Where Are the Men When You Need One?
When I was a young woman, the older women were always teaching me and all the other young women what it meant to be a wife, a mother, and a God-honoring woman. As I have gotten older, traveled to many churches, and talked with families, I have seen one overall theme everywhere I go. There are young women walking with God, trained from childhood to serve God so that one day they will make the best wives and mothers possible. They are ready, trained, and waiting for their man to come find them, but the men are not finding them. Why?
These girls are told to wait: He will find you… Stay home and help Mom with the kids… One day that perfect man will come along. But then he does not come and the girls become frustrated and, at times, impatient. The question I hear all the time is, “Where are the men?” Yes there are men, but few are real men—men who were raised to love God, work hard, and make good husbands and fathers. Why?
While mothers have been training their daughters to be good wives, many families stopped raising their sons to be men, instead producing overgrown boys. A large percentage of the boys/men over the last 30 years have been raised to serve the flesh. They were not raised to work; most are soft, sweet-talking, sissy boys. Some are cute and stylish, and silly girls think they are soooo good-looking. Other guys are backward, clumsy, going-nowhere types, and very uncool. But they are the same lazy, self-pleasing, big boys.
It is a very sad truth and I am sorry for you girls out there. I am guilty of telling girls to be patient, that he will come, to just serve God and wait for him to bring a husband. But the truth is there just might not be a man out there that God thinks is worthy of you. As a single girl, you can serve God. But as a married woman, you are told to serve your husband so he can better serve God.
“There is difference also between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit: but she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband.” (1 Corinthians 7:34).
I know this is not what you want to hear, but God calls each of us to serve him first. For some of you it will be by serving your husband someday, but for others it might be serving God as a single girl. Start serving the Lord, and if God sees fit to bring you a husband, serve him with just as much joy as you served God in your unmarried state.
A Desperate Call to the Fathers Out There Raising Sons
Now as a mother with daughters, I would like to put out an appeal to all the families raising sons. Please teach them to work, love God, and be men—not big boys—so that when my daughters and other families’ daughters are grown, they can serve God through a God-fearing man. My husband and I are raising two little men of our own now. Parker is well on his way to being a man, and our new little one will soon be following in his footsteps. They say boys will be boys. I say little men will be big men.
Tip for moms raising sons:
Create a chart with your sons chores on it. Instead of mom bossing him around all day telling him what to do, creating tension and stress; he can be a man completing his own responsibility.
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Hello. I believe I have several important points to add to this thread.
I begin by noting that I became a Christian (Southern Baptist) as an adult in 2005. I am on my second marriage (divorced before becoming Christian). I remarried in 2010. My wife and I have two young children together. She is a stay-at-home mother, and we intend to homeschool our children.
I think extremely highly of Mrs. Pearl’s book “Created To Be His Helpmeet”. I pushed it upon my wife to read before we married, have given it as a wedding gift, and have suggested it as reading material on marriage many times on Internet fora. I certainly agree that immorality, feminist beliefs and laws, and insufficient commitment to marriage are most of what is wrong with where America is headed currently.
That said, I believe that in this thread there is far too little thought given to what marriage has become in America for men. The odds of marriage lasting are the lowest they have ever been, and the end is often catastrophic for the men, even if they have been morally and legally blameless as husbands and fathers. There is low and ever-decreasing cultural support for men becoming and being married, especially in the way of effectively sanctioning women who violate all the traditional norms of behavior about sex/reproduction/relationships/marriage. These betrayals range from premarital sex with many partners to unwed motherhood to frivolous divorce to refusal to care for house and children to cuckoldry to outright unwillingness to date/marry “good” men (ones not pro athletes/convicts/musicians/drugdealers/etc.) until hardened and virtually barren due to age. These behaviors are sadly nearly as common among professed Christian women in most denominations as for secular women.
As the risks attendant to marriage go up, the benefits to it from mens’ point of view decline, and the odds of finding a peer-class young virgin bride decline, so has men’s interest in marriage. (A rigorous study done by Rutgers found 22% of unmarried men aged something like 18-25 were dead set against EVER marrying, an unprecedentedly high percentage.)
Until marriage is made more desirable and less risky to men in this country, ever-increasing numbers of them will either choose fornication or celibacy, depending on their faith or lack.
Two online pieces (easily found many places on the WWW) that summarize what is going on much better than I can:
“The Garbage Generation” by the late Daniel Amneus (Catholic writer, but I can discern nothing in it that is repugnant to nonCatholics).
“Home Economics” by Roger Devlin
I post regularly on a Christian men’s issues site, http://www.dalrock.wordpress.com .
(Some posters occasionally use profanity, but it is overall a group of mostly men seriously concerned with the moral collapse in our society.)
All the best to the site owners and everyone here.
Luke
Thank you for this article. I have wondered why the young men I know in churches aren’t stepping up to their responsibilities. I am thankful my husband is showing my sons how to be hard working, God loving men. Please, daddy, take the time to train them right.
Can you expand on how to create “tension and stress” instead of “bossing him around all day”?
Not doing things that are his responsibility so that he will have to do them. This can occur without saying a word (“bossing him around all day”).
I agree with this article to some extent. But, in most of the conservative groups around here, the problem is that the girls and the fathers are looking for a twenty-year-old man with a fifty-year-old man’s wisdom. Girls want somebody like Daddy, and, while that’s not wrong in itself, it’s very unfair to a young man who is trying to get on his feet.
Parent to such an end that both your son and your daughter will receive advanced training in skills or a college degree which will enable them to self support a family should they become widowed. At the same time, this training is enabling them to use skills to advance the Kingdom of God here on this earth, single or married. I admire Kent Brantley’s example, ministering as a physician to battle Ebola and lifting high Jesus all the while. But guide them to consider the negative consequences of debt incurred while pursuing education.
I love No Greater Joy (and Shalom is a wonderful lady), I’d like to share some things that I have learned from a wonderful friend of mine who challenged me to always be looking at things from a Kingdom perspective.
As I was looking for young men who would be “worthy” of my wonderful daughters, a friend challenged me that I was approaching this from the wrong perspective. I was looking out for my daughters and their happiness instead of approaching the situation from a Kingdom perspective. (As a small side note, me wonderful daughters are sinners, saved by grace–I’m not really sure they’re “worthy” of anything.)
While I may really like to see some strong, ultra-spiritual man come along and find my wonderful daughter, that may not be what is the best thing for Kingdom purposes. What if the Kingdom would be best served by my daughter, who has been rooted and grounded in the Word of God from a young age, to be joined with a man who is a Christian (not to be unequally yoked) but not necessarily a very strong one right now?
I can see how this actually worked in my own marriage. Not that I was some wonderful catch, but I had strong spiritual roots and a strong desire to serve God fully. My husband was not quite there. As I learned to PRAY for him (this is the key, I think) and to be the wife he needs to be, he has become that wonderfully strong, spiritually-minded husband I would have loved to have found in the first place. Now, by the grace of God, we are raising 7 children who are following the Lord. As a mom who homeschooled these children, I have had the opportunity to raise them with a strong foundation in the Word.
I would just challenge all of you who are looking for a husband for yourself or your daughter–are you truly seeking first God’s Kingdom? His answer for you may not be what you had imagined it would.
It reminds me of the disciples and other Jews of Jesus’s time–they were looking for someone who would set up his Kingdom in the here and now, so many of them missed the Messiah that God was sending to them. Do we do the same? Do we have this picture of what we’re sure our future husband needs to look like, and miss what God is sending to us? Maybe he’s a diamond in the rough, waiting for your prayers and obedience as a godly wife to chip away the rough exterior and reveal the treasure that is underneath.
Just some food for thought…
Thanks for this. I hadn’t thought about a chore chart for our little guy. The powers that be met this week to decide if we will get to rear him. He came to our home a little over 2 years ago as a foster child. We’ll find out soon.
Hi, I am a mother of 3 sons. I raised my sons to be the best at the strength God put in them. We are Christians, and my sons are believers. Two fo my sons have their own business and the oldest is employed.
I have the same question about Where are the men – and the men who show leadership? Where are men of every walk od life who should be involved with male children to be the example, instead of writing them off as raising kids is women’s work. Lazy grandparents, lazy or religious snobs (yes that is what it is) holiner than though snobs avoid being good uncles, and generous to include nephews. Other uncles who choose not to hvae kids – a big kid to some degree.
I hear what you are saying. My sons have been raised to be examples. and we study leadership from tiem to time. We studied team work, and what it is to be a leader and a good follower, and good team members.
My sons have nto found wonderufl women to date. They have been less than godly, tempting, emotionally a wreck, by families who are a wreck. Not respectful to me as the mother of my sons.. There is a lot to say.
I am happy to hear about these ladies to are godly and are living a life of faith.
As a woman, who has received a calling in the Lord, women are called too – and this is a couples spae that needs new defining. A husband should be honored that God would calll his wife. That does not mean she stops serving, however, there needs to be recognition that women and wives are not eve clones… but each woman has her own life. For REal. EVery couple has their own life to develop as God is in cluded for Both.
NOt all men have a calling. Where do you lead when you have no where to go? That is frustrating for a woman too. So, there is a lack of leadership for both men, women, and couples. In my experienced opinion.
Thanks for your comment! Your family would greatly enjoy going to a shindig. There are many like-minded families and singles at these events, and there are lots of opportunities to get to meet others! Here’s a database of upcoming shindigs around the countries! https://digashindig.com/
This article was encouraging to me. I am 31 and still single. I often wonder if God’s will is for me to be single for life. I long to be a help-meet, but want to be faithful to the Lord no matter what He chooses for me.
Some of this can be traced back to Elvis and Fonzie. They projected the image of wooing the girls and a lot of them. Forever Fonzies are womanizers. They like to collect women/girls and have them for trophies. Be aware of those types.