Whole communities are growing up without fathers or male role models. Bringing up a family in the best of circumstances is not easy. To try to do it by placing the entire burden on women - 91% of single-parent families in Britain are headed by the mother, according to census data - is practically absurd and morally indefensible.
Interpretation
The absence of fathers affects families negatively, and it's unfair to place all parenting responsibilities on mothers.
In this quote, Jonathan Sacks highlights the importance of fathers and male role models in families, particularly in the context of single-parent households. He underscores the challenges faced by mothers who must carry the weight of parenting alone, pointing out that relying solely on them is both unreasonable and morally wrong, given the significant number of families lacking male participation in child-rearing.
In practice
In a speech about family structures, this quote can highlight the need for community support for single mothers.
Stabilizing the euro is one thing, healing the culture that surrounds it is another. A world in which material values are everything and spiritual values nothing is neither a stable state nor a good society. The time has come for us to recover the Judeo-Christian ethic of human dignity in the image of God.
Governments cannot make marriages or turn feckless individuals into responsible citizens. That needs another kind of change agent.
Jews read the books of Moses not just as history but as divine command. The question to which they are an answer is not, 'What happened?' but rather, 'How then shall I live?' And it's only with the exodus that the life of the commands really begins.
Why did God create mankind? Because God likes stories.
Find people not to envy but to admire. Do not the profitable but the admirable deed. Live by ideals.
Some years ago there was a study to discover the most stressful occupation. It turned out not to be the head of a large business, football manager or prime minister, but rather: bus driver.
For all the ghosts and corpses that shall never know the breath of our children so long for the sacrifice and endurance of our mothers and the sustained breath of our fathers we live
Children will not remember you for the material things you provided but for the feeling that you cherished them.
Returning to your family and where you came from, and your history... this is what makes you strong. It's not looking out that's going to do that - it's looking in.
Perhaps it takes courage to raise children.
You are as much serving God in looking after your own children, & training them up in God’s fear, & minding the house, & making your household a church for God, as you would be if you had been called to lead an army to battle for the Lord of hosts.
They've lived here now for more than half of their lives, and they raised a family here and now have grandchildren here... It has become their home, but at the same time, for my parents, I don't think either of them will ever consciously think, 'I am an American.'
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