http://thefatherlessgeneration.wordpress.com/statistics/
Jeez, those stats are rough. The Nuclear family unit is so important in childhood development, we evolved to expect this structure over time.
This also makes me wonder what I have wondered many times. Somebody once told me I was a 'miracle'. And reading fatherless stats like this, and just looking around at situations like that, I wonder why our family has staved off the crime and drugs. Instead we were hungry for knowledge, Kamau as a black male teenager signed himself up for high school?! Where does that happen? Where is the drive in the 'Halim' gene?
I talked about it with Muhammad once, and he said something like, since we have a big family bounded by a deep moral devotion to Islam, we could overcome those things. And I think that has to be it, or a big part of it. Since there was no strong figure for most of the siblings to try to please, we turned it around and tried to live up to each other with a back bone of Islamic teachings. And while I am at odds with religion as a whole, I have come to realize how much, as a child, I desperately needed it to get to adulthood. My main goal as a child was to be the shining example of what a black american Muslim could be, and that drove me to pick a respectable career path and stay away from 'school girls' and never even think about drugs.
As surprising as it is for me to realize this, I can't thank Mommy enough for raising us to be so Islamic, given the situation, and finding someone, at least for the younger siblings, in Abu Bakr that at least tried to instill in us a sense of pride and purpose. And it has always been hard for me to come down on either Abu Bakr or Daddy, because where were they supposed to pull their fatherly knowledge from? I may be being over simplistic, but when I think about raising children, all I have to go on is Abu Bakr, and I'm thankful for that.
But back to the point about the sibling self-pleasing. My thought is that if this is true, we have decentralized the sense of a father figure to a degree into the 10 others, or if you are older I guess just the older siblings. And this leads to what we often lament about: not being real with eachother. But think about if you were real and you were cast out of the favor of the siblings, that would be another father abandoning you. That may be the crushing fear, it is kinda mine at least.
Endnote- I'm not sure if this would change how we approach getting closer, but it would be interesting if this is what was going on.
Jeez, those stats are rough. The Nuclear family unit is so important in childhood development, we evolved to expect this structure over time.
This also makes me wonder what I have wondered many times. Somebody once told me I was a 'miracle'. And reading fatherless stats like this, and just looking around at situations like that, I wonder why our family has staved off the crime and drugs. Instead we were hungry for knowledge, Kamau as a black male teenager signed himself up for high school?! Where does that happen? Where is the drive in the 'Halim' gene?
I talked about it with Muhammad once, and he said something like, since we have a big family bounded by a deep moral devotion to Islam, we could overcome those things. And I think that has to be it, or a big part of it. Since there was no strong figure for most of the siblings to try to please, we turned it around and tried to live up to each other with a back bone of Islamic teachings. And while I am at odds with religion as a whole, I have come to realize how much, as a child, I desperately needed it to get to adulthood. My main goal as a child was to be the shining example of what a black american Muslim could be, and that drove me to pick a respectable career path and stay away from 'school girls' and never even think about drugs.
As surprising as it is for me to realize this, I can't thank Mommy enough for raising us to be so Islamic, given the situation, and finding someone, at least for the younger siblings, in Abu Bakr that at least tried to instill in us a sense of pride and purpose. And it has always been hard for me to come down on either Abu Bakr or Daddy, because where were they supposed to pull their fatherly knowledge from? I may be being over simplistic, but when I think about raising children, all I have to go on is Abu Bakr, and I'm thankful for that.
But back to the point about the sibling self-pleasing. My thought is that if this is true, we have decentralized the sense of a father figure to a degree into the 10 others, or if you are older I guess just the older siblings. And this leads to what we often lament about: not being real with eachother. But think about if you were real and you were cast out of the favor of the siblings, that would be another father abandoning you. That may be the crushing fear, it is kinda mine at least.
Endnote- I'm not sure if this would change how we approach getting closer, but it would be interesting if this is what was going on.
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