We need more than a few good men

Being born with male genitalia makes you capable of reproduction. It doesn’t make you a man. Taking responsibility and being honorable: That’s what makes you a man.

America has a fatherhood crisis. Today, 18.5 million children are growing up in homes without fathers. In some cases, their existence was the result of a random encounter between a fertile woman and a sperm donor. More often, they are the casualties of divorce.

The children of divorce are 40% more likely to serve time in jail and 75% more likely to use drugs than their counterparts from intact families. Girls are 60% more likely to get pregnant as teenagers.

Once upon a time, there was a man who promised to love and cherish their mother. Then he got angry, tired or bored and left, often for greener pastures.

In the United States, the average first marriage lasts eight years. The reasons for the breakup are endless – infidelity, physical abuse, substance abuse and financial problems among them – but the leading cause of divorce is something called incompatibility, which is often synonymous with boredom.

A man thinks: “My wife isn’t as attractive as she was eight years ago. She isn’t as charming and amusing. I keep comparing her to the women I work with, meet at a coffee shop or see on the street, and she comes up short.”

Thanks to no-fault divorce, there doesn’t have to be a reason, at least not one disclosed in the divorce papers.

In the end, whether a marriage succeeds or fails is often a matter of character or a lack thereof.

My father came from a broken home. His parents had separated. He grew up with his mother and three siblings in what was called a cold water flat. He was expelled from school in sixth grade and forced to go to work at 13.

However, my father believed in keeping his commitments. He married for life and felt responsible for his wife and son right up to the end. Where did this come from? He didn’t get it from his father. Maybe it was kicking around the country and getting kicked around during the Depression or serving in the Army during World War II. Or maybe he got it from ’40s and ’50s movies.

I know a man with an autistic son whose wife deserted him. He is raising the child by himself and might be caring for him for the rest of his life. That takes character.

Regrettably, so many young men never acquire the values that came naturally to my father.

The relations between men and women, husbands and wives, used to be based on religious teachings and something called chivalry, which had nothing to do with knights in shining armor. Women were weaker and more vulnerable. Men were honor-bound to protect them. This was reflected in small ways, like a man rising when a woman entered a room and holding a door or chair for her, and in big ways, like keeping his marriage vows.

It required restraint. A man waited until marriage for physical intimacy or, barring that, married the woman with whom he had been intimate. Marriage was a lifelong commitment.

We must relearn the lessons our grandparents knew instinctively. We need to find new models of masculinity.

More than 80 years ago this month, a group of fresh-faced kids stormed the beaches in Normandy. This was what was expected from the greatest generation. For a more recent example, try the ICE agents, cops and National Guard members who are holding the line against mob rule in Los Angeles and other cities. They do it because of old-fashioned values such as patriotism and justice.

Aside from mothers, fathers are the most valuable resource in the world and one in increasingly short supply. We need them to keep families together, to create a stable environment in which to raise children and to protect women and children from predators who lurk in dark places.

A father in the home can model masculinity for young men and make young women feel secure so they don’t go off the rails when they reach adolescence.

Women are important too. By being ladies, with all that implies, they can help make males into men.

An old recruiting poster said: “The Marines Need a Few Good Men.”

America needs more than a few.

This column was first published at the Washington Times.