Fathers Day 2008
+ Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney
7 Sep 2008
The difficult family circumstances that many people face were highlighted this week in the wake of US Senator John McCain naming Sarah Palin as his running mate for the November presidential election.
Most Australians had never heard of Sarah Palin before this, but we soon learnt plenty about her, including that her 17 year old daughter is pregnant and unmarried. In the unpleasant way of American politics some were tempted to use this sad news as a way of embarrassing Governor Palin and mocking her Christian convictions.
To his credit the Democratic Party candidate, Senator Barack Obama, quickly ruled out making political mileage from Governor Palin’s family situation, and said that anyone on his team found doing so would be fired. Senator Obama’s own father left him and his mother when he was young and he was brought up largely by his maternal grandparents. So he understands the difficulties with which families are often confronted.
In most cases the breakdown of a family leaves kids at a huge disadvantage, and the way Senator Obama overcame this challenging background to contend for the most important political office in the world is a great story by anyone’s standards.
Obama was lucky to have a loving mother, devoted grandparents, and good examples around him to make up for his absent father. He understands the importance of fathers to their children and has not been afraid to challenge men publicly to live up to the expectations of those who depend upon them.
As he put it in a speech made to mark Fathers Day in the US, we need fathers “to realise that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child – it’s the courage to raise one”. This is a message we need to hear in Australia too.
In 2006-07 just over a million (or 1 in 5) Australian children aged 17 or younger lived with only one of their natural parents, most of them in single parent families. For 82 per cent of these children that parent was their mother. While 50 per of kids living with only one parent saw their absent parent at least monthly, 28 per cent never saw them or saw them less than once a year.
In short, there are a lot of children who have reduced contact with their fathers or no contact at all. This is bad for kids because fathers have a powerful and positive impact on the health and development of their children.
This effect on children is strengthened when fathers have a good relationship with their mother, which teaches boys how to treat women and girls what they should expect from men. Mothers stress nurturing while fathers stress achievement, and both are important for healthy development.
Good fathers, like good mothers, make an irreplaceable contribution to the happiness and well-being of children. We need more of them.
