Fatherlessness

63% - of youths are from fatherless homes

85% - of all children who show behavior disorders come from fatherless homes

80% - of rapists with anger problems come from fatherless homes

71% - of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes

75% - of all adolescent patients in chemical abuse centers come from fatherless homes

70% - of youths in state-operated institutions come from fatherless homes

85% - of all youths in prison come form fatherless homes

You don't have to be in Haiti very long before you begin to notice it is mostly women you see working and taking their children to and from school.
The next question in your mind is generally, "what are all the men doing"?
You see men on the streets, but most of them are not working.
Maybe they are talking, watching soccer or playing domino's.
Some are selling ice cream, phone cards, frozen ice drinks with flavored syrup, water or cokes.
Some do odd jobs on cars, tires, cement work, tin art, drive tap-tap's or paint.
As you get used to the day to day activity and life of the family, you notice that there are very few "in-tact" families.
I know of only a hand full.
Yes, you see it in the States, but you see the devastation so much more clearly in a place like Haiti.

So when I came across these statistics I wondered what the numbers would be in Haiti.
Yet, truthfully, some of things could never be accounted for, weakness is not allowed and so many aspects of fatherlessness are not ever verbalized.
Life means something different in a third world.
Grown women cry and have a panic attack about getting a shot, yet they don't name their children that took hours, maybe days to birth.
There are issues with self worth, authority, love and respect that we are not even aware of.
Life with a soul that has holes in it has become normal.
Yet you see a very broken government, a worthless economy and entitlement.
You see, for lack of a better description, a hole in the soul of Haiti the country, not just the people.
Many are lost, powerless and hopeless, yet they are strong and crazy smart in ways you can't imagine.
I wonder if it can be that they haven't moved past the mind set of being slaves into being free men.
I wonder what that looks like here?
And I wonder how would you do that if you didn't know and you had no one to teach you?
Half, if not all, of your identity, your name, your history comes from your father.
Haiti has generation after generation of fatherless who don't think twice about it.
Or do they? I had a young man tell me he lost his soul when he didn't live with his father.
I once heard a man say, "the sin of Africa is that they always choose the darkness".
I think the sin of Haiti or of any nation, if you can say that about a place, would be "fatherlessness".