Why Children Are In Danger

On Wednesday, February 21, 2007, Bill O’Reilly, host of Fox News Channel’s The O’Reilly Factor, appeared via satellite on a special Oprah show about the pandemic of abused children and tepid prosecution in some quarters of the perpetrators.

O’Reilly is on a respectable, admirable mission to save the children from this deplorable, embarrassing danger in our society, and he displays amazing passion and emotion in his quest. Bill recommends a three-pronged strategy for achieving his goal:

1. Pass Jessica’s Law in all 50 states — it requires that any adult who abuses a child get a minimum of 25 years in prison. According to O’Reilly’s Website, only 21 states (including DC) have passed the law or its equivalent.
2. Teach children to be aware of their surroundings, to distrust strangers, and to fight back with full force if abducted
3. Admonish all fathers to reassure their children that, no matter what danger they may face, their fathers will rescue them.

I laud Mr. O’Reilly’s first two points. But, having just written “Celebrating Male Irrelevance,” I am finding O’Reilly’s third point problematic. First, Bill implies that mothers (women) lack the power and the responsibility to save their own children — even though Hillary Clinton wants to command America’s armed forces. Second, O’Reilly is ignoring a basic reality in this country: fathers (men) are irrelevant, and children know it.

There are two anti-male commercials currently running on television, sponsored by Pella Corporation and Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, respectively. Allow me to provide brief synopses:

• Pella: a wife demonstrates her new Pella in-window shades to her female neighbor. These shades, embedded between the window panes, don’t take up space on the room’s wall, and they never need cleaning. While the wife is raising and lowering the shade for her friend, her idiotic, bumbling husband is visible — through the window containing the Pella shade — in the back yard, barbecuing and minding the dog simultaneously. Because he is a typical incompetent husband, he ends up knocking over the barbecue grill, falling on the ground next to the grill, entangled in the dog’s leash. In accordance with America’s low opinion of men, Pella felt comfortable demeaning men in its aim to sell more window treatments. Would Pella ever show an incompetent woman in its commercials?
• Liberty Mutual: a husband is trying to enter the security code into his home-alarm system. He can’t remember the code, so he yells to his off-camera wife for the code. She responds by yelling back that the code is their anniversary date. Naturally, as a typical man, he doesn’t know their anniversary date. He stares at the keypad, quizzically, then enters the wrong number thereby tripping the alarm. Would Liberty Mutual ever show an incompetent woman in its commercials?

Children watch these commercials, too — their messages consistent with what children see in everyday life: divorced mothers badmouthing their fathers who got hammered in family courts. Also, children watched three innocent male lacrosse players, from Durham, North Carolina, get unfairly and unconstitutionally skewered in public, while the felonious rape accuser faded into obscurity, with impunity. Where are children going to get the impression that fathers (men) are worth calling in an emergency? Where, I ask you?

When flying in an airplane, the flight attendant always reminds parents, in an emergency, to place the oxygen masks on themselves first, BEFORE helping their children. Why? Because, if the parents become incapacitated, they are powerless to help their children. The same is true in life, is it not?

On March 9, 2006, the National Center for Men (NCM) filed a lawsuit (Roe vs. Wade for Men™) in the US district court in Michigan, to gain for men the right to make reproductive choice, to decline parenthood in the event of an unintended pregnancy — the same right that women have.

On that day, Bill O’Reilly had Mel Feit, NCM’s executive director, on The O’Reilly Factor. Bill predicted that the lawsuit would be thrown out (it was, four months later) and told Mel that, regardless of a woman’s fraudulent behavior in getting herself pregnant, the man should step up to take ultimate responsibility. In other words, the man belongs in the shovel brigade of a woman’s parade. This is just another example of male irrelevance. Again, children are aware of this imbalance.

The reason, Bill O’Reilly, that American children are in danger is that our so-called legal system has rendered the father — more fundamentally, the man — irrelevant. Society has cut the man’s oxygen supply. Women own the preponderance of reproductive rights, civil rights, child-custody rights, alimony rights, paternity rights, and child-support rights. Again, children are aware of this imbalance.

NoNonsense Bottom Line

If we want to save our children, we must make the father — the man — relevant, once again. We must allow men to have the same rights and privileges that women enjoy. By cutting off the man’s oxygen, we have destroyed his ability to be effective, respected, and relevant.

Many mothers make it impossible for fathers to see their children in non-emergencies; how can these fathers rescue their children in emergencies?

What children see is a country of ineffective, ridiculed men with no rights, and entitled women with too many rights. They know the system is unjust, unfair, and unbalanced. Unless and until children view their parents as equal partners with equal rights, who mutually support each other, they will NOT feel safe trusting them in emergencies.

Instead of admonishing irrelevant fathers to save the day for children, Bill O’Reilly, I recommend that you work as tirelessly as you do to pass Jessica’s Law to restore legal oxygen to men. Men do not deserve the horrific treatment America gives them, and you have the power and the platform to help them.

When fathers have rights equal to those of mothers, when parents fight together to keep their children safe, child abusers will be afraid to harm children. Right now, predators have no fears — because they face a system that, in many quarters, gives more rights to them than to fathers! If you can help fix this, Bill O’Reilly, instead of unfairly supporting mothers’ rights, you can accomplish your mission to save children.

About the Author

Marc H. Rudov is an internationally recognized author of 45+ articles and the books Under the Clitoral Hood: How to Crank Her Engine Without Cash, Booze, or Jumper Cables™ (ISBN 9780974501727), and The Man’s No-Nonsense Guide to Women: How to Succeed in Romance on Planet Earth™ (ISBN 0974501719).

Rudov’s books, articles, blog, and podcasts are available at TheNoNonsenseMan.com.

Copyright © 2007 by Marc H. Rudov. All rights reserved.