Our grown daughter sent me this the other day. She said it reminded her of me…Love you, Dad! That’s pretty funny but not really. Her teen years were foggy days for me. I was sick as a dog for that particular time in space

We were blessed with a very beautiful daughter although I could make a case her good looks (mother’s DNA) was equally a curse, at least for me. I should start a support group for fathers called “Shotgun on the Porch Society.”

I remember the boys circling like sharks after an Orca kill. There’s little respect left today in this regard. It’s up to Dads of girls to re-establish the once loudly-spoken rule of Hands-Off My Daughter or learn to walk with a limp for the rest of your short life. Now that I’m back on my feet, I seem to recall one, maybe two just plain lucky to be walking at all, although the statute of limitations on my grace hasn’t expired quite yet.

Every parent can appreciate the satire here but the sad truth is the abdication of the strong provisional and protective role of fathers today. What happened to the “man” part of man? Have men become so emasculated it’s now normal to hide in the garage or at the office while the fort is under assault? The answer is yes. I just read the Chinese government is now hiring men to teach their preadolescent boys to be men in the context of traditional values because of the same epidemic. Wow.

I’ve worked firsthand with young males growing up in single-parent households and households that might have well been single-parent, or maybe even better off single-parent. I can tell you the boys sans a male figure to respect take a HUGE hit and many never recover, only to repeat the cycle. Those fortunate to make it out relatively whole can spend a lifetime making up the difference. By the way, women didn’t create this problem, men did. Women need to be better at discerning the content of male character and develop greater self-respect and resolve in saying ‘Hit the Road, Jack’…but it is the man who will answer to his Maker in these matters. There is no question.

I watched a YouTube video of a popular preacher brave enough to excoriate men for not being man enough to sacrificially love their families like real men, instead leaving the massive, messy, emotional, financial and familial clean-up to the church and welfare state. The guy was visibly and audibly irate, calling these boy-men out to settle things the old-fashioned way. The pastor was a burly ex-longshoreman and no one doubted his resolve. We need more of that. Social engineers promoting the de-masculinization of men wet their pants at the thought of the morally strong man.

So if you’re a young man who’s never had a decent role model and find yourself respecting little or no one, take a breath and know it wasn’t your fault. You get a pass. However, there is no pass for your future and you will be held to the highest accountability going forward. Treating women or children in your life poorly, meaning selfishness, neglect or abuse will result in a lifetime of misery, estrangement and poverty. Take your pick or all the above. It is one thing to feel the cold, steel-toed work boot of a girl’s angry father up your backside, but entirely different to feel the pain and emptiness of life lived in regret, disrespected and unloved. On the other hand, choose to honor, respect and protect the female gender, your life will be rich in in ways you can’t imagine.

To the one standing, too often thanklessly, while taking the hits of responsible behavior in this imperfect life, under one roof or not, providing, protecting and sacrificing to give those gentler and vulnerable a better life, you da’ man!