Single Mothers Raising Men?

Today’s post will generate a lot of controversy but it is discussion that I think is way overdue. The question is can a woman raise a male child to become a “successful” man alone? Now of course the knee jerk reaction will be a resounding yes and there will be story after story of how it was and is being done. I applaud any and all single mothers that are raising young men alone. I pray for you daily. The question remains, is it possible for a woman, a single woman to raise a man on a consistent basis? The reason for this question stated this way is because of the numbers of young black men being raised by single mothers. Has this been positive for Black people or negative?

Due to the diverse myriad of information and scenarios, I am not going to try to answer this question in one post. I plan to continue this series periodically so that we are able to examine as much data and empirical evidence as we can. I am going to be proposing some controversial steps and ideas and I want to provide them with a full hearing. I ask that you be open minded and at least consider the proposals before dismissing them out of hand.

The rule of thumb has always been that a boy needs a man in the house to imitate and emulate the masculine skills needed to successfully navigate manhood in a hostile environment. With the landscape of the “family” changing daily, the question is this still a valid assumption or was it ever valid? We must begin by developing some common ground that we can proceed from or our debate will be grounded before ever taking flight.

Are men and women different and does being a man or woman require different skills to be successful? This is always a fly in the ointment for many, because we often times equate different with unequal. Men and women are equal in the eyes of their Creator and should be so in the world, with that being said men and women are different. Men and women were created to fill different roles and despite our societies insistence to the contrary the fact remains. Most women can bear children and have a more maternal or protective instinct of the family than men. Because we are a continuation of nature we can look to nature to get some ideas of the difference in roles between the species. Regardless of our desire to rid ourselves of our connections to our untamed neighbors we share a lot of similar behaviors with them. It’s funny in nature how it is often the mother that does most of the raising of the off-spring and giving them guidance in hunting, surviving, and development into adulthood.

As independent parents raising children without the presence of a father, mothers have long been treated with dubiousness, fear, and even contempt. Traditional theories contended that mothers who reared sons without the presence of an active father -- or who were married but “overbearing” or raising “mama’s boys” -- instilled lifelong psychic disability, schizophrenia, or, worst, homosexuality in their sons. More recently, society’s guardians have declared that mothers -- especially single mothers, whether unmarried and poor, divorced and employed, straight or lesbian, or as white and prosperous as Calista Flockhart and Jodie Foster -- are sending violent, drug-using hellions out in into the world, boys who present no positive maleness, all due to the combination of Mom’s presence and Dad’s absence. Since Freud, mothers have been inculcated with the idea that we need to cut our sons’ cords to make them men ready to take on masculine roles in the world, from working toward worldly success to making war.

We have been further told by Freudians, social psychologists, and the popular culture that our sons need their dads in order to become upstanding male citizens. If not for Beaver Cleaver’s mom and dad, June and Ward, where would Beaver and his brother, Wally, have been? Without Ward, wouldn’t the boys have missed the supposedly crucial opportunity to separate from June by identifying with a very present father?

According to Freud and others who followed him, June alone could not have achieved everything required to bring up “the Beav” successfully. During the first 3 to 4 years of Beaver’s life, he would have needed Ward to imitate, long for, and react to, in order to gain the prize of being like his father. This theory -- that boys acquire masculinity only with an in-house male in the mother’s bedroom -- has prevailed to the detriment of both mothers and their sons. It presumes that the earliest relationship between infant and mother is simply a caretaking one. The assumption is that the mother is only a need provider for her son, while he in turn becomes physically and emotionally dependent on her. Eventually, assuming there is a present father in the home, the mother must withdraw herself from the child if her son is to become independent of her and escape the dire fate of being a mama’s boy.[1]

Are these concepts accurate and have they served our community well in the past? Are there any lessons to be learned from the past? I believe we must begin to look at ourselves and ask some tough questions about what we truly believe and what we truly want. We cannot continue to live the way we do and allow the things we do and expect things to improve. On the contrary things are getting worse.

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[1] http://www.peggydrexler.com/excerpt.htm

Chapter 4 Part 2

To continue, here is the place that the white establishment should step forward and accept responsibility for its racist policies that laid the groundwork for our current situation. Whether those policies were intentionally designed to create the atmosphere that helped to destabilize the black family, they did in fact have that effect. Because they penalized the women that were married, the policies sent the message that it was more beneficial to the family not to have a man present. The black woman no longer needed the man for financial security. The purpose of the man became procreation only and many men gladly accepted that role. It removed the responsibility from the man of raising the children they had fathered. However, what the family gained in economic security they lost in family stability. These policies replaced the presence of the father with a monthly check. These policies undermined the family structure and created a dependency that has taken decades to remove. These same policies had the opposite effect of their stated purpose. Instead of lifting people out of poverty and into the mainstream of American economic life, they created generational poverty. Those on the government rolls would pass that dependency on to their children and their children’s children. It became a vicious cycle and created an entrenched underclass. These guidelines also and more importantly perverted the divine plan of God for the family. They forced people to make a choice between economic survival or family loyalty. No one should ever have to make such a choice, but many did.

The purpose of this book is not to explore the depths of man’s inhumanity to his fellow man, but how we as a people must overcome the sin that we now practice with an attitude of indifference. The problem with placing blame for racism is that there is never anyone to accept the responsibility for it. In the white community, it has always been the previous generation that had the problem with racism. Have we been treated unjustly? Of course, we have! Am I trying to excuse the behavior of others towards us? Of course not! Nevertheless, we have to move forward and begin to take responsibility for our own destinies. The problem is that we think white people hate us and some do. The majority of whites are just indifferent towards our plight and us. The opposite of love is not hate it is indifference. Indifference means I do not care if you live or die, just do not bother me. I believe the term used is "NIMBY" or not in my backyard. Let me stay in the suburbs or in my gated community and leave me alone. Hate at least involves some emotion. How many of us now hate someone we once loved? However, how many of us are now indifferent towards someone we once loved?

Our future and our most precious resource depends on our taking responsibility for our own salvation. The salvation of our people and especially of our children depends on us and no one else. The time has come to stop waiting on others to do what we should do for ourselves. Rightly or wrongly, we are in the situation we are in, how we got here is moot. The real question is what are we going to do about it? Are we going to continue to look for help from outside sources, the very sources that enslaved us and counted us as less than a man in the first place? So far, our tactics and game plans have not proved profitable for correcting this gross inequity to the eventual benefit of all our children. It is high time that we take back our communities, one soul at a time. For too long we have had leaders that have enriched themselves at the expense of the rest of us. We have not treated our children as our most precious resource and we have begun to pay the price. What we have given our children as an inheritance is lies and empty promises. Instead of surrendering ourselves to God and getting under His authority, we have been waiting on the same people who enslaved us to rescue us. This is not only illogical and politically impractical, but an insult to our children period. Passing along an entitlement mentality is demeaning to us and to our children as if this world owes us because of our heritage, because of slavery and prejudice. Get over it! Right now, we need to accept the fact that we are our worse enemies. It is always easier to avoid responsibility for our own actions. Granted, someone brought the poison into our neighborhoods, but we did not have to take it. We will only get better results when we demand better from those in positions of responsibility and especially ourselves.

When God freed the Israelites He expected and demanded that they be responsible for themselves. With His guidance they would prosper without the help of their captors. However, when they submitted themselves to God, He would use their captors to prosper them.

“…who says of Cyrus, ‘He is my shepherd and will accomplish all
That I please; he will say of Jerusalem, “Let it be rebuilt.” And
Of the temple, “Let it’s foundation be laid.”’”
Isaiah 44:28

Chapter 3 Part 6

10) Anger of the children

“For son dishonors father, Daughter rises against her mother,
Daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; A man’s enemies
Are the men in his own household.”
Micah 7:6

The most distressing result of this epidemic of fornication to me is the pain/anger of the children. The most devastating thing I have heard is the voice of a child looking for their daddy. Are you my daddy? To see the hopeful look of that child turn to disappointment is heart wrenching. According to God’s perfect plan for the family, every child needs a father and a mother. This was always God’s plan. It was that way from the beginning and continues to this day. As much as some women would like not to believe it, children need a father in their lives. It is a painful thing for a child to grow up missing a parent. It is even more painful if the parent is still alive and is choosing not to be a part of the child’s life or not allowed by the custodial parent. To the child it is not important who is right or wrong in our little petty squabbles. They just miss the parent. With fornication, you add a different component, the child as well as the mother may not even know who the father is. We have all seen or heard about those young women on those daytime talk shows who brought a number of men on the show for DNA testing and it turns out that none of the men were the actual father. We look at the women with empathy or ridicule, but how about that child? Who can know the pain/anger that child feels or will feel in the future? Imagine a person so sexually promiscuous that they do not even know who got them pregnant. Where is the outcry? Where is the help? This person is obviously in need of some serious help.

My main concern for this book is the pain/anger of the young men in our community. We have a generation of angry young men. They have every right to be angry. When they were looking for a man to lead them and to guide them, no one was available. I blame them for their actions, but I do not blame them for their feelings. Women, no matter how many men you have been with you do not know what it takes to be a man. You may know what you like in a man or do not like in a man, but that is very different from being a man. Because of this epidemic of fornication, we have a generation of young men that do not know what it takes to be a man. Their concept and definition of being a man is askew. There have been no men in there lives when they needed them and they are angry. They are especially angry with the men of the generation that begat them. They are acting out this anger daily in our communities through the outbreaks of senseless violence. Because of their anger/pain, they do not respect their own lives or the lives of anyone else. Why do you think that they live the lifestyles they live, take the risks they take. In their minds, they have nothing to lose. Nothing to live for. The value of life for them is cheap. Our communities are not friendly places because of this anger/pain. It does not matter who the victim is. Their anger knows no bounds. The majority of drug dealers in our community are these angry young men. The level of violence is off the charts. I remember when I was a young man, all the drugs were sold by whites and there was not this violence. These angry young black men have gotten a hold of the game and with it has come this senseless violence. Back then, you brought your dope and went about your business; you and your business were appreciated. Not so today, buying drugs from these angry young men is an adventure in abasement. You are giving them your money and you are being verbally and sometimes physically mistreated. It makes no sense. It is as if you went to Wal-Mart and the clerks began to verbally assault you as you walked up to the check out line.

The bulk of the anger is reserved for the generation that gave birth to them. Their attitude seems to be you want drugs/poison, no problem. Here you go and I hope it kills you, because you remind me of my parents on drugs. They were off getting high when I needed someone to raise me and my brothers and sisters. I don’t even know who my father is. You think this generation is angry, wait for the one following it. These angry young men believe that women are nothing but “hoes” and “bitches” and are to be treated with no respect. They are not looking for any long-term relationships, let alone marriage. Look at what they have been taught by their parents. They are another generation of fornicators creating another generation of angry children. This next generation will be even angrier and even more violent. I am afraid of what their future will hold. The level of violence is going to escalate to a level that I think will be shocking to all who witness it. Everyday we are outraged by the senseless acts of violence we see or hear about. Our communities are in for urban warfare due to this epidemic of sin. In between the police and the angry young men, we are under siege. God is not mocked. We cannot continue to flaunt our sinful ways before God and not expect any repercussions. What we are doing is practicing intentional sin and God’s word is clear on those that do intentional sin. The Bible tells us that God will visit the sins of the fathers to the sons and the son’s sons. Most experts believe that addictions/alcoholism are hereditary and pass from generation to generation. I believe that for us fornication will be the same. We must begin to act on this epidemic or it will be the death of us as a people. We have become ensnared by this sin and it will be difficult to extricate ourselves from it, but we must. I hear all the time how it is a cultural thing and it amazes me how so inbred it is that we continue to excuse this sinful behavior. Our children will be cut off from God and the face of this earth if we do not act. There is no greater problem facing us today. We talk about our economic woes, and joblessness, but these issues pale in comparison to fornication. If we continue down this road it will not matter how much money we have, it will not be enough to combat the problems we will be facing. We should rally together as a people and speak to this issue. Our very lives depend on it.