If you are a father; if you are about to be a father; if you someday want to be a father; if you are a man, you need to see Courageous. Women need to see it, too.
I saw Courageous on September 30 – the first day in theaters. Courageous is the story of five men – four are officers with a Georgia county sheriff’s department and the fifth is a Hispanic man working odd jobs to feed his family. The four officers each grew up in broken homes and they’ve seen the statistics of children raised in single-parent homes. Since my son, Nikolas, is growing up in a single-parent home, I’ve seen the numbers, too.
The statistics are scary. Printed in the fifth edition of Father Facts by the National Fatherhood Initiative:
· Crime
o In a longitudinal study of 1,197 fourth-grade students, researchers observed “greater levels of aggression in boys from mother-only households than in boys from mother/father households.”
o Without two parents working together as a team, the child has more difficulty learning the combination of empathy, reciprocity, fairness and self-command that people take for granted.
o In a study using a national probability sample of 1,636 young men and women … older boys and girls from female-headed households are more likely to commit criminal acts than their peers who lived with two parents.
o In a study of 194 white, urban boys, researchers found that … living with a single mother at the age of 10 more than double the odds that a boy would eventually be arrested, compared to children who lived with both biological parents.
o Teens from single-parent homes are more likely to commit a school crime (possess or distribute alcohol or drugs; possess a weapon; assault a teacher, administrator or other student) than teens from intact homes.
o In a study using national data on more than 1,600 juveniles in treatment for sex offenses, 27.8 percent were living with both biological parents, 23.1 percent were living with their mother only, and 3.2 percent were living with their father only.
o Youths in father-absent households had significantly higher odds of incarceration than those in mother/father families.
· Drug and Alcohol Abuse
o Of 228 students studied those from single-parent families reported higher rates of drinking and smoking as well as higher scores on delinquency and aggression tests when compared to boys from two-parent households.
o Father closeness was negatively correlated with the number of a child’s friends who smoke, drink or smoke marijuana.
o According to the Journal of Marriage and Family, there is significantly more drug use among children who do not live with their mother and father together.
o In a study involving 11,000 interviews with persons ranging from 18 to 89 … children whose parents divorced had a one-third greater chance of becoming an adult smoker, and boys living with a single parent also had a one-third greater chance of developing a drinking problem as an adult.
o Males in “mother only” families are about 1.5 times as likely to use alcohol as males in “mother/father” families.
o In a study of 6,100 high schoolers, living in a non-intact family increased the likelihood of becoming a regular smoker during adolescence.
· Education
o In a study of 157 adolescents living in Utah, researchers found that boys in single-parent families spent an average of 3.5 fewer hours per week studying than boys who lived with both biological parents.
o Children living with two parents are more likely to be read aloud to every day than are children who live with one or no parent.
o Half of all children with highly involved fathers in two-parent families reported getting mostly A’s through 12th grade compared with 31.7 percent and 35.2 percent of children of single father and nonresident father families, respectively.
o Using data from the 1990 test results of 18,000 10th graders who took the Louisville Graduation Exit Examination … the percentage of students from single-parent families … had a strong negative relation to standardized test scores.
o A study of 1,700 seventh- and ninth-grade South Carolina students indicated that children whose parents divorced had lower grades than their peers whose parents had stayed together.
· Self Esteem
o A study of 40 middle school boys from a Midwest suburb found that those who lived without their father showed poorer sense of masculinity and had poorer interpersonal relationships than boys who lived with their biological father.
o In a study of 146 adolescent friends of 26 adolescent suicide victims, teens living in single-parent families were not only more likely to commit suicide but also more likely to suffer from psychological disorders, when compared to teens living in intact families.
o Thirty-six percent of children with single biological mothers are living below the poverty line … roughly three times higher than the number of children with married parents.
Two of the officers in the movie Courageous, Adam Mitchell (Alex Kendrick) and Nathan Hayes (Ken Bevel), live with their wives and children; one, Shane Fuller (Kevin Downes), is divorced and sees his 12-year-old son every other weekend; and one, David Thomson (Ben Davies), has a daughter from an “interlude” with a college sweetheart and he hasn’t seen either for more than four years. The Hispanic man, Javier Martinez (Robert Amaya), lives with his wife, son and daughter.
Like many in his position, Mitchell deals with the grief of his daughter’s death in a car accident by talking with his pastor and reading the scriptures. He writes a series of resolutions to be a better father, husband and man and shares his vows with the other men. Before God and their families, each man vows to live by Mitchell’s resolutions and hangs professionally framed parchment copies of the resolutions in their homes.
As expected, each man’s vows and faith are tested. Four of the five defeat the challenge. The other is left begging for forgiveness. I’ll let you find out what happens next.
Courageous has a lot of action and funny lines to go with the inspiration.
Are you a man of courage? Are you a woman of courage? Do you want to be a better spouse, parent and person? See Courageous as soon and as often as you can.
Do you want to answer the call? I do and I will. To learn more and see the trailer, visit www.courageousthemovie.com.
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