The government isn’t the Father. How sometimes mothers enable overgrown boys to repeat broken patterns by letting stay home or returning home while being irresponsible.
In part 1 of this series we talked about the single root cause leading to poverty: the absent father or abusive man. We saw how the cycle plays out with boys growing up not seeing an authentic committed man who stays engaged to the family and relationships with the mother through marriage. Sadly, many of these boys repeat the cycle themselves as adults by having children of their own without being committed to taking care of them or their mothers.
There is, however, another reason this happens a little more often in poverty culture that we didn’t discuss in part 1. One common problem we see is that some moms of the children where there has been no authentic men, seem to want to take care of boys to the point of destructive enabling. Remember, she doesn’t have the healthy, authentic, male leadership supporting her or guiding her on how to raise up a young man and speak to his manhood. Naturally, by his guidance and partnership, a Father shows his boys how to be a man, how to be independent, how to work hard, to take care of himself and others. So by the time the boy crosses over to manhood, this young man will be pushed by Father to go out of the house to provide for himself and eventually his family. Several times in poverty culture this doesn’t happen, but quite rather the opposite. A mother who is alone, with no provider and is trying to survive and will enable her sons to do the same thing by allowing them to stay home with little or no contribution to the home. Crazy, right?
One factor we see is that the mother often times gets government support for kids until they are 18 when it stops. Sometimes, mothers
put a lid on their kids potential by finding ways to get SSI or disability so they can keep getting government support on those kids when they are 18 or older. She then allows the kids to stay in her home with the condition they give her a part of that income. Unless this cycle is broken, by men owning the truth that they are overgrown boys who aren’t contributing and stepping up, they will remain an inauthentic, irresponsible man, stuck and held down by the system. Deep down all men know it isn’t supposed to be this way!
Men need Fathers. The government isn’t a father, nor should it be the ultimate source to meet our needs. Nothing wrong with short term help at all. So how does the ultimate dependent cycle on the government get broken? Currently what the government provides is not nearly enough to survive on, yet what feels like too much to live with out. As a result, confidence is often stripped from those who want to get out of the system to have more. They believe they can’t do it, so they stay trapped in poverty. On the system, you don’t get to make the decisions on your support. Instead other leaders make those decisions for you which affects the little income, housing, or food they are getting. Is it, no wonder people feel trapped, depressed, and hopeless and losing courage? The cycle just repeats and repeats. What is the solution? GOD IS OUR FATHER? He is our source, our strength, our dependency. That’s why God has lead us to create Men’s World Changers Impact to transform boys into Godly authentic men, in healthy men’s community, loving and serving their families, and working hard in their job and career callings!
