According to a US News and World report dated December 28, 2012 “there will be more than 315 million people in the United States when the calendar flips from 2013 to 2014, according to the U.S. Census Bureau”.

With numbers like these there are many questions that one must ask.

As a society at large… What have we done wrong that America is experiencing a tragedy of “the breakup of the American family”?

It is reported that, “In every state, the portion of families where children have two parents, rather than one, has dropped significantly over the past decade. Even as the country added 160,000 families with children, the number of two-parent households decreased by 1.2 million. Fifteen million U.S. children, or 1 in 3, live without a father, and nearly 5 million live without a mother. In 1960, just 11 percent of American children lived in homes without fathers”.

Has it hit yet?

I’ll be honest here, my heart breaks when I learn of the break-up of another family. What happened to the men who now refuse to stand by what they say, what they commit to and to who they have had a part in creating? I’m just reminded this past weekend of how pathetic some men really are. Just another statistic to count. Just another family without a dad. How wrong!

To be straight… What shiny objects are we chasing? Whose fence are we looking over to see if the grass is just a little greener?

The times in which we find ourselves is quite different than it was 40 years ago but that is no excuse for the way men behave today. I visit my youth quite often because there is much to learn from those days. It is said of those who endured the depression that many didn’t know they were poor, and to that I can relate.

Kids, men, and women, today have by far many more luxuries than either the depression era or those of 40 years ago. But somehow they don’t seem to have enough. Yet somehow they allow those luxuries to come between them and their commitments. Yet somehow they don’t realize that long after moth and rust gathers on those long forgotten treasures…the product of those earlier commitments still exist. Yet somehow those who walk out on their commitments still want to be called dad, or mom. And yes…they are all still statistics.

Where did things go wrong? Who’s responsible?

There is a lot to be learned from the words of Jo Dee Messina.

I want a man that stands beside me
Not in front of or behind me.

Give me two arms that want to hold me, not own me
And I’ll give all the love in my heart

Stand beside me
Be true, don’t tell lies to me

I’m not lookin’ for a fantasy
I want a man who stands beside me
______________________________________________________________________________

Isn’t it time we started standing on our word, and standing up for the commitments we have made?

So…Where do you stand?

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/robert-schlesinger/2012/12/28/us-population-2013-more-than-315-million-people
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/dec/25/fathers-disappear-from-households-across-america/#ixzz2uwdfcRUI
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/robert-schlesinger/2012/12/28/us-population-2013-more-than-315-million-people
http://www.mp3lyrics.org/j/jo-dee-messina/stand/

Photo credit: arriba / Foter / CC BY
Photo credit: Lauren Manning / Foter / CC BY
Photo credit: lleugh / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA