Add One More To The Fatherless Generation

The high and the mighty have an amazing way of crashing and burning that always impacts others. Perhaps their indiscretion begins with an urge combined with the lie that “I am not going to hurt anyone.” Add to that some arrogant entitlement and you wind up with a future governor married to one of the most beautiful and powerful women in the world having an affair with a live-in house keeper. The sex drive is not all that is at work here. There surely must be an addiction to drive this kind of destruction.

While the affair is shocking and the pain tremendous for Maria and the children, I don’t think it compares to what a 13 year old boy must feel like being raised without a father. It is the kind of pain that many young men never get over. It often leads down the same characterless path that the birth father followed.

Psychologist Frank Pitman writes: “A mother can give a boy a sense of what it means to be a man, but only a dad can convey manhood upon a man.” It is a fairly accepted belief that men become men in the presence of men. A home without a father will usually lead to a detached male with little sense of male person hood. That boy may get stuck involved in a never ending quest to find and feel his manhood.

In the absence of healthy male role models, the male often turns to the female to prove or experience manhood. It never works. The pornographic image of a woman, the touch of a prostitute that intensity of an affair is just never quite enough for the searching male to finally feel like a man. That takes a relationship with a real man like a father, big brother, involved uncle or competent therapist.

You can see how easy it is for the young boy to pick up the sins of the father and repeat the cycle of unfaithfulness and missing character. Arnold has a son and I hope that all of this will lead to him coming alongside this little boy in ways other than money. And if not, I hope someone takes a genuine interest in mentoring him so that it will never be said, “Like father, like son.”

Not everyone is contributing to the fatherless generation. I have a friend who was shocked to discover his wife had been having an affair with someone in their organization. He was even more shocked when his wife admitted 30 days later that she was pregnant with this other man’s baby. His sorrow was intense and he sought out the advice of his friends. They suggested giving the boy up for adoption so he would not be reminded of the betrayal everyday for the rest of his life.

But one advisor said something different. He told him he could add to the fatherless generation or he could become the father to a little boy who really needed him. He made a bold and courageous move. He adopted the little boy and not only gave him his last name, but he gave him his first also. He said he did not ever want the boy to question who is real dad was and that was what my friend intended on becoming.

I hope Arnold can make a similar move to not be the financial backer of a fatherless boy but instead be a father to the son he sired.