Father’s Day 2021

Father’s Day 2021

Not all children and families are preparing to celebrate Father’s Day this coming Sunday. Sadly the reality is that so many fathers are absent or are not assuming the caring role they ought to in their family.

But another reason for not celebrating it as much as it used to, even where there are good father figures, is that it has become considered UNwoke!

In fact, modern society is facing twin cultural pressures that undermine the importance of fathers – wokeism and workism.

“Wokeism” is a new type of cultural imperialism which among other things seeks to undermine the role of fathers, portraying them as patriarchal, domineering, privileged and even abusive.

This view was graphically captured in an editorial published last year by George Soros’s openDemocracy media platform, which described life in a family headed by a father, as a place that produces domestic violence, including child rape and molestation, “patriarchal parenting,” “queer bashing,” intimate partner rape, psychological torture, and more. Families with fathers cause such extreme mental and physical harm, the author argued, that “the time of corona is an excellent time to practice abolishing the family.”

In an increasingly woke world, not only is it fashionable to portray fathers in a highly negative light, it’s also fashionable to portray them as not even necessarily male. Indeed, the idea of a unique male biological sex – something that is required by nature in order to produce offspring – is rejected by wokeism. Instead, being male is a function of identity. Thus, a father, the woke claim, can menstruate and give birth.

“Workism” is a growing tendency, especially among wealthy and emerging countries, to assign high values of importance to work-related matters as opposed to family-related matters. According to a report recently published by the Institute for Family Studies, the rising importance individuals assign to work as a source of value and meaning in life, is a major contributing factor to the decline in birth rates over the last decade across many high-income countries.

Many countries have begun to take notice of declining birth rates and the demographic implications this holds for their future. The most common governmental response has been to focus on helping parents better cope with the stresses of work through programs such as paid family leave and universal child care. But researchers find that such an approach may simply encourage more time at work, when the opposite is needed: reforms that would reduce the labour burdens.

The role of fathers in human flourishing is incalculable. We have to reject the nonsensical claptrap of wokeism. No society can succeed without a commitment to nurturing, celebrating and uplifting fathers, and encouraging the responsibility of fatherhood.

Both wokeism and workism devalue the enormous contributions that fathers and mothers make individually and collectively to a fully flourishing society. They also ignore, if not actually insult, their indispensable and unique role in raising children. For generations, men have faced enormous pressure that being a successful man meant being prepared to distance oneself from the family in order to earn income (and provide the workforce necessary to maximize corporate profits).

In the past several generations, that pressure has also been delivered quite forcefully to women as well. No longer do women hear from the culture that their most valuable role is in the care and raising of children. Quite the contrary. Children are often portrayed as a drain on individual prosperity and potential… not to mention the planet. In today’s society, women are told to delay if not forego altogether having children in order to build a career in the workforce.

This is a win, win, win for big government (which gets more tax revenues), for big corporations (which has a ready supply of workers who can be retained at minimal salaries and wages), and for ideologues like George Soros (who have a ready market of people eager for expansive government programs to provide services that mothers and fathers used to provide).

We cannot return to the 19^th century of course, where people lived in rural agricultural communities and women ‘popped out’ kids to meet the family’s labour needs. But what is needed is more family friendly state policies; programs to reinvigorate home economies, by supporting natural families that are geared toward turning homes into places for love and caring (for each other and for children), as well as encouraging useful work and productive function:

• Where a man and a woman are allowed to live according to their true nature, and not

expected to pursue androgynous lives designed to exhibit “sameness” in the pursuit of political correctness.

• Where a married mother and father are drawn to the home to perform their own unique

functions, both in the raising of children and the undertaking of productive tasks.

• Where parents are the primary moral and secular educator of their children, and home-

schooling flourishes with greatly curtailed state-interference.

• Where self-sufficiency is encouraged in all things – from food production via home gardens

and even small family farms; where homes have workshops and children (and adults, too) are taught how to make things again; and where economic enterprise is encouraged and supported.

• Where private property ownership is encouraged, stay at home parents are rewarded,

home-based employment flourishes and home and work are reintegrated.

The pandemic that we hope will end eventually, has been terrible is so many ways, but one unexpected positive development is that many millions of people have discovered that they can, in fact, thrive in a home environment. Parents whose kids were locked out of school by teachers’ unions discovered that many of them could learn at home and in small groups of neighbours and friends. Millions of moms and dads were able to work from home, serving the needs of both their employer and their family.

As economies recover, many people will not be interested in returning to the old days of long commutes, traffic jams, kids in day care and endless hours at the office. This creates a great opening to advance policies and proposals to support the natural family to enhance human flourishing.

One thing we know for certain is that fathers are essential. They are valuable in every way. They make our lives possible in the first instance, and they make our lives richer, fuller and better when they love, sacrifice, nurture and care for us.

• Brian S. Brown on IOF - JUNE 2021