CHICAGO – One of the toughest challenges Pastor Corey Brooks deals with on the South Side of Chicago is fatherlessness. For better or worse, the pastor has become a father figure to many youths in the neighborhood where approximately 80% of the homes do not have a father. He teaches them how to look someone in the eye and give a firm handshake. He makes them sweep the floors and wash the windows before he hands them a dollar to teach them the value of earning. He meets with wayward kids and often spends hours counseling them back onto the straight path. The work exhausts him and sometimes comes at the expense of his own family, yet he never stops fathering.
There are those Americans who look at the pastor and the kids surrounding him and dismiss it as a "black" problem. They lecture him that the culture needs to change and that it begins in the home. The pastor never disagrees, for he bears direct witness to these social ills. But what he disagrees with is that this is just a "black" problem. Fatherlessness affects all Americans and continues to worsen with each passing year.
According to the Census Bureau, approximately 89% of the "post-war generation" grew up with a mother and father who were married to each other. That number has fallen today to approximately 68%. The Department of Education reports that 39% of all American students enrolled in grades one through 12 live in homes absent their biological fathers.