Happy Father's Day...

 

TRADITION!

 

 



Just as our society seems to be teetering on the edge of disaster, I can't help but call to mind the words of Tevye in the movie Fiddler on the Roof:
 

  How do we keep our balance?  Tradition!

Without our traditions, our lives would be as shaky as a fiddler on the roof!

 

These authors would agree: 

 

Humankind has ridden a long way on the traditional family, with fathers providing the added resources that lifted mothers, families, and whole societies from meager subsistence toward innovation and abundance. Fatherhood has been the goose that laid the golden eggs, contributing the essential surplus that permitted one innovation after another.

By now, perhaps, we may have enough golden eggs stored up in our silos somewhere to sustain us for another decade or so. But do we really want to chance it? Do we really want to allow our culture to butcher the goose that laid all those golden eggs, and see if we might squeeze a few more individual rights and privileges out of the stupid goose? Are we willing to abandon our fundamentals while other nations catch up to us and sail on past?

The term "head of the family" is an honorary title and does not mean "omniscient sage" or "commander-in-chief."  Men are the providers and protectors.  Traditionally, the man was expected to commit himself to the support of his wife and children.  In return, so far as he upheld his responsibilities, he was honored as the head of the family.  See the trade-off?  In exchange for supporting his wife, doing what she and the children require of him, deferring to her when she is upset with him, and losing when he tries to argue against her, he was honored as the head of the family.
 

So long as we fail to recruit men into families, we face a lower quality of life for ourselves and we bequeath the same to our posterity. Would it be too presumptuous of us to suggest that we acknowledge the folly of our relationship revolution, reverse the tilt against men, support equal participation, and uphold our traditional families as a cherished heritage?
                                                                                           

                                                                                                       Opposites as Equals (2009)
                                                                                                               by Richard Driscoll, PhD
                                                                                                               and Nancy Ann Davis, PhD

To good fathers everywhere: A blessing on your heads!  Mazel tov!