Garth Rattray

I wonder how many fathers were present on Father's Day. Paradoxically, the presence of fathers is always inversely proportional to where they are needed the most. They're usually present in the well-off households but absent in the poor ones.

Poverty is not the major contributor to the availability of susceptible boys for use by unscrupulous, criminal-minded people; it is the lack of a wholesome family life. Boys from fatherless homes sometimes become disposable pawns that constantly feed into the culture of guns and murder. This all began when some power-hungry politicians handed out firearms to misguided, uneducated, underprivileged and disenfranchised inner-city youths.

Waning political funds prompted the transformation of some area leaders into dons and political posses into gangs. Although the gun culture developed within the primordial mix of poor parenting, poverty, ignorance and desperation, it evolved into a singularly evil and macabre entity. Reptilian-minded killers now exterminate anyone for any reason. Lacking in respect, conscience or fear of apprehension, they revel in their blood-feast at will. And, at least two generations of impressionable youths were 'fathered' by garrison politics and street gangs.

Acceptable means

Now, devoid of a viable future and a solid moral foundation, murderous monsters marinated in hate, violence and aggression are running amok unleashing terror on civil society and using mayhem and murder as acceptable means to an end.

Mothers make good parents but studies prove that even children raised by a single-parent (93 per cent of the time it's a single mother) in affluent households are more likely to exhibit serious behavioural problems than children raised in a two-parent, poverty-stricken household. This highlights the challenges that mothers face and the need for a male influence within the home.

In 1998, the December 1 issue of The Wall Street Journal published Maggie Gallagher's article 'Fatherless Boys Grow Up Into Dangerous Men'. In it, she reported on a study by Cynthia Harper and Sara McLanahan (from the University of California and Princeton, respectively). Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth database with the records of over 6,400 boys over a 20-year period of their development, they discovered that, even after accounting for background variables (like mother's educational level, neighbourhood characteristics and income), boys raised by single mothers were (generally) more than twice as likely as boys raised by both parents to end up incarcerated. And, each fatherless year increased those odds by about five per cent. Other researchers agreed and found that boys of single fathers were not at increased risk of criminal behaviour.

Fatherless households

There are many reasons for Jamaica's preponderance of fatherless households. Migration, job opportunities and our history of slavery play important roles; however, there's a prevailing culture of irresponsible sexual behaviour, the never-ending, futile attempts at trapping women and men with children, the misguided belief that producing children proves manliness (or, conversely, feminineness) and using children as little workers or old-age pensions.

If every father were held to his obligations, he could only afford one or two children and our population burden would be much less. Our Family Courts have been around since 1975 yet, to this day, most women shun their services. They believe that the courts are embarrassing, time-consuming, award too little by way of child support and aren't aggressive enough when it comes to enforcing compliance. We must legislate responsible parenting, enact powerful truancy laws and monitor at-risk children (especially males).

Until then, we can only appeal to the delinquent fathers and remind them that our epidemic of crime and violence is directly linked to their negligent behaviour.