If we seek to establish healthy societies, God’s perfect prescription for human relationships is still the best one to follow, even for we imperfect humans. Or rather, especially for we imperfect humans. Our pathetic attempts to rearrange things, based on our own selfish desires, start out merely muddled, grow increasingly disordered, and end in social meltdown; chaos.
 

Contemporary Western societies seem to believe traditional families really aren’t important any more. Single parents, two moms, two dads, whatever. Dads in particular seem to be dispensable…
 
Yet it’s plainly not working. Witness the result of the breakdown of the black family in our cities; the frustration and violence associated with the #BlackLivesMatter movement.

 
In his recent article at MercatorNet, Mathew Otieno describes the same troubling phenomenon in Africa ~ In Kenya and America, absent dads linked with crime ~

Increasing numbers of children in Kiambu — and central Kenya in general — grow up in families without fathers. Surnames are becoming feminine where before they came from the father’s side of the family.
 
The cause of these changes has been hidden in the folds of a contentious debate, made more sensitive by its tribal aspect – most of the affected are members of the Kikuyu tribe.
 
But the impact is certainly not hidden. According to a Kenya Police Service report, in 2014 Kiambu had the third highest crime rate of all counties in Kenya. Many cases go unreported, so this number just scratches the surface. Three other counties in central Kenya were among the top six in terms of crime prevalence per capita.

Most of these crimes are committed by young males, precisely the kind that would be less likely to commit crimes if they had their fathers around. Their offences range from simple snatching to highway carjacking. Kenyan prisons are teeming with young men from central Kenya.
 
This phenomenon has given rise to a vicious cycle. As more and more men grow up without their fathers and develop deviant behaviours, the less odds they have of getting married and settling down; and as more and more girls grow up in broken families, the more likely they are to have children outside of a stable marital framework.

 
Referring to the current racial tensions in the U.S., the angry, disaffected youth of #BlackLivesMatter, Otieno gets to the heart of the cross-cultural issue ~

The cause is not the colour of their skin; it is the breakdown of their families. Abortion, divorce and single-parenthood have disenfranchised the black community of many rights won for it by the civil rights movement.
 
And while people go to the streets to protest shootings, more and more children shape up to be criminals, increasing their risk of being shot – either by someone from their own community or by a panicking cop. The police may change their methods, but they cannot tackle family breakdown alone.

Traditional families – one mother, one father and their offspring – are the crucial building blocks of a stable functioning civilization. If we want ours back, that’s where we need to start.
 
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Related:
#BringBackOurFathers
Fathers for Good ~ A valuable resource from the Knights of Columbus
 
Tommy Sotomayor on “Fatherlessness in Black America” — on The Glazov Gang ~ Excellent interview. Sotomayor asks a great question: “How do you learn what a man’s role in society is supposed to be if you don’t have a man in the home?” ~