Father's love is soughtafter and earned through achievement. The child must work for this love. This type of love may sound like unreal love, but I think it is real. The lucky child is the one who has the benefit of both kinds of love. The father can yield the power to invoke fear among children. This sounds bad but it isn't. Of course, the father can be friendlyand loving but never underestimate the power of fear to keep them in line. I am not talking about laying a hand on the children, just the idea of something "bad happening" if they don't "shape up". I can attest to the success of fear in my own family. It works! Without the father present, children are ripe for becoming anything their peers want them to be. They find it hard to resisttemptation to be dishonest or criminal. There is no father to answer to. Yes, there is Mom to answer to but she is usually not as intimidating as a father. In the community, a safer street is one where there are fathers out mowing the lawn or fixing a car. A child is less apt to commit a crime with fathers visibly present. There is a saying that "it takes a whole community to raise a child." Mothers set the standards for the community and fathers enforce them. To get back on the course of a family oriented instead of a divorce oriented society, I feel we should start with acknowledgment of the sad state of affairs our families are in. We should recognize the link divorce has to youth crime. We should pay close attention to what makes successful families and model ours after theirs. We need to recognize that marriage and parenting is a difficult job but can be oh-so-rewarding. Children's needs should always come first. If there are marital difficulties, couples should commit to counseling unless the situation is dangerous for the mother and children. I feel couplesshould give themselves a year of work, then re-evaluate their marriage. Applaud organizations such as Al Gore's "Fathe...
