For Wade Horn, fathers of our country are key to its survival

0 Comments | Insight on the News, August 18, 1997 | by Stephen Goode

Insight: What successes have you had raising concern for fatherhood?

WFH: I think in three years we've helped to focus the nation's attention on this issue. We're now talking about fatherhood and the importance of fathers in ways we weren't just four or five years ago.

If you think back to Dan Quayle's famous "Murphy Brown" speech, the reaction was not, "Maybe he's a dumb guy, but he's stumbled onto something interesting." Oh, no! The reaction was, "This is a dumb guy and he's now said the dumbest thing ever said in the entire history of dumbness. How dare he say that in single motherhood there's something missing!"

I think today we're much further along on this conversation. I think we have won the argument whether fathers actually do something different than mothers do. They're not just mothers in trousers.

But until we get to the point where men say, "That's it. No more. I'm not going to father any more kids out of wedlock," and both parents say, "Look, I've got kids. I'm in a marriage, and I'm going to do everything I can to keep this marriage strong and vital for the sake of my kids" -- until those kinds of behavioral changes start to happen, we have a lot of work to do.