The World Needs More Fathers
For 50 years we told men that fathers were optional. Now the bill is due.
Over the past 50 years we’ve spent an enormous amount of energy telling young men the same thing over and over: YOU ARE OPTIONAL.
And the results have been disastrous...
Most of Western civilization is crumbling. And for some reason everyone has a theory about why: the economy, iPhones, school, and politicians.
But it’s NONE of those.
It is simply the disappearance of fathers.
We have spent decades mocking the role, minimizing the role, and treating father like some outdated piece of the past. IT'S TIME THAT THIS ENDS.
And it's in every fabric of society…
Ever notice the TV sitcom dad (that’s in every show) thats mad to look like an idiot?
My own father pointed this out to me when I was a kid and it never left me. The TV dad is always a bumbling fool. Overweight, out of shape, with a lukewarm IQ barely present while he's a punchline for the show.
Now hold that up against the father from the old TV shows. The 1950s dad who knew what he was doing. Present. Steady. Aware of everything happening under his roof.
None of this is my accident because our culture wrote a story where a father is either a punchline or a paycheck, and it sold that story to young men and women as progress.
NOW THE BILL IS DUE.
Some sobering numbers:
Roughly 1 in 3 American kids now live in a home without a father. That’s around 20 million kids. The United States has the highest rate of single-parent households on the planet. More than three times the global average.
More data says kids without a father in the home are nearly 4X more likely to grow up in poverty. By one estimate the government spends north of $150 billion a year cleaning up the downstream damage.
THIS IS THEFT.
This is theft not just from our fathers but also from our children. And it's also theft from our country. And the more you study how it happened, the harder it gets to believe the whole thing was an accident.
So let me tell you what a father actually is, and what we need do about it…
Fathers Are Identity Givers
“And you, fathers, provoke not your children to anger; but bring them up in the discipline and correction of the Lord.” (Ephesians 6:4)
I spent years studying education and have master’s degree in it. One of the first things you learn is that children are mimetic learners. They learn by imitation. They absorb far more from what they watch than from anything they’re told.
When growing up child needs to know four things:
Who he is
Where he comes from
What’s expected of him
And what kind of person he’s supposed to become
And who does a child watch for these answers? His father.
A son learns what manhood is by watching his Dad. How he attacks his day. What he builds. What he creates and what he refuses to create.
A daughter learns what kind of man can be trusted, and one day married, by watching how her father carries himself and how he treats her mother.
Children inherit a standard for how to approach the world long before they inherit any kind of financial wealth or generational wealth.
So take in mind this a father hands down more than a last name.
He hands down a WORLD to belong to. Strip that story away and the kid goes hunting for it somewhere else, and a society comes apart one confused child at a time.
The Home Is Where Civilization Begins
Plenty of people love Elon Musk. I like the guy, I think he he’s rich and mostly does good things. But civilization doesn’t begin in Silicon Valley or in Washington DC. Most of the people you look up to hold LESS influence then you think.
Because influence BEGINS in your home.
Trace any cultural rot far enough and the road runs back to your front door.
“Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” (Proverbs 22:6)
Every nation or civilization that ever stood the test of time was built out of households run by fathers first. Every law, every cathedral, every army began as a set of habits formed at HOME.
So you don’t repair a civilization from the top down like Hillary Clinton (It Takes a Village) wants you to believe. Because there is NO policy, no election, no founder who fixes what a broken home breaks.
Society can only get repaired one father at a time.
This is because of Father's weight carries everything. The energy he projects will be what is carried in its house and kids feel it long before they can name it, and they carry it out the front door and project it into the rest of the world.
This Is Your Father’s Day
If you’re a man without children yet: Becoming a father is one of the greatest things that will ever happen to you. It one of the greatest thing to happen to me. I HOPE IT HAPPENS TO YOU.
If you already have kids, congratulations.
You’re holding the most important job on earth.
Be the man your children can imitate. Protect them. Love your wife where they can see it. Cherish your daughters. Teach your sons. And get them to church every single Sunday.
The world needs more fathers because the world needs more men willing to be responsible for something bigger than themselves.
The future of Wester Civilization depends on it.
If you’re serious about building something of your own online, here’s an invitation.
On July 7th I’m hosting a private call for paid subscribers of Profit and Purpose.
You’ll get on live with me and The Culturist, we’ll pull up your Substack, and we’ll give you immediate feedback on Articles or your page right on the spot.
Between the two of us we reach roughly two million people online, and The Culturist runs some of the most lucrative pages on this platform. Getting both of us to help YOU in real time is
Click below, become a paid subscriber, and I’ll send out the details soon.
Otherwise, enjoy your beautiful Father’s Day.
- Dino Anthony
The simplest and hardest way to parent is: Be the man you want your son to be.
Not easy, but it's simple.
In seven years as a criminal defence attorney, the majority of juvenile male offenders I appeared for did not have contact with their fathers.