The kids aren't alright.

John Farley
Pastor-Teacher
Sunday,
January 24, 2016

Practical Christianity:

The kids AREN’T alright

The family

Let’s talk about fatherlessness.

No airline would let their pilots fly a plane that was missing half of its navigational equipment.

A child needs a loving father and mother to navigate life without major turbulence.

Our cultural leaders no longer see a child without a father as a tragedy that must be addressed.

EXO 22:22-24

When God uses the word “orphan”, He means a child who has lost his father.

LAM 5:3
We have become orphans without a father,
Our mothers are like widows.

 

yathowm
 it means “fatherless”.

 

DEU 10:17-18

PSA 68:5
A father of the fatherless and a judge for the widows,
Is God in His holy habitation.

God tells His people to look after
the widows and
the orphans.

ISA 1:17
JAM 1:27

In 1970, 40 percent of American households consisted of married couples with children.

Today that number is down to just 19% of homes.

As recently as 1970, according to the census bureau, 85.2% of American children were living with two parents.

Today, only 63% of America’s children are living with two married parents.

Of children living with only a mother, 7 percent had never been married - in 1970.

Today 48 percent of those mothers have never been married.

The research is in, and the kids are NOT alright.

Nearly half of the children living with a single mother - 45 % - live below the poverty line.

Only 13% of children living with both parents live below the poverty line in America.

Today, 25% of mothers with children under age 18 have no partner present in the household.

Nearly 65% of American children under 17 live in a household that receives aid from one or more Federal programs.

Consider two other two urgent social problems: teenage pregnancy and the incarceration of young males.

Boys raised in a single-parent household were more than twice as likely to be incarcerated as boys in two-parent homes.

About one-third of girls whose fathers left home before they turned 6 ended up pregnant as teenagers, …

… compared with just 5 percent of girls whose fathers were there throughout their childhood.

Children born to cohabitating parents do worse on most indicators of health and skills than those born to a married couple.

Two-thirds will have split up before the child reaches the age of 12 (compared to 25% of married parents).

Children who end up in a single parent family as the result of the death of one parent …

…do not have the same poor outcomes as children raised by single parents due to a divorce or out of wedlock birth.

The great Old Testament book of practical wisdom for daily life was written by a father to his sons.

PRO 4:1-5

The father and the mother are shown as vital to the well-being of the youth.

PRO 6:20-21

And why all those warnings to the young men to reserve their sexual activity for their one and only wife.

PRO 5:15-23

And it helps to explain why the Lord tells the Christian husband not to divorce his wife.

1CO 7:10-11

The Lord gave the human race a precious gift when He gave us the institution of the family.

The family is patterned after the relationships that exist within the Trinity.