Father's Role in the Family

Last Sunday, the people of America celebrated the traditional Father’s Day, and many children as well as adults were puzzled as to what to give to their dad for gifts. Are the fathers that difficult to give a present? Perhaps it goes deeper than that. Is the role of dad in the lives of families, or lack thereof, the real reason for the difficulty?
This past week I read two summaries which made me think about the role of father in the homes of families in this great nation. The first one was a story in Georgia Backroads Magazine, Summer Edition. On the cover was a picture of a pretty, young girl, most likely under ten-years-old. She was standing by a gigantic machine in a cotton mill with her left hand on her hip posing bashfully for a reluctant photograph. The time line was sometime after the turn of the Twentieth Century.
The title of the article was “Children of the Loom” written by Daniel M. Roper with pictures by acclaimed photographer Lewis Wickes Hine (1874-1940).
Hine was an advocate against child labor, and worked tirelessly to bring an end to it. The article points out that he would show up on mill grounds dressed in a suit posing as a Bible salesman, fire inspector, or as an industrial photographer making a record of factory machinery. When he was denied entrance, he would linger outside the entrance to photograph children as they came or departed work.
My father, Ellis Crenshaw began working in cotton mills at the tender age of nine-years-old. Others still living in the city by the muddy river began their careers at an early age. During the summer after my eleventh grade, I worked for three months, gladly returning to school at the end of summer vacation. Oh yes, my wage was seventy-five cents an hour.
There were many reasons that children went to work at such a young age, but sadly, many of them were forced to work because of a drunken father who only worked part time. Others were never able to look beyond the mill for ways to earn a living.
The other thing regarding fatherhood which impacted my mind last week was found on the Internet web site named The Patriot Post. In part it said, “In a time when many homes are marked by absentee fathers, the last thing we need to be beating up on is fatherhood in general. Yet, ‘dad’ seems to be the only person in modern society who it is acceptable to belittle. To what extent does such treatment pervert our son's developing attitudes about the men they are expected to become? And why would we teach our daughters that there's no real hope or need to marry a strong, reliable man of character? As a wife and mother of two young men who are being raised in an anti-male culture that spews the mantra of radical feminism, I'd like to say a few words to America's dads: We need you. Loving fathers are critical to the development of children. And the truth is that every woman is a better person when she has a good man to rely on. Dads are not an ‘optional’ family accessory to be tossed in the corner like dirty socks or trampled on like a door mat. A good man is a priceless blessing from God. Let's remember to treat them like the treasures they are.”