Rescuing Young Men: Raising Boys to Be Fathers

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This essay reviews the solutions and the successes of the schools that are doing a good job of educating these boys and notes how the successes of a program for ex-offenders, the District of Columbia’s “Fathering Court,” can inform the country’s mission to rescue our young men.

Rescuing Our Young Men:

Raising Boys to Be Fathers

Much has been said about the crisis of
school drop-out and truancy amongst our young people in American cities,
particularly with regards to our young men. Some have said we need more social
workers in our schools; others have said we need more economic opportunities in
neighborhoods. However, I don’t hear enough talk about a phenomenon that is
less easy to budget and manage: the self-image of our young boys. However,
having myself grown up a young man on the impoverished South Side of Chicago, I
don’t hear enough talk about a phenomenon that less easy to budget or manage:
the self-image of our young people.

President Obama has said that what ails
many young people who are at-risk of dropping out is low self-esteem. I can see
how this might be true. Despite the many amazing things Americans of all
backgrounds have done in the face of unbelievable obstacles, in an era of
increasing inequality, the obstacles that some individuals continue to face are
depressing. However, I think when we talk about self-esteem, we should not talk
about how much, but what kind.

Father Son

One can feel free and tough
because one has turned one’s back on school. One can feel popular because one
spends their nights with a gang and their days sleeping. One may feel manly and
powerful if one engages in violence.

But at the Fatherhood Educational
Institute, a charity I founded, we have found that you can change a person’s
source of self-esteem. We teach young men who have chosen a life of crime over
school to be good fathers. We encourage men who are incarcerated or who have been
incarcerated to seek out the children they have parented at a young age and
take pride in being able to teach, love, and protect those children the way all
children deserve.

What we have found is that the
self-esteem boost of a positive father figure not only saves these men’s
children, but it saves the fathers themselves. Men with criminal histories who
believe in being a good father are dramatically less likely to commit repeat
offenses. The practices we have put in place are so successful that the Justice
Department is planning to implement them on a national scale.

While many of the men we work with may
not have received the love and nurturing that they needed growing up, their
children represent a new chance. They can give the love they so desperately
needed, and in this they realize what a powerful force for good they are,
despite all the institutions in our society that have been telling them they
are worthless.

With all our handwringing over the fate
of young men, around the country, there are a number of schools that do an
excellent job of educating boys of color. Eighty-eight percent of boys at
Newark Tech in New Jersey are proficient in math, 100 percent are proficient in
reading, and 100 percent graduate high school. At Belmont High School in Ohio,
92 percent of students are on track to graduate, a huge increase from just a
few years ago.

Thinking

What do these schools have in common?
For one thing, they have that magical quality that is not easy to attract:
great leadership. For another, they make sure that the staff collaborates with
one another and connects with students and families so they can know the real
causes behind absenteeism and other issues. Perhaps most importantly, they put
in place programs and curriculums that are sensitive to the boys’ cultural and
economic backgrounds and that reach into deep ethical issues about being a good
man. They do more than just drill students in reading and math: they educate
the whole person, and they do so with love.

In our politically correct society,
some of us don’t like the idea that a school would teach students to love them
and be proud of where they came from. We don’t like that an institution might
pressure young people to think of themselves as future fathers and to take on
other adult burdens of responsibility when their lives are already so troubled.
But from what I’ve seen, some burdens are also gifts. Sometimes they even save
your life.

Richard JaramilloRichard “RJ” Jaramillo, is the Founder of SingleDad.com,
a website and social media resource dedicated to single parenting and specifically for the newly divorced, re-married, widowed and single Father with children.
RJ is self employed, entrepreneur living in San Diego and a father of three children. The mission of SingleDad is to help the community of Single Parents
“Make Life Happen…Again!”

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Richard “RJ” Jaramillo, is the Founder of SingleDad.com, a website and social media resource dedicated to single parenting and specifically for the newly divorced, re-married, widowed and single Father with children. RJ is self employed, entrepreneur living in San Diego and a father of three children. The mission of SingleDad is to help the community of Single Parents “Make Life Happen…Again!”