Faith and fathers are not a panacea for juvenile crime

Blaming fatherlessness and lack of faith is a conservative, “fault the victims” punitive attitude that absolves society for doing little to change the milieu of chronic deprivation, ill health and malnutrition among children who emerge as juvenile delinqu

I had to respond to the recent letter to the editor from Richard Vatz (“Fatherlessness and lack of faith, essential factors in juvenile crime,” Feb. 27). In his letter, Vatz commends Dr. Ben Carson for his commentary in The Baltimore Sun (“Ben Carson: Faith and fathers are the antidote to juvenile crime,” Feb. 26) that propounded faith and fathers as the antidote to juvenile crime. This is ironic since Carson himself was raised by a single mother, and, despite the struggles he may have faced for being fatherless, he did not wind up being a juvenile delinquent.

As a person without faith and without a juvenile record, I assert here that it is a terrible disservice to people of no faith from childhood to tell them their secularism would or could lead them to criminality. I know numerous good and moral people raised by single mothers with sterling character and ethical principles who don’t have criminal records. Children can go astray when they live in crime-ridden, rundown neighborhoods; when their mothers have to work multiple jobs to keep food on the table and they’re at home alone for hours; when transportation, child care and other services are unaffordable; when after-school activities are scarce or exorbitant; and when health care inequities and poverty keep parents and children locked in a cycle of poor eating habits, poor health and environmental damage from toxins, pesticides and heavy metals. But even then juvenile delinquency is notagiven.

Blaming fatherlessness and lack of faith is a conservative, “fault the victims” punitive attitude that absolves society for doing little to change the milieu of chronic deprivation, ill health and malnutrition among children who emerge as juvenile delinquents. Government help to the poor and deprived is often derided as socialism or social engineering by conservatives who want family values alone to be the underpinning of lifting oneself up by the bootstraps.

That is not possible if there are no boots or bootstraps; if you are an orphan because both your parents died prematurely from lack of health care; if your parent is homeless because rent or mortgage became unaffordable and if there is a long waiting list for public housing, you are low on the list and you find yourself on the streets. Among children in those situations, unless special care is taken to locate them and help them, there will be high absenteeism and school dropout rates, leading to disastrous outcomes including juvenile delinquency.

American conservatism is almost medieval in scope and character at the current time. Government forcing women to carry their pregnancies to term because life starts at conception is a law in many red states. Government forcing pregnant women to stay in abusive marriages because fathers are good for children is the law in four states. Both are examples of government interfering in individual lives for conservative values. Yet if government helps mothers and children with welfare, Medicaid and school lunches in public schools, the same conservatives scream government should not be a nanny.

I see around me many examples of secularists and atheists raising decent children who don’t become juvenile delinquents. Fortunately for them, the secularists I know have money, homes, health care, conveniences and, in the case of single mothers, they have good, paying jobs. They manage pretty well without fathers and faith.

While fathers are wonderful and a two-parent home enriches children and gives them security, marriages frequently fail, witnessing domestic abuse is terrible for children and divorce may be necessary to save them. Faith cannot be thrust on children. What we can do for children is to provide them with a more just and equitable society where they can be their best selves regardless of a heavenly father or a real father.