NFL Player Turned Pastor: Almost Everything in Society Is Against Fatherhood
WASHINGTON – A NFL-wide-receiver-turned-pastor, who now helps empower families, believes that "almost everything" in society today, especially entertainment, is making it hard to be a good father.
Freddie Scott II, founder and president of Unlock the Champion, LLC, was the speaker at a Family Research Council-sponsored event titled "The Dad I Wish I Had: The Crisis of Fatherhood in the American Family," which was named after Scott's first book.
Scott told The Christian Post after the event that media and entertainment are strong forces against fatherhood.
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"From media, entertainment, there are a lot of things that are creeping in to sort of shape the expectation in the minds of men in what being a man really is," said Scott.
"If it's for me to be rich and sleep with a lot of women and do this, okay, now I am a man. Well guess what? I just sabotaged my life."
Scott gave as an example of a commercial that aired that showed a man being forced to listen to his wife for ten seconds in order to get an ice cream bar.
"It's funny but it's sad that being a man means" not being "responsive to my wife, that if I listen to you then" it is being in pain.
"[M]en see that over and over and over again, that listening to your wife is some torture that is 180 degrees opposite of what marriage and relationship and communication is supposed to be between a man and a woman," said Scott.
During the event, Scott talked about the lack of good fathers in modern American society.
"We are facing some serious problems in our nation and if we do not take the appropriate steps we're going to continue to see this," said Scott.
He talked about recently being at a juvenile facility in Indianapolis that opened its doors for troubled children to have their parents and clergy minister to them.
"Unfortunately, less than 20 percent of the parents even showed up. Eighty percent of the kids sat there without any representation of their home," said Scott.
"Of those that showed up, guess how many dads showed up. I could probably count on one hand how many dads actually showed up for their kids."
Scott also talked about the biblical standards for fathers and how the Bible held a broader definition for fatherlessness.
"The term fatherless does not only refer to a child who does not have a father in the home," said Scott.
"Biblical fatherlessness also occurs when a man in the home does not meet the spiritual, emotional, and physical needs of his children; by definition its being less than a father."
Unlock The Champion, LLC, the organization that Scott founded, seeks to empower families and teach fundamental life skills essential to character development for people raised in broken homes, especially athletes.
