One of the most important aspects of the modern conservative movement has been its fight against the new liberal ethos that actively seeks to undermine and dismantle the family unit. In his 2017 book, Cheap Sex, Mark Regnerus shows how the state of marriage and monogamy is at an all-time low. But perhaps the most perverse position held by the new dogma is that fathers don’t matter. Hereare just a few examples. Recently, Mary Eberstadt wrote a brilliant and heart-wrenching essay about the effects of fatherlessness on America’s youth. Perhaps the scariest few lines from her essay read:
Six decades of social science have established that the most efficient way to increase dysfunction is to increase fatherlessness. And this the United States has done, for two generations now. Almost one in four children today grows up without a father in the home. For African Americans, it is some 65 percent of children.
The issue is real, and the conservative movement is right to fight so fiercely to reverse this pendulum swing. But what until then? What social institutions are in place to guide today’s fatherless children?