Catholic Life Ministries

I once worked as a prison chaplain. I enjoyed the work and it was very challenging. For the first time I met and ministered to men who had done horrible things from murder to armed robbery. I wasn’t there to judge them. I was there to be the Church’s care for them.

One big surprise for me was Mother’s Day. IT WAS THE BIGGEST “CARD” DAY OF THE YEAR FOR THE MALE INMATES. Most inmates wanted our help to send a Mother’s Day card. For Father’s Day, requests to send cards were almost non-existent.

Army chaplains were with the young men who landed on the Normandy coast on June 6, 1944. Many who cared for the wounded on Omaha Beach on D-Day reported that so many of the dying cried out for their mothers!

What does this say about the job we men are doing as fathers? Certainly, there are many good fathers, but perhaps not enough.  

“40% of all babies in the U.S. are born to unmarried women (in 1960 it was 5%).” (npr.org 11/17/25) “According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 18.2 million children, 1 in 4, live without a biological, step, or adoptive father in the home.” (fatherhood.org)

Children raised without a father often struggle with low self-esteem, depression, self-confidence, and emotional self-management. They have problems with aggression or withdrawing, acting out, forming healthy relationships, following rules, succeeding in school, etc.  (https://theparentingpro.com/the-devastating-impact-of-absent-fathers/).

There are many well-studied, complex issues that contribute to fathers’ absence from their children’s lives. However, I think a key reason is that as a society we ask very little of young men in the way of preparation to succeed in adult relationships, especially as spouses and parents. As a therapist who has worked with both gay and straight men, I think this is true regardless of one’s sexual orientation.  

What is often lost in conversation about what it takes to be an effective father is the dad’s relationship with the child’s mother. The best gift a father can give to his children is to love and be committed to the child’s mother. This relationship provides a healthy context in which the child can grow and flourish. Mom’s and Dad’s relationship is the “garden” in which the child is planted. If Dad is absent or has serious conflict with Mom, the child will still grow but often with the problems alluded to above. (As a marriage therapist, I understand women have a role in this dynamic, but this is an article about fathers.)

Most of our young men are going to hook up, at one time or another, with young women. Children will be conceived. It is woefully inadequate to tell these youth to be sure to wear a condom. Boys becoming men who never learn to discipline their sexual energy at an early age are a danger to others. This is true for both “straight” and “gay” young men, though I’m directing this article primarily to heterosexual youth. There is a reason for the “Me Too” movement. Can we not foster in our young men a profound respect for young women, and the capacity to accept the responsibility that is inherent in sexual intimacy and the possibility of conceiving a child?

Indigenous cultures understood this. Universally, indigenous cultures developed initiation rites to help boys become men and take on the responsibility of being an adult male in the community. These rites often involved pain and suffering because the boys had to learn as adults, they must bear any suffering so that the women and children live. Today it is often the opposite. Women and children, it seems, must bear any suffering so the fathers of the children “can live” with their toys, other partners, and self-centered freedom.

What needs to happen? We need to restore marriage as a cultural value to which our young men can aspire. This is not promoting purity culture. I’m for fully educating youth about sex, sexual energy, etc. However, we ought to challenge our young men to discipline their sexual energy and develop the qualities and gifts now that will allow them to succeed later in adult relationships, especially as a spouses and parents.

We ask discipline of our youth to succeed in sports, music and drama, academics, and vocational work. If we want to do better in fostering a generation of young men who are excellent fathers, we need to help them become excellent spouses. The best gift any father can give his children is to love their mother.

___________________________________________________________

(Illuman is an international men’s movement with the goal of helping men help each other discover a deeper, healthier masculinity rooted in the deepest truth of every male; he is God’s beloved son (https://www.illuman.org/). Some Illuman chapters have developed outreach to teenagers to help initiate them into healthy masculinity. For more information go to https://www.illumanofwa.org/teen-rites-of-passage-2/ . )