You know things are getting bad when even the Washington Post notices that the swirling motion in the culture probably has something to do with a toilet. In a recent editorial, Isabel Sawhill of the Brookings Institution admits that the much maligned attack Dan Quayle made years ago, that sitcom character Murphy Brown was a bad example when she had a baby out of wedlock, was actually right on target. She notes ” a wealth of research strongly suggests that marriage is good for children,” and “marriage is a commitment that cohabitation is not.”

Seems obvious to me, yet when we posted a link on our Facebook page a few weeks ago to an article about how the majority of children born to women under thirty are now born out of wedlock and mentioned our concern about it, we were flamed! One mom said the father of her children was too immature to marry. What? Then how in the world is he mature enough to be a father? Another said they would get married in a few years, but I thought, “Why not now?’ Most upsetting, several self-identified as Christians. Did no one tell them, “Flee sexual immorality?” That’s 1 Corinthians 6:18.

Tellingly, all the posts were from women. I wondered if perhaps the men involved just weren’t interested enough in fathering to like a page like Raising Real Men. I wondered if these mothers really preferred things the way they were or if they were just justifying the bad situation they’d gotten themselves into. I wondered if they understood that when a man really loves you, he doesn’t want you to be able to get away, he wants to make you his, to protect you, to give all he’s got.

That’s the elephant in the room and it’s a bull elephant. Where are the men? Why aren’t they acting like men? Why aren’t they anxious to regularize the relationship, to give their name to their love and children? Why aren’t they concerned that their beloved children be legitimate? A real man wants to protect those he loves, to protect their reputations, their inheritance, their future. Cohabitation does none of that. It’s just plain, old-fashioned fornication. It’s having a kept woman, a mistress, but in many cases the slobs aren’t even supporting these women they claim to love. It’s wrong. It’s very wrong.

Those of us raising what we hope are real men need to prepare them for marriage and commitment. We need to teach them that “He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord.” We need to teach them that physical intimacy is only for marriage and it is selfish and shameful to seek it outside marriage. We need to raise men who marry, have children, and raise their own children in the Lord. We need to raise men who stay with their families and protect them. Even bull elephants do that.