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Going Galt: Why Men are Boycotting Marriage, Fatherhood and the American Dream

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller

Photo Credit: Daily Caller

[According to Dr. Helen Smith, the author of the new book, Men on Strike,] men are checking out of society . . . because we are making rational decisions about changing incentives.

Let’s take marriage, for example, where higher-educated women seem to be having a harder and harder time finding men worthy (or willing) to tie the knot. “[T]he incentives to marry have changed for men,” explains Smith, “and they are no longer willing to risk so much more than in previous years to gain potentially less.”

In the old days, Smith explains, a man might expect to be king of the castle. Now days, she says, he might be relegated to a “man cave” in the basement, and — if lucky — granted missionary position sex once a week. Or he becomes, as she told me, “some shlub, carrying around a flowered diaper bag.”

But if the benefits of marriage have declined for men, the downsides haven’t. Men who marry can expect to pay disproportionately for a divorce, even if the wife cheats. And as Smith points out, sometimes men are on the hook for child support, even after DNA tests prove they aren’t the father.

“[T]he new world order is a place where men are discriminated against, forced into a hostile environment in school and later in college, and held in contempt by society,” she writes. ”Maybe there is no incentive to grow up anymore,” she continues.

Read more from this story HERE.

Where is Daddy?

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Photo Credit: Matthew Bietz

Photo Credit: Matthew Bietz

By Trevor Thomas. On this Father’s Day, we celebrate a dying role. With all of the problems currently plaguing our culture — crime, violence, promiscuity, poverty, divorce, drug abuse, and so on — the one thing that we as a nation could do to remedy such things most quickly would be to return fathers to their families.

You’ve almost certainly heard the sad statistics when it comes to fatherhood in America. However, the stats continue to shock: as a recent Drudge headline noted, 60% of all families in Richmond, VA are led by single parents, with the vast majority being fatherless. For black families in Richmond, a staggering 84% are led by single parents.

The numbers are similar in dozens of large cities (pop. 50,000+) all across America. From Savannah to Atlanta; Washington, D.C.; Philadelphia; Baltimore; Hartford; Buffalo; Cleveland; Cincinnati; St. Louis; Milwaukee; and Detroit, more than half of all families are led by single parents, with the numbers for minorities — especially blacks — being significantly higher.

The demographics have been trending this way for decades. This demands an answer to the question: why? Why are so many American dads not married to and in the home with the mothers of their children?

There are two scenarios to consider: the dads who divorce and the dads who never marry. Increasingly, the latter is more common. In December of 2011, Pew Research revealed that, according to U.S. Census data, “[b]arely half of all adults in the United States — a record low — are currently married, and the median age at first marriage has never been higher for brides (26.5 years) and grooms (28.7)[.] … In 1960, 72% of all adults ages 18 and older were married; today just 51% are.” Read more from this story HERE.

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Remember the Wonder of Men

By Karin Agness. This Sunday, one group of kids across the country will be giving their fathers ties, sports gear, homemade art, or some other tokens to express their appreciation on Father’s Day. Unfortunately, there will be another group of kids for whom the holiday is a painful reminder that they don’t have a relationship with their fathers.

Why do a growing portion of kids in America have no active father in their lives to celebrate this weekend?

According to Dr. Helen Smith in her new book, Men on Strike: Why Men are Boycotting Marriage, Fatherhood, and the American Dream — and Why it Matters, one reason is that society is stacking the deck against men, causing many to go “on strike” from traditional responsibilities. These men aren’t just lazy, but instead are making choices based on incentives.

Smith writes, “Most men are not acting irresponsibly because they are immature or because they want to harm women; they are acting rationally in response to the lack of incentives today’s society offers them to be responsible fathers, husbands and providers.”

Smith argues that feminism has gone too far, creating a feminized world of female privilege, where men no longer are treated as equals. She cites examples of men opting out of college, marriage, and fatherhood. Read more from this story HERE.

Happy Father’s Day: Returning Soldiers Get First Look at Newborn Children

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Photo Credit: Abel Uribe

Stationed thousands of miles away in Afghanistan, Illinois National Guard soldier Paul Stansbury was crushed when he missed the birth of his son, Hunter, five months ago.

His experiences as a new father were limited to a collection of digitized, two-dimensional photos of his son posted on Facebook and one Skype conversation that made him yearn to hear more of the boy’s voice, and to inhale that baby smell that fills the hearts of most parents.

That wish came true on Saturday when Stansbury and about 130 other National Guard soldiers returned home from a 10-month deployment, just in time to celebrate Father’s Day with their families.

“This is unbelievable,” said Stansbury, 22, as he held a crying Hunter in his arms for the first time, kissing his cheeks and seemingly not wanting to let go. “He’s a perfect child.”

With nine other soldiers also finally meeting their recently born children and the soldiers’ parents gathered at O’Hare International Airport to welcome everyone home, the morning was filled with tears, laughter and expressions of relief.

Read more from this story HERE.

The Disappearing American Father: 1/3 of US Children Now Born Without a Father at Home

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Fathers are fast disappearing from American homes and one in three children, or approximately 15 million live without one according to the U.S. Census. The problem is especially pronounced in black families, where the figure increases to over half or around five million children.

In fact as the census recorded the fact that 160,000 new families with children were added, the number of two-parent households decreased by 1.2 million and nearly five million live without a mother. These astonishing figures can be unfavorably compared with 1960, when just 11 percent of all American children lived in homes without fathers.

Blame for the prevalence of low income families where children fall into crime and drugs has been laid at the door of these damning numbers.

‘People look at a child in need, in poverty or failing in school, and ask, ‘What can we do to help?’ said Vincent DiCaro, vice president of the National Fatherhood Initiative.

‘But what we do is ask, ‘Why does that child need help in the first place?’ And the answer is often it’s because the child lacks a responsible and involved father’…

Men walking away from babies is a problem concentrated to the inner cities, with Baltimore having only 38 percent of families that have two parents and St. Louis has 40 percent of families that have two children. The primary indicator for the problem is income – 12 percent of black families who live below the poverty line boast two parents, while among poor Latino families that figure is 41 percent and 32 percent among white families.

In all but 11 states, most black children do not live with both their parents while across every state, seven out of ten white children do.

Read more from this story HERE.