Lessons to teach men with absent fathers

[Armadox]

I'd been considering this topic thoroughly as for what was the most important lessons I found out when I left home early, and it's this....

You're going to live or die by your own hands, and it's going to be bloody, and it's going to hurt and it's going to keep you down. And you're going to fight harder then every man or woman you see, because no matter where you are you're going to always see others succeeding where you didn't. And you know what? It's all on you. You didn't win the prize, you don't get the stable home, you're going to have to fend for you.

You're going to have to take the fight to the world, and you're going to have to outsmart it. And it's brains that win this game, kid. Brains. You can be the strongest back in the pack, but you'll always be a mule if you never think about where you're going. Used up and spat out and worn down. General labor is good for a laugh and a fist full of bills at the start, but don't make it a habit.

But first right here and now? You're going to have to have a plan. It doesn't have to be long term, it doesn't have to be grand, but whatever you plan to be in the future. You got to start being it now. You're going to have to look inside yourself to that little furnace and find what you're passionate about. What sparks you. Then you fuel that until it burns up everything else and all you're left with is the drive to make that yours.

But that step up you need to even start? That first step to being someone? That's on you to figure out. You want a job, a home, a car? Know the right people or have the right skills, but pick which one you want to follow now and quickly, because it's a very cold world and it's not going to wait for you to decide for long. Because it's going to seem like everyone else got the chance to have mom and dad pull them up that first step, and you... you didn't. You want something? Skills or people. It's the only way, and those who see that first wins.

Don't expect help, but from my experience the world'll throw you a bone now and then, and there are good people who'll slip into your life that you got to know you can call on when the time is right. Things start hurting less after the first few years. You'll callous after being knocked down long enough.

If you're lucky you'll learn to temper that anger that you've built up, and you're going to build it up. Everyone finds themselves raging at the world when things don't go their way, but it's important to know when you're able to stop fighting. When things start falling into place, and you start to make sense of it all, and the parties and the friends start to fall away as you leave school and enter real adult life. You learn to temper that anger into something useful. Into a trade or a profession. To take all those skills and hone them and don't stop. Anger will be the drive that will see you at the start, but don't build a shrine to it and end up just as bad as the things you came from.

Because one day, one day you'll meet someone who'll sooth you. Heh, one day you're going to find someone who's going to be there to help you and work with you (that's with you, not for you or you for them. You want to make ends meet, make them met in the middle), and one day you might have a kid yourself. And you're going to want to do right by making the world less brutal for him or her if you can.

Hell... In the end, it's all about making the beating your kids get less then the one you're about to get. And you're about to get one nasty beating.

That's the lesson at the end of it all is; Life is going to be hard, and you're job is to make it less hard for someone else.



Oh, and learn to bloody cook. Doesn't matter how good it is, you learn to bloody damn well cook. A pot of chili frozen into sandwich bags will last you a week (two if you can get your hands on a stew or crock pot early), and be a hell of a lot more filling then it's equivalent price in ramen. Nothing will save your ass more, or please your partner more then to come home and cook a meal once in a while.

captcha: Goody Toe Shoes. Not even close captcha.. Not even close.

 

[wulf3n]

Please show me where he said choosing to follow them means they're overly attached.

It's in the first post I quoted.

Hint: He never specified what behavior qualified as overly attached. You're assuming it.

True, it was an inference based on the tone. I'd be happy to be corrected by erttheking if that's not what he intended.

No. The first sentence merely says about society being too attached to roles. That's it. It says nothing about individuals wanting to be these roles.

Which says those who choose said roles are contributing to the excess by its very nature.

The two sentences are from two different posts and different contexts.

Different posts, yes. Different contexts, no.

Your claim is flimsy at best.

flimsy is in the eye of the beholder.

 

[Loonyyy]

And now you can sit right back down. I'm also a bloke. Wanna see my fucking wifebeater? Hell, I'm another child of divorce. You wanna condescend me some more. Right back down.

It don't change the fact that it started off sexist, and in the subsequent posts, got more so. And it's not just because of women. It is sexist towards women when you start talking about lack of a father figure and prostitution etc, but that wasn't what I was concerned with. It's sexist towards men, so pipe down.

This shit about lack of a father and gangs. As I said, the main problem I have with it is that it's asking for this stupid "blokey" exchange. Which is absolute fucking hogwash. To be a good man, you need to be a good person, and a man, whatever form that takes. And that can involve listening to anyone and everyone. There. Fucking done. You don't need anything extra to be a good man. As I said, kids need a stable, loving environment. It doesn't matter who their parents are, it matters that they have a safe environment where they are supported(And of course, kids with same-gendered parents are even more marginalized by this. Oh well, guess they'll never fill that father shaped hole. News flash, that hole is put there when they rip a parent out. It ain't a feature). Hell, you can't even get right that being attracted to women has nothing to do with being a man. What about gay men, or asexual men? What about men who are attracted to men? What about men who aren't domineering assholes, and can stand listening to what women think about their romantic partners? That's what happens when you come at it from this traditionalist, essentialist, retrograde view. You get it all wrong. It doesn't help that your advice there is also sexist hogwash. Although this time you are just shitting on women, so I guess, as one bloke to another, I guess we can give you a pass.

We'll go bond over a shared appreciation of a male activity. How about gay sex. That tends to have fewer women in it. (Sarcasm for those lacking in subtlety).

So what you're saying is that people in gangs are incapable of being good people? What a bigger load of hogwash.

Of course that's a load of hogwash. That's because it's something I didn't say.

Gangs are not solely evil things,

Good that I didn't talk about the nature of gangs.

I remember listening to a former gang member come to my school as a kid talking about how it helped him before he left it behind him and that everyone should have the experience of having a support group, peers, superiors, friends, and second family all rolled into one that you can find anytime you need them and for it not to be in any way involved with school.

I'm sure that it was. That's nothing to do with ANYTHING I said. It's an interesting anectdote, and would make a great post, directed at someone who actually said what you thought I said.

There's a load of sexist drivel spewed on this site day-in, day-out(towards both men and women whether you believe it or not).

Yeah. The OP for instance. Which I slammed. And the response I recieved. Which I slammed. And my biggest problem with those, believe it or not, is not how it affects women, but men. So shove it. READ MY POSTS.

Is it really so hard to ask that ONCE a topic that's specifically about sons and father-figures(read the op and not just the title people that keep trying to make this into an attack on non-traditional families.) not devolve into the sexism debate?

I can't roll my eyes enough. I included my own advice. With the caveat that I don't think there's much you need to be a good man that you don't need to be a good PERSON. And I included advice on that. I also quoted someone else's advice.

OT, Gaming, Featured Content, News Room, R&P, hell, even the ADVICE FORUM. I'd bet something around 70% of the topics turn into sexism debates and it really needs to stop. And it is nearly always the same people that start it.

Oh please, I know what you get up to. Don't make vague insinuations about me. The OP said things that deserved recognition and response. Just because you're happy with deliberately ignoring things doesn't mean the rest of us are, and I'm not going to stop thinking or saying what I mean just because it offends you.

Is it really that hard to ask that people calm down and let it exist

I didn't say it shouldn't exist. Need I remind you that I gave my own advice, and also recommended someone else's?

the same as any "recommend me an anime" thread that happen at least once a week.(seeing as I've seen people here complain that it's a sexist medium simply for the fact that it is produced in Japan, don't ask me to explain it, I don't understand it either.)

Good thing I didn't say that, and have never said that, and also read, and enjoy, and utilize those threads.

Apparently it is.

Such melodrama. Very wow. 0/10 for concept. 8/10 for delivery. If I had the casting power, I'd try to get you an audition with a soap. Alas, I do not, so I'll ask that you read my damn posts before quoting me.

 

[Loonyyy]

We'll go bond over a shared appreciation of a male activity. How about gay sex. That tends to have fewer women in it. (Sarcasm for those lacking in subtlety).

It's not all that far off from many activities in history, but I feel that'll be lost on such posters. The likes of the Sacred Band of Thebes and male initiations in New Guinea of boys performing oral sex on grown men to consume their semen and thus absorb their manliness all revolve around the balance of masculinity staving off effeminacy while being completely homosexual, with plenty of other more minor activities laced through warrior and military cultural being homoerotic.

It's what I find ultimately funny about the modern gay movement and their innate prejudice that gay = effeminate. It always makes me giggle when they look on Ancient Greece as a hallmark of gay tolerance when their whole focus on being as manly as possible to the point where they felt the less time spent around women the better, lest it soften them.

Bring a pack of them in a time travel machine and you'd find them being disgusted as much as the anti-homosexual movement today, only for tolerating such effeminacy and would no doubt look on whole culture, hetero and homo as being "queer and sissy".

I'm decidedly unimpressed when advice about being a man ignores that sex with women is nothing to do with that, and romantic pairing with women even less. And that all these traditional chauvinists who care so much about men don't spare an ounce of a thought for the most vulnerable men, whilst complaining that I am the one censoring their precious jocky circle-jerk.

And the perception that gay people are effiminate is television and confirmation bias. That's not to say that there aren't these people, or a lot of them, that's to say that it's a convenient stereotype. There's a lot more people attracted to the same sex around you than you think, it's just that not all the men are effeminate sassy accessories to women, and not all the women are overweight shaven headed flannel-wearers. If that's what you look for, that's what you'll find. Hence my use of the term "bloke".

-snip-

I'm convinced that in the puerile mess of this thread, your continuing involvement is pretty awesome, and your advice is worth 20 of the conservative knee-jerk mens men, toxic crap that's being suggested. I'd quote a whole bunch of your posts to say how much I agree with things you've said, but that would be clogging up the forum and super creepy. Good on you.

Men's advice: Don't listen to anyone who wants to tell you how to be a man, or some essential guidance you need. They probably don't have it. (And ironically, that includes me).

 

[the December King]

I guess, all things being equal, I'd suggest trying to be understanding, grateful and patient with the parent that stayed. Try to see the burden that they have taken on, raising a child without a partner, and try to make it bearable for them.

 

[Ilovechocolatemilk]

I'll make this post based on my own experiences and from what I've observed in some of my friends who grew up without fathers. The biggest thing to learn is respect for authority. A lot of guys I know who grow up without fathers have an inherent distrust of authority. I think it's because many of us grew up without seeing what a good, respectable authority figure looks like. This WILL hold you back when you are trying to go to college, get a job, etc.

Another thing is dating. Personally, I grew up in a family where my sisters and even my mom would say a lot of things that would get under my skin. Sometimes, they weren't even intending it, like when they would speak candidly about what kind of men they found ugly. They also excluded me from everything, which is probably why I grew up playing video games. Similarly, my friends who grew up with single mothers either seemed to be deeply insecure or overbearingly macho, another sign of insecurity.

The women I know who grew up without fathers tend to be less stable. Not all of them, but more often than not. Even in my own family, my older sister is extremely mature and well-adjusted while my younger sister could not find a stable boyfriend for a long time. She'd hop from guy to guy every month, not knowing if she loved them or not. Some girls I've known, especially the ones who dressed in a weird way or who dyed their hair a weird color, behaved in much the same way. They'd go from guy to guy, always being unhappy, never knowing what they want.

Take these observations as you will. I know there are people who are claiming that this thread is misogynistic, but statistics (and logic) show that kids who grow up in single parent households are less upwardly mobile than kids who grow up in two parent households. I don't have the statistics on-hand, but the vast, vast majority of college students, especially in ivy leagues, come from two parent households. It is the most homogenizing factor, above race, economic class, and gender.

 

[Queen Michael]

If you grow up without a father or a abusive father

I didn't grow up without an abusive father. I very much wish I had, though.

Also, one thing my dad never got around to teaching me is this: Always eat yellow snow unless you're completely certain it's not beer. Otherwise you might miss free beer.

 

[rosac]

EDIT: Well this thread took one hell of a unexpected turn...

I expected this thread to go mad, but not as quickly as this!

Both my parents are together, so I'm not realllly sure what to say about this, other than that I know my father was (and still is!) a huge influence on me.

 

[Ilovechocolatemilk]

-snip-

I agree with most of this, but not all. A lot of people I know from single parent households have a lot of piss and vinegar in them that they carry with them into young adulthood. Anger and resentment is not something to be embraced. Sure, it helps you in the short run get over the motivation hump, but in the long run, it burns out your friendships and eventually burns you out or turns you into a bitter person.

Hate to sound all new-age hippy, but the world isn't against you and believing that can actually hurt your prospects. I mean, fuck, I failed out of school and dropped off the radar for a while to do some minimum waging, and it was all because I thought the world was against me. I nursed my self-pity and it fueled my anger. It's no way to live life.

I do agree with your whole making life better for your kids though.

 

[Secondhand Revenant]

Please show me where he said choosing to follow them means they're overly attached.

It's in the first post I quoted.

Hint: He never specified what behavior qualified as overly attached. You're assuming it.

True, it was an inference based on the tone. I'd be happy to be corrected by erttheking if that's not what he intended.

In other words it is NOT in the first post you quoted since it was something you assumed.


Also an inference based on *tone* on the internet? You've got to be kidding me.

Why not try one based on context. Like, say, that his issue is with society pushing gender roles on people since that is often something people complain about and thete are notable examples of people who would try to spread them to kids in this thread. But naaah lets base it off 'tone' that'll mostly be an assumption in and of itself. An assumption based on an assumption has *got* to be even better

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

I can't comment personally, I had my father around and thankfully he was a great guy. I also lived in a non-traditional family (in the 80s/90s a female breadwinner and a male menial job (waiter/bartender/cook) was "non-traditional"). Yeah, read into how I phrased that all you want, I don't mind I just want to express how I grew up with a whole different pair of perspective goggles than most people.

However, apparently I have a high power of perception/observation and noticed a lot of traits of my age-group kids (especially males) and how they acted in respect to their family dynamics. Growing up in a small town, you generally get to know almost everyone around you eventually unless you never venture outside your home. So seeing kids outside of school at the grocery store with their parent(s) or lack thereof, being out and about on your own in later years and venturing to different neighborhoods in a small area... well you pretty much get to know other families whether you really want to or not if you're like me and can't turn off the informational sponge that is your brain picking through sensory inputs and putting them together.

Of my observations, I can say that a fair amount of the troubled male kids I knew either had shitty fathers or totally absentee fathers. But not all. Some were less outwardly troubled and didn't exhibit violent tendencies like the first group, but were inwardly tortured in some way (self-esteem issues). See I had concentration issues and in the 80s US Elementary educational system that basically equated to some form of ADD and thus you had a learning disability. So you get stuck in ESE (special education) classes with a jumble of kids with "issues". So I got to meet just about every archetype of male-without-a-father.

As I said some were troublesome little shits (which ended up growing into criminally troublesome punks and adults, pretty well terminally so), some were horribly trashed emotionally. Some because of an overcompensating mother, alcoholic mother, mother who didn't give two shits or had abusive boyfriends, or a combination of all previous things. Also pretty much any of the previous could be genderswapped for a missing mother and still have had similar results, again from experienced observation. There were a few, a small few, who turned out decent, at least from what I know. But from what I could tell, missing a parent definitely affects a child somehow. The problem is one can't tell how it will affect the kid because one has to also factor in the dynamic of the parent left behind to care for the kid. How are they as people? Do they have familial aid in raising the kid or are they completely alone? Is the parent left behind dealing with their own issues of self-esteem, addiction? Basically what the pressures the kid faces at home are what end up molding the kid as they grow up.

Yes there is a bit of self-determination added in, but from my own perspective of personal issues, self-determination is tough when one has to deal with the mind rebelling against forward progress of the self. I'm not saying children don't have any agency on how they grow up or to determine what kind of person they will become, but parents and homelife are often the default setting kids see growing up as how to face the world, even if the home default is known by the kid to be wrong, the adult analog of said child can still end up defaulting to the setting they grew up seeing. It takes a lot of will and determination to go against what one grows up around, not everyone has that.

So my advice to anyone who grows up sans any parent? Don't ever be too proud to admit that you need help or to accept it if it is given. Honestly thats one of the biggest issues I've seen from people who grew up in one-parent households. Other than that, if your homelife as a kid was shit, let it go and move on with your present life. If that isn't an easy task (and trust me it isn't) don't be afraid or too proud to seek help doing so. Other than that? Not a damn thing.

I do want to note that I did see some kids grow up sans a parent and turn out fine, maybe they were slow starters but they turned out to be ultimately good folks. So nothing is universal, no set of circumstances locks a future in stone.

*shrug* Thats all I have to say about that.

 

[Armadox]

-snip-

I agree with most of this, but not all. A lot of people I know from single parent households have a lot of piss and vinegar in them that they carry with them into young adulthood. Anger and resentment is not something to be embraced. Sure, it helps you in the short run get over the motivation hump, but in the long run, it burns out your friendships and eventually burns you out or turns you into a bitter person.

Hate to sound all new-age hippy, but the world isn't against you and believing that can actually hurt your prospects. I mean, fuck, I failed out of school and dropped off the radar for a while to do some minimum waging, and it was all because I thought the world was against me. I nursed my self-pity and it fueled my anger. It's no way to live life.

I do agree with your whole making life better for your kids though.

*raises an eyebrow, and shrugs* I don't blame you for not reading the part where I mentioned not building a shrine to your anger, it was a long rant. Nothing wrong with having "hippy ideals" either. If the world gives you a light punch, that is nothing to be ashamed of. But everybody needs to come out of the gate swinging, because you don't know what kind of beating you're about to get till you've got it. You need a plan, and the desire and focus to make that plan work out in your favor.

The trick is to know when to hammer your long swords into plow shears. Anger can drive you forward if you focus it into what you want, resentment will hold you back. Always. It's hard to tell when you're ready to stop fighting, but you'll know when that moment is or you won't stop. There is also parts where you need to figure out what friends you have that will hold you up, and which one's will knock you down. Which connections will help you in your future, and how to get them. And, yah even who you'll have to screw over when it comes, because no one gets away with succeeding without it meaning someone else didn't. It's just how things work. It's tough, but if you can make it those first few years, you'll be able to keep afloat usually.

Also, once you do make it, have the sense to help someone else out. I don't like people, but I sure as hell do work for charity when I get the chance, because you never know how close someone else is to making that first step themselves if you just tossed them a bone. Something I think we've lost track of these days...

 

[wulf3n]

In other words it is NOT in the first post you quoted since it was something you assumed.

Inferred not assumed.

Also an inference based on *tone* on the internet? You've got to be kidding me.

I am, and don't call me shirley.

Why not try one based on context. Like, say, that his issue is with society pushing gender roles on people since that is often something people complain about and thete are notable examples of people who would try to spread them to kids in this thread.

Now who's inferring.

But naaah lets base it off 'tone' that'll mostly be an assumption in and of itself. An assumption based on an assumption has *got* to be even better

I agree.

 

[Johnny Impact]

My dad wasn't around much because he was a workaholic. Didn't see him much. If I learned anything from that, it was to take it easy. You only get one life, do you want to spend the best twenty years of it working until you make yourself sick? He has several times said he'd work less if he could do it over.

There were things I didn't get to do as a result of that. For example, I never earned all my Cub Scout badges because many require parental aid (or that you operate power tools unsupervised -- not advisable for nine-year olds!). Most of the other boys got theirs.

I have always felt like.....the most succinct way to say it is I've never felt like a man. I identify as a heterosexual male, but I've always seemed to be a square peg in a round hole. I don't fit the archetypal beer-loving, dirty-joke-sharing, good-with-his-hands, sports-enthusiast image of maleness. I think this is more of a "doesn't identify with society in general" thing than a "gender identity issues" kind of thing. Still, I've always wondered if there was some intangible quality I never had the opportunity to pick up from my father.

The lessons everyone needs to know are to stand on your own two feet, treat others with respect or at least courtesy, don't lie, don't cheat, don't steal. It doesn't matter if they're taught by a father, mother, aunt, adoptive parents, priest, or community leader.

 

[Redryhno]

snip

Ok, I'm incredibly confused, how is this thread sexist? It's about guys and father-figures. There's crap that father-figures give to guys that they in most cases they won't get otherwise, same goes with mother-figures, but the poster comes from a fatherless home and wants to know about where that part of his family came from, again I ask that you calm down and stop the name-calling. The post is about guys, and just because some people have different ideas of good advice than you doesn't make them conservative knee-jerkers.

And what makes you think I was including you in the "same people always showing up" category? I don't think I've ever even seen your username before...

 

[Belaam]

My parents divorced prior to my birth and I spent two months with my dad each summer.

Frankly, I think it is a big part of my feminism. At my mom's place I'd see my mom working a job, cooking, cleaning, paying bills, mowing the lawn, scrubbing the toilets; doing everything. Then I'd go to my dad's and see my dad working a job, cooking, cleaning, paying bills, mowing the lawn, scrubbing the toilets; doing everything. The concept that one of them shouldn't or couldn't do any of those tasks was constantly negated by what I actually saw in from of me.

I know men today who have literally never cleaned up after their kids or made a dinner that wasn't at the grill. Another has never stayed a single night with his kids without his wife being there. And that just seems absurd to me.

But, lacking a male role model most of the time mainly just made me go looking elsewhere for male role models. Literature, film, friend's parents, etc. However, I do generally feel as though I am playing it by ear, but have sort of accepted that. When my wife was pregnant with our first child, I used to say if it was a girl, I was going to make sure I taught her how to use power tools and work with wood and if it was a boy I was going to make sure I taught him how to use a sewing machine and work with fabric. I have both skills and both have served me well and children of any gender should know both.

 

[JarinArenos]

There is always a butch and a feminine no? even then that's an interesting study.

No, no there is not. I'm sure this exists in some places, but it hasn't applied to a single homosexual couple that I've known, and that's not a particularly short list. Please don't assume that gays and lesbians always function as portrayed in their rare and badly stereotypical appearances on TV.

I'm staying out of the rest of this, because a) I haven't studied it, and b) this thread is going places I really don't want to touch.

 

[Inglorious891]

snip

Ok, I'm incredibly confused, how is this thread sexist? It's about guys and father-figures. There's crap that father-figures give to guys that they in most cases they won't get otherwise, same goes with mother-figures, but the poster comes from a fatherless home and wants to know about where that part of his family came from, again I ask that you calm down and stop the name-calling. The post is about guys, and just because some people have different ideas of good advice than you doesn't make them conservative knee-jerkers.

And what makes you think I was including you in the "same people always showing up" category? I don't think I've ever even seen your username before...

Most I could get out of his rage is that it's offensive because people are suggesting young boys need or should have some kind of father figure to provide guidence versus just some person (gender be damned) to give guidence. And this is offensive towards men because... reasons. It's offensive towards women because it implies women can't provide the type of guidence men can provide, which suggests that women may have some kind of differences from men (which we all know isn't acceptable). That's all I could get, anyway.

I have always felt like.....the most succinct way to say it is I've never felt like a man. I identify as a heterosexual male, but I've always seemed to be a square peg in a round hole. I don't fit the archetypal beer-loving, dirty-joke-sharing, good-with-his-hands, sports-enthusiast image of maleness. I think this is more of a "doesn't identify with society in general" thing than a "gender identity issues" kind of thing. Still, I've always wondered if there was some intangible quality I never had the opportunity to pick up from my father.

I get the same feeling. I've never had much of a father figure in my life, which has always made me wonder if I've been missing out on some advice or some positive life experiences that he could have given me. Because of this I've never really felt like much of a "man", mainly because I've never done any of the typical "manly" activites. Doesn't make me feel like less of a person, just like I've... missed out of a lot of things.

 

[Battenberg]

If you feel this is out of line and not constructive toward your topic just say the word and I'll delete this, but there's something about this whole "absent father" thing that I don't quite understand.

I know that there are more children in the world without fathers than without mothers. However, there seems to be an assumption that there's a direct cause-and-effect relationship between not having a father and being more likely to commit crime. My question is, is lacking a father REALLY the deciding factor here? Because for children who lack a father, or any parent at all, there are generally a lot of other things going on. Children of single parents are typically poorer and have fewer opportunities for enrichment or higher education. They're pressured to enter the workforce sooner to help out with finances. They don't get away from home as often and typically don't have a lot of enriching free-time. They don't get to participate in as many extracurricular activities at school. The parent they do have is more likely to have some kind of problem like addiction or depression.

On top of that, the concern is always for boys lacking a father figure. There's never concern for a girl who lacks a father figure. Why is that? If the father figure is somehow the authority which compels children to stay on the straight and narrow, why is this only the case for boys? I understand single dads are much rarer than single mothers, but though I've heard a thousand times how fathers are the force which prevent boys from becoming criminals, I've never heard a correlation drawn between girls and their mothers that has such a profound effect.

I guess what I'm asking is, is the lack of a father figure really what causes boys to become criminals, or is it the other circumstances which surround single parents? Poverty is a well-known and documented predictor of crime, and single parents are often poor. Is there truly a correlation between a lack of a father figure and crime at all socio-economic levels? The reason I ask is that the cynical side of me often sees this "boys need father figures so they don't become criminals" argument trotted out by social conservatives who are trying to hammer home the importance of a nuclear family to discredit nontraditional or single-parent families, and to downplay the effect poverty has on crime.

Is this not a whole other thread topic? I'm not saying it's not worth discussing but this thread already had a topic and this has sidetracked it more than a little.