GROUND ZER0, New York, N.Y.--Jan. 26, 2004 -- The Beast of Terror smacks his lips when he reads the statistics on the number of children born to unmarried women.   In the United States, one out of every three children born enter the world without a father.  (see statistics http://www.childstats.gov/ac1999/poptxt.asp#pop6a)
         According to the Forum on Child and Family Statistics, a major factor for the increase in unmarried births is cohabitation. 

 Between 20-25 percent of unmarried women between the ages of 25-44 live in cohabitating unmarried relations.

        Ironically, as unmarried births rise, married births have declined.  During the baby boomer phase of the 1960's married births were 4 million.  In 1994 they fell to 2.7 million.
         Today, as the baby boom has declined (during the peak of the baby boom years  following WWII 36 percent of the population were children; today it is 26 percent),  more than 4 million births occur annually.  One third of them are to unmarried women.

     There are over 70 million children in the United States under the age of 18.  The children are parsed into three groups of 23 million each ranging from 0-5, 6-11, and 12-17.
          What does the trend of unmarried births to the future of the children in our country, or any country?   
          First, there is the danger of having only one Sentinel of Vigilance watching over them.

         If one believes that a child must be protected, then the issue is whether one set of eyes or two is better to insure the child's safety from the Beast of Terror.  
         Are a mother's eyes equal to a mother's and father's eyes to ferret out the blocks of Fear, Intimidation and Complacency that seek to depreciate a child's self worth, self-image, self pride?  
         The issues begs the question:  Can one Parent of Vigilance do the work of two?
         It also brings up the issue:  Is there a chance the Beast of Terror can more easily infiltrate the child's mind and rampage through it without the presence of a father?
         One third of our children come into the world without a legally tendered father.   That is, there is no legally recognized contract between the woman and man to defend the child.  There may be a moral contract, a verbal contract, an emotional contract, but there is no prima facia agreement, bonded and authenticated by society, that ties the duty of parenthood between father and mother in the eyes of the world.

        In an era of "individual rights" there is a strong trend toward people electing to act without convention.  Marriage appears to be one of those "rights" currently under renovation.    Gay marriage is on the front burner, where the traditional man-woman relationship is being challenged.   Gay adoptions also are on the upswing.  Then there is the issue about Michael Jackson's "fatherhood" of his children that is splashed on the media and questions flying over his credentials as a Sentinel of Parental Vigilance.
       What does this mean to a child's right to grow into a strong and confident Sentinel of Vigilance?   What does the absence of a father mean to the ability of the Beast of Terror to prey upon children?
       The Beast of Terror preys on veal--the young, the tender, the vulnerable.
       All "beasts" look for the easiest victim.   Lions hunting a herd of zebras will try and cut the smallest, youngest from the herd, realizing it is much easier to attack the more helpless than to take on the veterans with big, sharp hooves that can kick in a hungry lion's jaw.
       In nature, the young are fodder.   Thousands of eggs may be laid and hatched in hopes a few will survive.  This Darwinian approach of the "survival of the fittest" applies as well to human children as it does to the countless hoards of Nature's other creatures.
       But what natural defenses do a child have to defend against the Beast of Terror?   Who is teaching a child how to convert Fear into Courage, or displace Intimidation for Conviction, or shove Complacency out the door in favor of Right Actions that benefit future generations?
       What Principles of Vigilance are being transmitted to the children?  And, by whom?
       When the child of a unmarried mother looks around, he or she is outnumbered by three to one by his or her peers who have conventional mothers and fathers.  
       What impact does that have on the child?  Does he or she feel less protected?   Less loved?   Less cared for?  More vulnerable to the wiles of the Emotional jungle where he or she feels like an outcast, a marginalized half of what appears to the child to be a whole (mother/father team) surrounding him or her?

      Unmarried mothers, no doubt, have challenges that married mothers do not.   By the nature of being unmarried, they must fend for the children by themselves.   The role of mother and father is put on their shoulders.  The children are left with a "father" vacuum in the conventional sense.   They may say they have a "father," but deep down, in the secret of the self, they know they don't have a "father" who is bound to the mother.   
        I know that feeling.  My mother and father were divorced when I was nine months old.  I neither heard from nor met my real father until I was 21.  When I was five, my mother remarried.  I never accepted my step father as my father.   I was "abandoned" in my mind, a child cast aside by his father, left to fend for myself.    I know the sense of inner loneliness and confusion that must plague all children when they see children with mothers and fathers and they know they don't have what others have.   The absence of the father creates a hole in the child's soul, an emptiness, a void.

        It is this vacuum, this flaw,  that forms great cracks through which the Beast of Terror can slither into the child's mind and wrap his tentacles around the child's being.   The Beast feeds the child unhealthy doses of Fear, Intimidation and Complacency, similar to what I experienced.
       Without a father to bolster the mother's Vigilance, the odds increase that the child may feel abandoned, disenfranchised, marginalized because he or she isn't "worthy" of a father, isn't "like" the other children who have--whether good or bad--a "daddy."  Despite all the "individualism" that barks to a person he or she has the "right" to have a child without the convention of marriage, the "victim" is the child.   The child, given its choice, would want his or her "mother" and "father" to be united, one, nuclear, each there to protect, defend and help the child grow into the full man or woman he or she could be.
        It should startle us all that one out of three children in America are born into this world with half the Vigilance they are due.    No matter how strong a mother is, there is added strength in having a father to help watch over the children.    If nothing more, it creates balance for the child.   It gives the child access to two different points of view, two different forms of love and caring.  

        Worse, it opens the door to the Beast of Terror to scurry through and set up camp.   It creates a dark shadow on the child's soul that he or she isn't loved by half of his or her Creator.  
       What is the solution?
       Part of it has to do with with the Principles of Vigilance.    The third Principle is:  Taking Right Actions that benefit the Children's Children's Children.    This means that if one is acting in an unselfish way, he or she will do what is right not just for themselves, but for the future of the children.    The Right Action is to maximize the Parent of Vigilance team, to include for the child a "mother" and "father" who, each in his or her own way, provide the child with more stability and balance than either one could alone.
       Two heads are better than one, and two parents are better than one.
       The second part of the solution is for both parents and future parents to subscribe to the Pledge of Vigilance as early as possible in their lives.   The Pledge of Vigilance is about how one lives his or her life with the Beast of Terror.
       Each of us battles the Beast in our own ways daily.  Each of us faces Fear, Intimidation and Complacency in a multitude of manners during the 1440 minutes of a day and night.   Each of us has countless opportunities to convert Fear into Courage, to exchange Intimidation for Conviction, and to alter Complacency for Right Actions that are beneficial to future generations.
      If we learn to live our lives in accordance with the Principles of Vigilance, we build our defenses against the Beast of Terror taking over our thoughts and subsequent actions, for what we think dictates how we act.
      By defending ourselves from Terrorism's attacks upon our self-worth and self-image, and recognizing we are all Citizens of Vigilance dedicated to the future security of the children, we will be less inclined to bring a child into the world without a father who has been chosen to serve as the child's Father of Vigilance.

       A Father of Vigilance, like a Mother of Vigilance, takes a vow of protecting the child throughout the child's life.   This life includes being there when the child awakens and when it goes to sleep.  It means providing for the family.  It means setting an example of stability, of love and care that the child can model when he or she becomes a Parent of Vigilance.
       It also means not being afraid to crawl into the child's mind, to ask the child to share his or her Fears, Intimidations and Complacencies.    To do this, of course, the parent must be willing to share his or her with the child, to build the bridge of trust, to model the fearlessness of exposing one's vulnerability to another.

        Parents must see the Beast of Terror hiding inside a child, just as the zebra sees the lions lurking in the brush.   The ever-present danger of the Beast must not go unnoticed.   If parents are Sentinels of Vigilance, then they are duty-bound to sweep the Beast of Terror's tracks clean from their child's mind, and, to help the child battle the Beast on his or her own turf with the Principles of Vigilance.
       This can only be done best by both mother and father, working in union, as one team dedicated to the children.
       But in the absence of a father, a mother can prepare the children.  She can teach the children the importance of marriage as a partnership between two people to guide and direct the children to a better way of life.    It is far more challenging to do this without the presence of a father, but it can and has been done many times.    Extolling virtues to a child can only result in a stronger, more committed adult who can avoid the pitfalls life's journey presents.

      Still, the fact remains that one-third of America's children come from unmarried mothers.    Perhaps that statistic is a symbol that we all need to strengthen our Vigilance about marriage, and increase our vows to be Sentinels of Vigilance.
       You can take that step today by downloading and taking the Pledge of Vigilance.   Whether you are married or unmarried, the key is to insure your children understand the values of two Sentinels of Vigilance, and not let the Beast of Terror brag about his ability to feed freely on our young.

Jan 24--What We Do To The Children, We Do To God