Of all the hats that I wear: Delegate, teacher, husband, and father, being a father is the most important. I am the father to four beautiful children, and being their dad has brought me my life’s greatest joys! Being a father isn’t all a bed of roses though; it is hard. It is not for the faint of heart. The role of father demands accountability, reliability, steadfastness, care, love, and appreciation for the role itself from men. Men must have a present, loving, and guiding role in the lives of their children. Being a father means more than just providing for a family; it means being present and setting an example of love and positive masculinity.
Father’s Day is such an important day, and it is a day we should all take time to honor the men in our lives who have stepped up and taken their role as a father seriously. It is also a day we should take time to reflect on just how important fathers are to our communities and our nation itself. Fathers are the glue of our society. Where the father leads, the family goes. And where the family goes, so goes our entire society.
I was blessed with a great example of fatherhood in my late father, David Pritt. My dad was a good man, a present father. He was raised in a foster home and decided that he would rise to the challenge and build a life and family for himself, and he did. It must be acknowledged that not all children are fortunate to have good, loving, and present fathers. This has created what is being colloquially known as a “Crisis of Fatherhood” in our nation.
We know that fathers are important and integral to the life and emotional development of their children. According to data from the US Census Bureau, slightly over 25% of all the children in the United States are growing up in a household with no father or father figure at all! We have a fatherhood crisis! What is society experiencing because of this? Citing various peer-reviewed studies, the America First Policy Institute states that children without present fathers or children who are growing up in a single-parent home without a father are more likely to carry firearms and deal drugs, drop out of school, enter the juvenile justice system, have poorer educational performance outcomes, have a much higher risk for psychiatric disorders, and create fatherless families themselves, thus perpetuating the cycle of fatherlessness.
We know that we have a crisis of fatherhood in this nation, and my hope today is that while we take the time to honor the men who have stepped up to the plate and are there for their kids day in and day out, we also understand that our future as a nation depends on men continuing to take their role as a father seriously.
