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The title of this
talk is timely because in so-called "progressive" circles not only is there a
denial that mothers and fathers have distinct roles, but the very concept of
"mother" and "father" is under dispute: a cult of androgyny is being
promoted. In social insurance forms from Ontario, Canada, instead of "father"
and "mother" there is the option of listing "parent l" and "parent 2",
presumably in deference to homosexual couples. [1]
The blurring of
parental roles also relates to feminist gender theory which holds there is no
fixed determination of sexual identity such as "male" and "female" but that
we all belong on a rainbow spectrum including not only male and female but also
asexual, bisexual, homosexual, hermaphrodite, transsexual and transgendered. [2]
Sweden is often
the cauldron for feminist social experiments and Hilary White of
www.LifeSiteNews.com reported in June about a Swedish couple who, as a
gender experiment, won't tell their child if it is a boy or a girl:
"In an interview
with newspaper Svenska Dagbladet in March, a Swedish couple said they are
refusing to disclose whether their two-and-a-half-year-old child, called 'Pop'
in the media, is a boy or a girl. They said their decision, made at the time of
the child's birth, was based on the feminist theory that 'gender' is a 'cruel
social construct' that forces children into artificial roles."
The child's
mother said: "We want Pop to grow up more freely and avoid being forced into a
specific gender mould from the outset. It's cruel to bring a child into the
world with a blue or pink stamp on its forehead. I believe that the
self-confidence and personality that Pop has shaped will remain for a
lifetime." The parents say they never use personal pronouns, referring to him
or her only as 'Pop'.
Instead of
suggesting the parents be investigated for psychological abuse, Kristina
Henkel, a "gender equality consultant" was quoted in the Swedish
English-language paper The Local, as justifying the parents' action,
saying that if they are doing this "because they want to create a discussion
with other adults about why gender is important, then I think they can make a
point of it. "Her comments are reminiscent of meetings held by the UN
Commission on the Status of Women.
It is not only in
Sweden - a Transgender Club at the University of Chicago has suggested that we
use the non-sexist pronoun "ze" instead of "him" or "her". Which brings to
mind John Zmirak's comment in his 22nd July 2009 Town hall column regarding
Michael Jackson, that "only in America can a poor but talented black boy grow
up to be a rich white woman" - or sort of.
Pope Benedict
XVIhas been highly critical of gender theory and has called for the
development of an "ecology of man, based on respecting the nature of the person,
and the two genders of masculine and feminine." The Pope warned that radical
feminist gender theory is a form of "contempt" for God that "will lead to the
self destruction of humanity. It is not outmoded metaphysics when the Church
speaks of the nature of the human being as man and woman, and demands that this
order of creation be respected."
Away from the
misplaced ideologies of "gender theory",it is important for us to remind the
world that mothers and fathers are very important in the lives of their
children, and that they have distinct roles.
Before western
technology was advanced enough to develop relatively safe artificial formulae
for infants, the separation of an infant from its mother was virtually a death
sentence for the baby, particularly if a "wet nurse" was not available. That
infants can now survive on artificial milk has apparently misled governments,
social engineers and some parents into thinking that infants and young
children can thrive despite long periods of separation from their mothers.
Research indicates
otherwise. Artificial milk formulae are not a perfect substitute for
breastfeeding. Today there is much concern about the problems of obesity and
allergies in children, and the artificial feeding of infants contributes to
both. Breast milk is truly a miracle food for babies, providing protection from
a range of infections. [4] It is the policy of the World Health
Organisation that "breastfeeding is the preferred method of nutrition",
that infants be fed solely on breast milk for the first six months, and that
breastfeeding continue for two years.
For successful
lactation to be established and to continue it is essential that babies not be
separated from their mothers. [5] The mother needs to respond promptly to her
baby's hunger, and the baby needs not only the milk but the reassurance that its
needs will be met. One wonders, therefore, why governments encourage mothers of
young babies to re-enter the paid workforce by subsidizing the care of
infants in long day care centres where they will be fed on artificial formulae
and cared for by strangers, but do not provide the same level of funding for
mothers who care for their babies full-time.
Well beyond the
breastfeeding stage, young children have a great emotional and psychological
need for their mothers' personal care and presence. In his seminal book,
"Attachment and Loss", British psychiatrist John Bowlby articulated
the theory of attachment: "The attachment relationship that a young child
forges with its mother forms the foundation stone of personality....... the
young child's hunger for its mother's presence is as great as its hunger for
food" and "her absence inevitably generates a powerful sense of loss and
anger". [6] With so many mothers forced through economic circumstances to
leave their children in long day care so they can engage in paid work, do we
wonder that some children in school seem apathetic, lacking in confidence or
alienated and hostile to the world?
"Who Will
Rock the Cradle" is the edited transcript by Phyllis Schlafly,
President of Eagle Forum, of two important Conferences on Child Care held in
Washington DC in 1988. [7]Among the researchers is psychologist Jay Belsky
who in the seventies thought that day care did not adversely affect child
development. He has now changed his mind and points out two worrisome trends:
infants in long day care (more than 20 hours per week) are likely to develop
insecure attachments to their parents, and several follow-up studies of children
with a record of early non-parental care show more serious aggression, less
co-operation, less tolerance of frustration, more misbehaviour, and at times,
social withdrawal. [8] Does that sound a familiar description of the angry
teenagers wandering our streets and indulging in stupid acts of vandalism or
worse?
While a mother's
role is vital during the infancy, the role of fathers becomes increasingly
important as the baby grows. The absence of fathers has damaging effects on the
spiritual, economical and educational status of children, and is particularly
harmful to boys who will not have a role model of a man, husband and father,
who supports his family, goes to work - or seeks a job if he is unemployed -
and who is devoted to his wife and children. [9]Young men are in desperate
need of male mentors, and despite their best efforts, single mothers cannot
provide this.
Swedish research
sometimes gets it right: Active father figures play a key role in reducing
behaviour problems in boys and psychological problems in young women, according
to a review published in the February 2009 issue of the peer-reviewed journal
Acta Paediatrica, a Swedish publication. Researchers quoted in the
review found that regular positive contact with fathers reduces criminal
behaviour among children in low-income families and enhances cognitive skills
like intelligence, reasoning and language development. Children who lived with
both a mother and father also had less behavioural problems than those who just
lived with their mother.
In June this
year I was privileged to attend a "Men and Fathers Health Summit" at
Parliament House, Canberra, organised by the Dads4Kids Fatherhood Foundation.
[10] The Summit was organised in response to an Australian Senate Select
Committee Report on Men's Health, [11], but it dealt with a wider range of
issues - It recommended there be an Office or Ministry for the Status of Men
and Fathers, dealing with the disadvantages boys and men suffer from birth to
death: in life expectancy, education, employment, rates of imprisonment,
involvement in drugs of addiction, in divorce and access to their children, and
in high rates of suicide.
In 1975 I was
appointed a member of the Victorian Committee on Equal Opportunity in
Schools. It was a feminist-dominated Committee which came up with
predictable recommendations of affirmative action for females: having readers
for primary school children with stories about "Heather has two Mommies", and
illustrating science textbooks with pictures of beautiful women to encourage
girls to study the sciences. [12] Overlooked in this feminist agenda was the
fact that in education it is not girls but boys who are the disadvantaged group.
Boys outnumber
girls four to one in remedial classes and in failure to achieve adequate levels
of literacy. More girls than boys complete high school and pass the
matriculation exam, and this greater success rate of girls continues at the
university level where there are far more women than men enrolled.
What does this
mean for men, fathers and families? It means there will be a sub-group of men
who, if they are functionally illiterate, will be inadequate providers and
therefore not attractive marriage partners.
The main issue the
Fatherhood Summit dealt with was the damage to the role of fathers done by the
no-fault divorce system. In Australia far more women than men seek divorce
under our Family Law Act. Of course there are husbands who are unfaithful,
violent, alcoholic and who abandon wives and children. But there are also
many husbands who have committed no fault and are heartbroken when their wives
walk out taking the children with them. Why should a wife put up with an
"inconvenient" husband when she can claim financial support from him and the
government, and can also claim more than half the marital assets including the
family home?
Fatherhood is
marginalised in the lives of their children when marriages break up. In
Australia our Child Support Agency assesses what fathers should pay in child
support, and these orders are enforced with penalties for non-compliance, but
when mothers breach orders giving fathers access to their children, there is
little or no penalty.
The Western
world has lost sight of the importance of the father figure, the figure who
transmits to the child his identity, capacity for sacrifice, and the meaning of
life says Claudio Risé, a psychoanalyst and sociology teacher, in his book,
"Il padre, l’assente inaccettabile" [The Father, An Inexcusable Absentee],
published by Edizioni San Paolo.
Australian
family law now has a presumption of equal shared parenting after divorce, but
this creates a fresh set of problems, e.g. a breast-fed baby being separated
from its mother for an access visit with its father, a parent who has
residential custody of the children wanting to move to another state for a new
job or with a new partner. There are no easy or just solutions - there really
is no substitute for intact marriages - and the World Council of Families
needs to work to preserve marriages and make divorce rare.
A major threat
to fatherhood comes with Assisted Reproductive Technology and In Vitro
Fertilisation industries. In Australia, and in the UK from October 2009,
clinics will no longer be able to block single women and lesbians from IVF
procedures by referring to a child’s “need for a father”. Instead, same-sex
couples will need to demonstrate only that they can offer “supportive
parenting”.[13] So we have progressed from financially helping single or
separated mothers to deliberately manufacturing children without fathers. There
is of course the old joke about how feminists decided they could do without
men, so they stored vials of sperm in fridges. Unfortunately there was a power
failure, and the ladies could not fix the fridges fast enough to save the
sperm. Thus ended mankind and civilization.
However, when
one reads of the macabre experiments performed today on "surplus" and unwanted
human embryos and fetuses, and on the large numbers of embryos in frozen
storage, without mother or father to care for them, one is tempted to think
civilization has already ended.
The irony is
that men have done this to themselves - signed their own death warrants as it
were. No fault divorce legislation and IVF for single and lesbian women have
been passed by democratically elected male-dominated parliaments, albeit
psychologically coerced by their feminist colleagues: an example of Eve, Adam
and the apple?
Although it is
beyond the scope of this paper, it is necessary to mention that many families
become dysfunctional because of substance abuse and alcoholism, and government
policies need to implement zero tolerance policies as recommended by the UN and
implemented in Sweden.
I conclude by
quoting Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D, Senior Research fellow in Economics at the
Acton Institute, author of "Love and Economics”s: It takes a
Family to raise a Village". "In the course of doing the research for my book, I
became aware of the vast body of evidence showing the importance of the married
couple, two parent family for the wellbeing of children....The children of
unmarried mothers, the children of divorced parents, all face elevated risks for
physical and mental health problems, substance abuse, educational problems, and
of course juvenile delinquency, crime and incarceration. There simply is no
substitute for the married couple two-parent family". [14]
For a healthy
society and a stable country, governments should concentrate on maintaining
security internally and externally, and should allow free markets to create
employment by providing goods and services that satisfy consumers. But
governments should realize that only the family can create the next generation
of human beings who will become good citizens.
References:
1. Province of
Ontario: 1. 34-1437E-OsapApp-pgs1-10
2. Llama,
Senora Marta at Regional Conference & NGO Forum at Mar del Plata, Argentina,
September 1994,
prelude to UN's 1995 Beijing Conference on Women
3. Colapinto,
John : "As Nature Made Him: The Boy who was Raised as a Girl"; Harper
Collins 2000.
4. "The
Womanly Art of Breastfeeding", La Leche League International, Franklin,
Park,Illinois, USA, several editions from 1956.
5. Phillips,
Virginia: "Successful Breastfeeding", Nursing Mothers Association
of Australia, 1976.
6. Bowlby J:
"Attachment and Loss", Attachment, Vol l, Basic Books, New York, 1969,
p. xii and "Separation Anxiety and Anger", Vol 2, Basic Books,
New York, 1973.
7. "Who
Will Rock The Cradle": ed. Phyllis Schlafly, Eagle Forum Education &
Legal Defence Fund, Washington DC, USA, 1988
8. Belsky, Jay:
"The NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development" a national
longitudinal study conducted at 10 research sites from 1991 to 2008. Funding:
The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human
Development
9. Muehlenberg, Bill: "Facts on Fatherlessness", pp. l0-15, ed.
Warwick Marsh, Fatherhood Foundation, Australia, 2005.
10. "Healthy
Men, Families, Nation: Men and Fathers Health Summit":Dads4Kids
Fatherhood Foundation Initiative: 17 June 2009, Parliament House, Canberra,
Australia
11. “Men’s
Health”: Australian Senate Committee Report: Select Committee on Men's
Health, May 2009.
12. Francis,
Babette: "Minority Report, Victorian Committee on Equal Opportunity in
Schools”, Schools", Government of Victoria, Melbourne,
Australia,1977,
13. "Lesbian
couple win fight for IVF on the NHS" [Times, (UK) 19 July 2009]
14. Morse,
Jennifer Roback, PhD, quoted in "Perspective", (Australia), pp. 12-13,
Winter 2008
Mrs. Babette
Francis,National & Overseas Co-ordinator,Endeavour Forum Inc.babette@endeavourforum.org.au | 
