By Hollis Wormsby, Jr.
The role of father has changed so much in my lifetime. As a child born in the fifties I grew up in an era where according to statistics over 80 percent of black children were being raised with a father in the home. Today there are estimates that as few as 30 percent of black children are being raised with a father in the home, estimates in the range of 50 percent may actually be accurate.
How has society changed during this transition? Look around your neighborhood and think back over the last forty years and answer that question for yourself. The biggest change that I see is in the area of self-reliance. Up until the Great Society Programs of President Johnson it had been difficult for black people to get on long term benefit programs like welfare. There were tales that in Mississippi all black people were put off the welfare rolls each spring when the need came for field workers. These were harsh economic times, but they were strong times for the black family.
During the fifties and sixties, the family model in the black community featured men as head of household, providers and protectors. That was the way men were perceived by the women in the community and the way the women taught their children to receive and respect the men of the period. Fathers were the disciplinarians in the family, and people of my age will tell you there was no DHR to call for child abuse in those days, and phrases like, “Give your soul to Jesus, because your ass is mine”, can still give those from my generation pause.
Over the years the role of father, the role of family has changed greatly, but it has not been a managed change, it has been an observed change. What I mean by that is there was never really a plan or a playbook, just the collective result of our actions or inactions along the way.
Even in two parent households today, the role of husband and father has been diminished. On television where we once had Ozzie and Harriett, or the Cosby Show, before Cosby’s personal disgrace, as models of what the role of father was, today we have shows like the Goldbergs or that stupid cartoon where everyone runs around explaining everything with the phrase, “You are not the mommy.”
When I used to be a talk show host every year on Father’s Day we would get calls from women who wanted to wish themselves a happy Father’s Day, I would always piss them off by telling them that they might be extraordinary mothers, but that it was impossible for them to be even bad fathers. I also remember a conversation with the young son of one of my female cousins that I had years ago. This cousin was a police officer and the kind of single mom who did not take much crap off of her child. But one day when they were visiting me for some reason he was choosing to cut the fool. His mom had warned him and was about to take him in a room and whip his butt, when I simply looked at him, called his name out with authority, and said I know you are not trying to clown on your mama like that in front of me. And he immediately changed his attitude. And I tell that to say this, there is a role for mother and a role for father, and it is difficult if not impossible to play both. There is a need for mother and father in a child’s life. There needs to be a respect for the role that both play and on this Father’s Day weekend let me also say as one of the under appreciated fathers out here struggling to do their job, it would be nice if there was a little appreciation too. Let me end with what might seem like a mind-boggling suggestion, if you want to strengthen our families and our communities, the first step could well be to go back and strengthen the respect for the role of fathers in the community. Or at least that’s the way I see it. Happy Father’s Day to all the great dads out there.
(Hollis Wormsby has served as a featured columnist for the Birmingham Times for more than 29 years. He is the former host of Talkback on 98.7 KISS FM and of Real Talk on WAGG AM. If you would like to comment on this column you can email him at hjwormsby@aol.com)
