This post is meant to educate. Please don't pity us or judge us.. We just want understanding.
Ask any single mom and/or widow in the christian community, that is raising good Godly young men, how the christian community (CC) responds to their kids and they will all essentially answer the same.
OUR GOOD KIDS ARE INVISIBLE IN THE CC.
Troubled kids, generally you can get people to step up and be a hero. You can get people to come in and judge your parenting and offer advice.. but the good kids, the ones who try to do right are often ignored.
This is what we have seen/experienced.... Little boy about 3 years old, suddenly starts to notice daddies. He sees that his friends have daddies. He wants one, they look fun! So he tries to join the daddy/son fun at gatherings or events. But see that daddy doesn't want to deal with that pesky kid, so he is ignored or outright rejected.
Little fatherless boys learn that daddies don't like him. He doesn't understand why.. but he learns quickly that he doesn't fit in and is generally not wanted where there are daddies.
So single mom sees that something needs to be done.. she seeks mentors as her boys grow. She seeks men willing to spend time with that little boy because she is concerned about his view of men/daddies. (she is often jaded towards men too) She finds mentors, which really are rarer then snow in Hawaii. They usually last about 2-6 months then they get bored.. So little boy learns that men are good for treats and taking them out to eat, but they don't hang around.
So.. now little boys are growing into teenagers. So far they experienced nothing but rejection and being ignored by good Godly men. They can no longer relate to good Godly men, they see that they don't fit into that circle. So when the few and far between men do reach out to them, they rebuff them. They have high walls, they are not about to lap up those crumbs of attention as they did in the past. They don't need that..
They are conflicted...They ask their mothers, how do you expect us to have good marriages and be strong Godly men, when we don't have the role models... and the single mom's jokes about being both mom and dad are no longer funny...
These young men seek to find their identity. They need to learn how to be young men of God. But the men of God have no time to teach them or model it to them.. It's not that men choose to be ignorant. It is not deliberate. They just don't think about it.. They don't notice that boy without a father struggling to figure out who he is.. They have their own teens, their own jobs, their own ministries. Besides, when they do reach out to these young teens, they get little to no response. So they move on...
The young men continue to grow.. now they don't want to participate in church activities with the men, because they "don't belong" there. They know mom is the one advocating and pushing them to go, they know none of their friends moms is involved. Mom doesn't understand teen boys, mom doesn't understand what it's like to be ignored, rejected, overlooked or even worse having to stand out because you don't have a dad.
And the young men look for a place to belong... and it's not in the Christian Community.
The reality is God is the father of the fatherless and in an ideal world the sons of single moms would be able to believe that their identity is in Christ. They would not need validation from good christian men.... They would be able to grow in Godliness to become more Christlike and change the next generation. That is what all of us single mom/widows pray for every day..
(this can apply to dads who are gone alot too)
