Black Fathers,Fathers Day.

[harry brown]

Happy Fathers Day,To All Of The Responsible  Black Fathers On,Fathers Day.The  White Media Likes To Portray. All Black Fathers As Dead beats,Not Involved In Rasing Their Children.In The Black Community,Unfortunately There Are Black Men Who Have Children And Choose Not To Care For Their Children.Cheers For  All Of The Responsible,Black Fathers  On  Fathers  Day..

[Cynique]

Yes, Harry, and that includes Troy,  Chris, Delano, and Pioneer - who is a father-at-large.  Xeon? You, too, if you have kids.   Have a great day, guys!    

[Pioneer1]

Thank you

Although I'm not a father biologically, I consider myself a father to many of the young men and women I try to help and give advice to.

Watching what my cousin and other older men went through from attempted suicide to going in and out of jail for back child support to baby-mama drama to having their children hate them for not being around even when much of it wasn't their fault......

I decided at a young age that if I couldn't have children and raise them the proper way and in the proper environment then I wouldn't have them period.

That meant practicing birth control....at various levels (don't ask).

But to me, the subject of birth control is easy and rational....even when I was a very religious man.
If you can't even take care of yourself (providing adequate food, clothing, shelter, and health care for YOURSELF with no help from your family or the government) you have no business bringing another human being in the world.

I felt this way even at 17.

I'm in my 40s and still have no plans to have children anytime soon.
I tend to hook up with older women who already have children and no longer have that biological urge....so these things work themselves out.
However if I do have children I'm probably going to adopt one for every one me and my wife have naturally.

I'm a strong believer in adoption...especially of Black and Brown children through out the Americas.

[Troy]

Pioneer when you were "very religious" your religion did not mandate abstinence from sex outside of marriage?

I hate to read about the bad experiences some of the men you know have had been fathers.

Do you think there should be a law against people bring children into the world if they are not financially independent themselves?

@Pioneer1, it is probably a good time for you to adopt; seems like you'd be a very decent father.

[Pioneer1]

Troy

I've been told many times that I'd make an excellent father in part because of my rather naturally disciplined demeanor; the problem is being a good husband...lol.

I was born and raised a typical Black Christian like both of my parents and I studied the bible hard as a kid to the point that some people thought I was going to be a preacher when I grew up.
I knew sex outside of marriage.....fornication...was a sin. But then puberty hit and the urge was so strong that like a lot of people I ignored the rules and did what the other boys in my environment was doing and tried to get myself as much coochie as I could hustle up on...lol.

As I've gotten older and less religious I've realized that some things are just nature and you can't legislate against it or use religious dogma in an attempt to supress it. Even in the Middle East where men and women are pretty much segregated and the sex laws are strictly enforced you still have people sneaking around and occasionally they get caught.
We have a society in America where young men and women are PHYSICALLY FREE to eat, sleep, work, and play with and around eachother...it would be pretty silly to expect none of them to have sex with eachother until they marry.
Sex is as natural as eating and making laws that forbid people against sexual activity and expecting them to abide by it would be like forbidden people to eat and expecting them to "be good" and just sit on the couch and starve to death....lol.

Rather than restricting people from natural urges, I believe a good religion would EDUCATE people on how to properly have sex while avoiding unwanted pregnancies, diseases, and hurt feelings, rapes, ect....

 

 

Do you think there should be a law against people bring children into the world if they are not financially independent themselves?

Interesting you should ask that....
Me and my brother had our father in our lives and the advice he gave me as a Black male on how to survive in this society ALONE was priceless...let alone all of the other things he did for me; so after witnessing what many of my friends and family who DIDN'T have fathers went through and how their families were so broken, so undisciplined, constant fights with the mothers' boyfriends, ect....for a long time I was absolutely adamant that there should be a strictly enforced law that no one should be allowed to have children unless they were MARRIED and FINANCIALLY SET !
Not only did I believe this but I would argue with people over it.

But the older I got the more I realized that life happens and things happen that aren't predicted that can take you from an ideal environment to one of strife and turmoil.
Especially if you are a Black person in this nation.
You could have a good job with a fat pay check one minute and all you need is for the wrong guy to take over the company and he starts slashing the payroll just to boast a bigger bottom line and without so much as a month's notice you'll find yourself wondering how much money you can sell your cars for and whether or not you qualify for some unemployment insurance.

I now believe in FREEDOM and allowing people the freedom to make mistakes even if that mistake involves bringing unwanted life into the world.  I wouldn't make a law against people who aren't prepared having children because to enforce such a law means sterilizing people and forcing abortions on them and we KNOW where that will lead.

But along with that freedom I believe in EDUCATING people on proper birth control as well as how to be good parents if they so choose so that they won't continue the same mistakes their parents and grandparents may have made with them.

The key is EDUCATION.
For years I wondered why rich White kids could get drunk, have wild orgies, and have MORE sex that poor Black kids yet they rarely came up pregnant and you rarely heard about them getting serious sexual disease.
They had their fun and grew up without having tons of children out of wedlock and broken families.
I found out they were better EDUCATED and had the money and knowledge to have their fun safely and take the proper precautions to prevent unwanted pregnancies and births.

As you know quite well, PARENTHOOD isn't taught in this society.
If you don't learn it from your own parents you basically learn as you go along...which is a damn shame.
People joke around that parenting doesn't come with a manual, but why not?
In African cultures through the rites of passage the boys and girls were TAUGHT their roles and what would be expected of them as young men and women...as mothers and fathers.
We don't have that in America.
Here you're free to grow up and be whatever but lost as hell which means the children often come up lost and in worse shape than their parents because instead of compounded knowledge passed along from parent to child you get compounded IGNORANCE passed along from one generation to the next.

[Cynique]

@Pioneer1  I think you're giving white people too much credit when it comes to not having a bunch of kids out of wedlock or contracting STDs.  Middle class whites people don't have these problem because they readily get abortions, or put an unplanned child up for adoption, or marry their baby daddy, and they do have broken homes as a result of divorce. Those considered white trash do have kids out of wedlock and do have broken homes. I don't know the figures on STDs but I'll sure all classes  have their share.  

 In the last 25 years, things have changed because society in general has become more liberal.  Unwed pregnancy has lost its stigma and birth control methods are easier and more accessible and marriage less popular.  Black females in the inner cities have an ongoing  high rate of unwed pregnancies because this behavior has become inured in their culture and has evolved as a way of life with them. Young black girls look upon having a baby as a rite of passage and baby mama drama is just taken for granted. There's no denying that saddling yourself with a bunch of kids with no fathers to help raise them plays an major role in the problems that beset black people.  But no high profile person of any race would dare tell single black women to stop having broods of kids that they can't take of so nothing changes.  And, of course, those black folks who remind that there is an element of white people who do this too, i say "so what"?  Improving the lot of black folks is the priority. Let white folks worry about the problems of their underclass.  

[Troy]

"...the problem is being a good husband" LOL Amen to that Brother!  Seriously I can one be a good father while being a poor husband?

So can I conclude, based upon what you wrote that you do not consider Christianity to be a "Good" religion?

Pioneer I don't think you can call for the implementation of rites of passage and freedom at the same time.  Rites of passages require that you buy into a hold system of rules or behavioral norms that are adopted and enforce before you can be called a adult.  What happens when you disagree with the rules?  You see what I mean?

If you want a well behaved society where people don;t make babies they can;t take care of you have to give up on the fantasy of complete freedom.  

Cynique I think Pioneer has a point when he talks about the differences between white kids and Black ones, but I think he is mixing class with race.  Think about the rich, white, Stanford University athlete that recently raped an incapacitated girl behind a dumpster.  He essentially got a pass.  You and I both know a Black boy (of any class) would have been buried beneath the jail.  If it was a poor white guy from the nearest trailer park (which I'd image would have to be pretty far from Stanford's campus), he would be doing serious time too.

Rich white boys operate in a different world than everyone else.

 

[Cynique]

@TroyI'm wasn't disputing "white privilege".  i was disagreeing with Pioneer's generalization about why white kids never got pregnant.  I didn't buy that it was because they were educated to practice birth control. I contended that it was not about prevention it was how they handled unwanted pregnancies. They were more prone to have abortions or put their mistakes up for adoption or to get married to their baby daddys. And, yes, this was also true of blacks with "middle-class values".   

[Troy]

Cynique I agree.  I'm sure Pioneer has heard of the Maury Show and the white family dysfunction that is paraded in continuous loop.  ,The distinction I was trying to make was that even white privilege has a component of class, which we tend to overlook.  I think the kid in Sandford got off because he was rich, sure being white helped but his class mattered most.  The judge could not put him away because he saw himself.

[Pioneer1]

　

Cynique

I made that comparison not simply between Blacks and Whites with race being the only factor, but between UPPERCLASS Whites vrs POOR/WORKING CLASS Blacks as these 2 groups dominate in the United States and are in such close proximity to eachother that it makes for an easy comparison.

You help make my point, because my point is wealthy White kids take better precautions to PREVENT unwanted pregancies and STDs and those who DO end up pregnant or contracting STDs have the money and other resources to take the necessary corrective measures.

I would say that society has become more liberal as far as accepting so-called "illegitimate children" as normal....especially in the Black community.  Although given how detrimental it usually is to both the mother and the children, I have to wonder is this acceptance by the larger society a result of a more "liberal" attitude......
Or more an attitude of INDIFFERENCE, ...simply not carrying what Black families do or how healthy they are.

If you notice, in that same 25 year time period, while it became more socially acceptable to have out-of-wedlock births...society became more CONSERVATIVE when it comes to sexuality itself.  Mostly because of the AIDS crisis.  I was surprised at the the sexual openness of places like Canada and Europe as compared to the United States.
 

I used to complain about the high rate of out-of-wedlock births in the Black community until it was pointed out to me that if it weren't for Black women just having babies ANYWAY whether they were married and finacially prepared or not....the Black population would have steeply declined a long time ago!

Many highly educated responsible young Black women aren't getting married and having children at all because they can't find enough men suitable for their socio-economic status. While many others of a high socio-economic status are either marrying non-Black men to match their socio-economic needs in a mate or openly engaging in lesbian relationships....neither of which actually produces Black children.

It's the poor and uneducated sisters that are saving Black America by having enough babies to maintain our population levels!

 

 

Troy

　

So can I conclude, based upon what you wrote that you do not consider Christianity to be a "Good" religion?

I think it's good for SOME people, but not for MOST.

I'm not the type of person to slander all religion as man-made tools of division like many do, I recognize that some people have been rescued from drugs, poverty, and other social ills through the power of the church.
But Christianity in doctrine is far too complex and confusing to be followed "properly" and this confusion often leads to moral crisis in many individuals who attemp to.
 

　

Pioneer I don't think you can call for the implementation of rites of passage and freedom at the same time. Rites of passages require that you buy into a hold system of rules or behavioral norms that are adopted and enforce before you can be called a adult. What happens when you disagree with the rules? You see what I mean?

If you want a well behaved society where people don;t make babies they can;t take care of you have to give up on the fantasy of complete freedom.

I don't believe in COMPLETE freedom anyway.
There is no such thing as society AND freedom as the two aren't congruent.
In a society you have rules and regulations regardless as to how lax, while freedom means free from rules and restrictions.

I believe in a society with as few legal rules as necessary to keep the peace while offering it's residents SOCIAL freedom to do whatever they like.
However they would be given the EDUCATION to make the right decisions FOR THEM if they so choose.
For example......
We have a society where people are not required to get married before having sex..
They can have sex with or without protection....
They can have sex with any consenting adult they want....
They can even have children outside of the boundaries of matrimony if they wish....


BUT as youth, they will be thoroughly educated on proper sexual protection and what the consequences are for for not practicing safe sex.
As they're old enough to understand it they will be shown the benefits of having children in a stable family structure that is financially acceptable.

This would be better than a the cookie-cutter rites of passage rituals that governed early societies for centuries if not millinia because it gives people who are not considered part of the "norm" (asexuals, homosexuals, loners, late bloomers, wierdos, ect....) the option to be who THEY are and not suffer from being forced to conform to a lifestyle not suitable for them.

Atleast I'm not as strict as Dr Frances Cress Welsing who suggested that Black women waited until they were financially set and OVER 30 before even having their first child!!

BTW.....
Maury Povich featured and clowned on Black guests more than he did White ones...lol.
He got famous giving paternity tests on his shows making Black men look like deadbeats who took pleasure in avoiding their responsibilities as fathers.

Him and Jerry Springer made a living clowing and trying to disgrace Black people before the entire world (before World Star Hiphop took over the role) and only featured a sprinkling of White guests to point to just incase someone legitimately accused them of racism.
 

[Cynique]

@Pioneer1My point is that I make a distinction between preventing an unwanted pregnancy from occurring and dealing with an unwanted pregnancy that has already occurred. Different dynamics are involved here and I don't lump them together. I also disagree with your idea that encouraging single young black women to breed in order to increase the black population is part of the solution instead of part of the problem. I am more concerned with the quality of life rather than the quantity of it. 

[Delano]

It was and still is easier being a Dad than the husband role. Children just want attention and some guidance.
Thanks Cynique.

[Troy]

Pioneer you come across as somewhat religious calling children born out of wedlock "illegitimate."  How long in the annals of history have we been calling children born outside the Christian construct of marriage; disparaging terms like this? 

Isn't it enough for kids to be cared for and guided by a loving adult?  Can children only be raised by a man and woman, who were virgins when married, and committed to never having sex with anyone else for life?  Why is this so detrimental?

I agree with Welsing, I think we all should wait until we are 30 before having our first child. I was 30, and probably should have waited a bit longer.  Many of the people having children younger than 30 are still children themselves; dependent upon their parents, unskilled, uneducated, and unmotivated. Sure many of these people pull it together later, but they would have fared much better without a child, and the child would have too.

I'm still astonished that our society condones kids in high school having children--even providing on site day care in some instances.

I don't think children should have the freedom to procreate.  We make it illegal for a 17 year old to sit up in a bar and have drinks, but they can make babies all day long...

I'm sure I did not watch the Maury show enough to dispute what you are saying, but every time I watched it was always some obese white girl trying to figure out who fathered her child...and more often than not there was a physical altercation for kicks.

[Pioneer1]

　

Cynique

My point is that I make a distinction between preventing an unwanted pregnancy from occurring and dealing with an unwanted pregnancy that has already occurred.

....and wealthy White young people are better than poor Black people at BOTH.

They tend to be educated enough to know what type of contraceptives and sexual techniques work to prevent unwanted pregnancies AND they tend to have the recources and connections to deal with unwanted pregnancies should they occur.
 

Different dynamics are involved here and I don't lump them together. I also disagree with your idea that encouraging single young black women to breed in order to increase the black population is part of the solution instead of part of the problem. I am more concerned with the quality of life rather than the quantity of it.

I agree with you.
It's better to have a small but strong, educated, well balanced populous than a massive one filled with criminals and imbeciles.  Jews are an excellent example of this as they tend to dominate the financial industry in the nations they reside despite their small numbers.

I was just pointing it out to you as it was pointed out to me that perhaps if anything good could come out of so many Black children being born and raised out of wedlock....atleast it maintains our numbers.
 

　

 

 

Del

It was and still is easier being a Dad than the husband role.

Based on what most parents tell me, one of the good things is that you usually see steady progress as you watch your children grow from one stage to the next.
In a world where many things tend to decline over time, under normal circumstances having children gives you the opportunity to watch what you produce continue to progress.
 

 

 

 

Troy

Pioneer you come across as somewhat religious calling children born out of wedlock "illegitimate." How long in the annals of history have we been calling children born outside the Christian construct of marriage; disparaging terms like this?

Notice I said SO-CALLED "illegitimate children" and put the term in quotation marks as a sign that I don't accept that term.
I don't think any child is illegitimate because I believe all human beings were born for a reason. But that WAS an in many circles still IS the term for children born outside of wedlock.....that and "bastard".

 

 

Isn't it enough for kids to be cared for and guided by a loving adult? Can children only be raised by a man and woman, who were virgins when married, and committed to never having sex with anyone else for life? Why is this so detrimental?

I don't think children necessarily have to be raised by state-licensed MARRIED parents.
However from what I've observed over the years looking at so many children who grew up in single family homes, it's best to have BOTH the male and female influence and energy in a child's life.
They need BOTH to be well balanced.
They need both a dominant DISCIPLINARY and a gentle NURTURER.
Doesn't matter which role which parents takes, even if the mother wants to be the dominant one and the father be the passive gentle one...as long as they get both.

And it's even better when both are that child's biological parents instead of just a boyfriend/girlfriend of the other parent.

Most men I know who grew up without their fathers active in their lives had an angry streak in them and grew up feeling insecure and angry about something being missing in their lives while not quite being able to put their finger on it.  Girls who grow up without father figures or that male energy in their lives usually regret it and end up unbalanced.

Even if they become materially successful with a nice job and nice home, having such an unbalanced childhood almost guarantees a life long feeling of insecurity regardless of how much they accomplish and that's why so many turn to drugs and alcohol.

 

I agree with Welsing, I think we all should wait until we are 30 before having our first child. I was 30, and probably should have waited a bit longer. Many of the people having children younger than 30 are still children themselves; dependent upon their parents, unskilled, uneducated, and unmotivated. Sure many of these people pull it together later, but they would have fared much better without a child, and the child would have too.

I think it's ideal but I don't now how healthy it is for so many women over 30 to have children, also I don't know if it's a good idea for older men to make babies because of the increased risk of defective sperm.

Worst of all......
Having children when you're TOO old means your teenage son may start kicking your old ass before lhe earns that it's wrong and develops proper respect for you.......lol.

But as I've said time and time again even on this very site, I believe their will be a NEW family structure coming in the very near future that will be superior to the current nuclear family consisting of 2 parents.
That new structure would involve GROUPS of men and women....4...5...8...10???...all living together and raising their children together sort of like a mini-village and this will be the ideal family structure for most people as it's the most convenient and the guarantees the most stability.

[Troy]

In order for your new family structure to become more common place folks have to be much less self-centered than they are today.  Nothing in our collective behavior or culture leads me to believe that this will change anything soon. Perhaps a cultural shock like a massive depression would move us in the direction of communal families, out of necessity.... and maybe we'd all be better off.

 

 

[Pioneer1]

Like you said, a massive cultural shock and economic depression is the type of instability that spawns new values, family structures, and social paradigms....and that's exactly what this society has been getting for the past 10 to 15 years!

Since the 60s, people have been shacking up in groups and living together for economic necessity and they  weren't giving a damn about religious or family beliefs...they are just looking to survive because doing what society told them was the "right thing" didn't work for them.
It's easy for  a woman to stay home and rear the children if you have a rich husband who can take care of all of the families necessities.   But most families today have to rely on  ALL adults in the home working and bringing in money to maintain it or face certain homelessness.


As far as group families.....
They tried this in the late 60s and early 70s with the hippies living in groups and trying to start group families, but it didn't work because the economic situation for most hippies weren't dire enough. Most hippies were rich kids who rebelled for a minute and then went running back home.
Today the young people and street families you see living on the streets and begging aren't playing...they're poor FOR REAL and have no where else to go running to.
So they're making it happen already.
The next step is to change the thinking of society to recognize that there is more than one way to form a "family" so that the stigma of adults living, having sex, and pooling their money in groups isn't "bad"....it's actually efficient and makes more economic sense.
 

[Troy]

Agreed, whether it is for a business or a family, pooling resources, money, energy, time, and tasks will be key moving forward.  

It is likely my children's generation will never collect social security; shoot, I'm on the bubble. So, I believe these new family structure will come to pass.  It would be nice if the government provided legislation to facilitate or at least ignore these alternative family structures.

Right now everything is aligned to facilitate permanent, heterosexual marriage.  But few people can achieve this goal, and many don't even want to try.  The ideal of the home with the white picket fence is almost anachronistic--but no other alternatives are presented as favorable.

Still we make getting married easy, while divorce is hard and often expensive.  Married people have a higher tax liability, especially if one spouse makes less than the other.  Few talk about the government's hand in discouraging marriage.

So while the country is mostly Christian, the influence of the Christianity has continued to wane over time.  I think this is also a factor in the increase of out of wedlock births not just in the Black community, but in America in general. A single 18 year old having a baby will likely be embraced, while a single 40 year old woman, who never had kids, is pitied...

The number of sperm banks are increasing, with single women being the biggest users, dwarfing even the LGBT community.

Also we always talk about the lack of fathers in the home.  But many of these homes have men in them, they just don't happen to be the biological father of the children.  Many men are indeed raising the children of other men, I just don't recall ever seeing statistics reflecting this reality.

 

[Cynique]

@Pioneer1Again, the point I was attempting to make about how  pregnancy is dealt with is that, unlike you,  I don't think education and money play a big role! This situation has more to do with cultural differences between blacks and whites rather than a lack of education(information) and money on the part of blacks. I'm contending that poor black people know about the availability of abortions and adoptions through both free planned parenthood or "pro-life" clinics, but they have reservations about these 2 options because of cultural influences.  In the black underclasses, most women don't believe in abortion or in giving away their babies. They know about birth control measures, too, but in the underclass  sub-culture having a baby is no big deal; it's just a natural  occurrence. 

Granted, attitudes are changing when it comes to having babies.  Nowadays, any woman who wants a child, whether as a trophy or as an accessory or because of a maternal urge, has no qualms about getting pregnant no matter what her class, her race, her sexual orientation or her marital status.  

@TroyI, agree with you and Pioneer that the traditional family structure is on its way out. People will opt for whatever floats their boat.  Society is becoming more fluid and time brings change.  The things that are happening today were unthinkable when I was a young woman.  The media has stripped America of its modesty and prudishness.  This has helped to dispel hypocrisy but it has also fueled irresponsibility.  

Raising a child is one of the hardest and most demanding jobs in the world.There is no one right way to do it because what works for one child does not necessarily work for another.  Showering a child with unconditional love also does not guarantee optimal results. Marriage is also a challenging undertaking because it involves obligations that take away individual freedoms and it can evolve into a misery loves company relationship where love does not conquer all. Humanity and society are entering new phases and religion is falling short. What the future holds for life as we know it, is mind boggling. I won't be around to witness the spectacle so I wish y'all lotsa luck.    

[Troy]

@Cynique, do you think the reduction in hypocrisy was worth the increase in irresponsibility?