Empowered to Prosper as Parents

[Cheryl]

Empowered to Prosper in Parenting
By: Cheryl Lacey Donovan


Proverbs 22:6 Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.

Empowered to prosper what a wonderful title!

When I was a young single mother it was the empowered to prosper mentality that saw me through.

Being a parent isn’t easy. Add being a teenager and a single mother to the mix and it can quickly become an equation for disaster. But contrary to popular belief children do come with an instruction manual. It’s called the Bible and I used mine every chance I got. Read More at the first stop on the Ministry of Motherhood Virtual Book Tour

[Scott R. Newman]

Jas 1:27 "Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world."

First of all, let me say this as a black father whom my children need and desire and adore their daddy who is the Priest, Prophet and Cultivator as well as the Protector and Gate keeper of his home. I take my hat off to any single women trying to raise children alone without the one who seeded the child, who is called and commanded by God to minister to his children as well as to his wife and raise them and train them up in the ways of the Lord.

However the preceding verse speaks otherwise. Pure religion is to care for the fatherless children and widows who don't have a husband to protect and to provide for is not something that God takes lightly. Without a father in the home, God see's that as a home filled with affliction, even a curse. Why God is serious about it to the point of having the people of God to go quickly to aid the orphan and the widows for they are like sheep waiting for the slaughter by the very wolves that are sent out to destroy those children who are fatherless and are found to be helpless in this dark world that loves to prey on the innocent. We are living in a very dangerous world that needs the family unit in tact, not to make excuses or sugar coat and to find ways to get around the obvious. My children need their daddy as well as their mommy. The statistics don't lie as to what happens to so many who are being raised in a fatherless home.

The New York Times noted that Obama sounded like comedian Bill Cosby, who has blamed fatherlessness in the black community, among other things, for African-Americans' overrepresentation in jail and underrepresentation among the educated.

By using the term "we," we will assume Obama is speaking to people roughly his age, 46. And by that measure, his claim is backed up by data from the U.S. Census Bureau. In 1960, the year before Obama was born, 22 percent of black children lived with single parents. In 1968, the number rose to 31.4 percent. By 2006, the 1960 percentage had more than doubled to 56 percent.

And the single parents are overwhelmingly women.

In 2006, 91.4 percent of single parents of black children were mothers. That figure hasn't changed over the years. In 1960, it was a shade lower at 91 percent.

The figures for single-parent families show a rosier picture among other races. About 28 percent of children of all races lived with a single parent in 2006. In 1960, only about 9 percent of American children lived with a single parent.

The absence of fathers is important, Obama continued, because "children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime; nine times more likely to drop out of schools and 20 times more likely to end up in prison."

Dr. Alvin Poussaint, a psychiatrist with Harvard Medical School and co-author with Bill Cosby of Come on People: On the Path from Victims to Victors, said Obama's view rings true: The absence of fathers corresponds with a host of social ills, including dropping out of school and serving time in jail.

But he said other factors such as poverty, education level and the age of parents also correlate with single motherhood and adolescent problems.

My father who is now 77 years old who is a great father and have been married to my mother for over 50 years. He has never left nor forsook us, not even for one day. I would get up in the morning with him at 5:30 am, before he left for work, just to have our father and son time as he spoke powerfully to me while he shaved. I couldn't wait to be old enough to shave like my father. He was raised by his single mother in the 30's-40's as a teenager, since he was the only "man" of the house with just him and his mother and 2 sisters, he felt he had to quit school to support the family. Since my father's father was not around and he was in the streets and was not relationally in my father's life. My father even in his old age in a hospital bed a couple of years ago cried real tears of his father abandoning him when he needed him most, despite having a great mother who supported him. The pain I have found never goes away to a child who's father has rejected him.

I remember when my son was 3 years old as the whole family went to Target and my son looked up at me and said, "daddy I have to pee". I took him to the bathroom entrance and asked him, "Simeon which bathroom do us boys go into?" He looked at the door where the picture of a girl was and the door where the picture of the boy was and he pointed excitedly and said, "this one daddy is the BOYS room". Question: What bathroom does a single mother take her 3 year old son too when he has to pee? The girls restroom or the boys restroom? To most women its not big deal, but as a young boy child going to the restroom with daddy is a powerful and impacting journey that is significant to him as he is starting to mentally establish within him in becoming one day a man. I've seen my son's friends who by age 7 have never seen a men's room and a urinal. How does a young child believe in a Holy Father that will never leave nor forsake him, if his own physical father left and forsook him? We are asking for a lot. The stats show that when the father leads his family to church regularly the children have a 67% chance of never leaving the faith, compared to when a child who is fatherless and the mother leads her children to church, those numbers drop significantly to single digits of children leaving the faith.

I believe most women and especially black women today are being deceived when believing that they only can raise children just as well as in a two parent household with just some biblical principles. Yes, it can happen that a child can evade prison, even though 90% of all who find themselves locked up come from broken homes. Yes, it can happen that a child who is fatherless can make it through school and to even college, even though the stats show that fatherless children have a very high drop out rate. Yes it can happen that a fatherless child can side step the many pitfalls that this warped society has laid out for them to fall victim too, even though statistics show that too many fall and rarely get up. Even if the fatherless child becomes a great citizen and never goes by way of baal, the emptiness still exists from within as he/she will continue to feel the mighty need and desire to want his daddy.

This phenomenon that we as black folx is not the fault of women or mothers, its the fault of men. Adam where art thou? Children need their daddies, boys as well as girls. Boys need their fathers so they would know how be BE a man to know how to care for his family and not run when persecution, famine, lack, riches, abundance, temptation, attacks, etc, come to be able to withstand the attacks of satan when they arise. Girls need their fathers to teach them what a man looks like that approaches her and to recognize a man who knows how to SPEAK compared to a man who just TALKS.

A real man SPEAKS the things of God. A talking man, talks a good game.

I believe feminism has crept into the many female led, seeker friendly churches that have somehow refused to look at the true needs of the family, church, community and nation as our people are suffering under the heavy yoke of what happens to any house and nation when the man is not taking his rightful place as the head and the consequences of that is what we see happening to our children today. Its not be accident, but by DESIGN.

[Cheryl]

I too believe that it is God's design for the man to be the leader and priest of his household. However, there are many men who for whatever reason don't choose to take on this responsibility. Instead they give in to the wiles of the devil and seek after drugs, other women, and lifestyles that are contrary to the will of God. I am happy to say that God did eventually send me my Boaz and we have lived under God's proper order for some time now. But to believe that all women who raise their children alone are doing so because they choose to or because of feminism is not true. Men need to take their proper places as priests, leaders, husbands, and fathers. I personally advocate for that wholeheartedly because I do believe the absence of a father in the home is detrimental. But even when fathers choose not to step up to the plate, God can turn what the devil meant for evil in one's life and make it good. Just as he did for me. I am simply offering hope to the women who would love to have the father of their children in their lives, but for whatever reason don't. Thanks for your comment. God bless