THE VALUE OF FAMILY

"While it's easy to understand a woman's desire to have a child, it is less easy to understand how it was decided that fathers are nonessential. I find little comfort in the fact that some sperm donors agree to meet their 'offspring' when the child reaches age 18. Ego gratification on one end balanced against narcissistic self-fulfillment on the other offers little to soothe the restless soul. Or the child, who might like to have a real daddy tuck him in at night... [This is] a diseased culture in which human relationships have no moral content and children are treated as accessories to adult lives. Yet, these trends are portrayed as the latest gosh-gee fashions. A society in which women are alone, men are lonely, and children don't have fathers is nothing to celebrate. And a future world filled with fatherless children—bereft of half their identity and robbed of a father's love, discipline and authority—won't likely be a pleasant place to live."

—Kathleen Parker