Then feminism came out armored to the hilt in the 1960’s. We all know the results today.
Here is and audio of King’s speech given at a mass in Birmingham:
Its at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1136695
” Don’t worry about your children, they’re gonna be all right. Don’t hold them back if they want to go to jail. For they are doing a job not only for themselves but for all of America and for all mankind. Somewhere we read, “A little child shall lead them.” Remember there was another little child just twelve years old and he got involved in a discussion back in Jerusalem . . . . He said, “I must be about my father’s business.” These young people are about their fathers’ business. And they are carving a tunnel of hope through the great mountain of despair . . . . We are going to see that they are treated right, don’t worry about that . . . and go on and not only fill up the jails around here, but just fill up the jails all over the state of Alabama if necessary.
May 5, 1963
Men must demand respect, and we will do it by pointing out everywhere we go that feminists have left more women pregnant, in poverty, having to “do it all”, in a society declining because feminism taught them to think that government is better than having a decent husband.
Thanks for the reminder, Ned. (and Glenn).
You wouldn’t just happen to have that speech on file somewhere would you? I’d like to read it.