In 2021 they ran some studies on families and concluded that 23% of children in the U.S. are living in a 1 parent household. That’s almost 1/4 out of all the kids in this country. When I saw this stat, it literally blew my mind and if you’re a dad trying to lead a family during these hard times, then you’re gonna wanna stick around for this episode.

I can’t tell how important your role as a dad is, not only in your own family, but also in your community and your country, wherever you live. How you show up as a dad matters and makes an impact on the world at large.

Today I wanna go over 10 reasons why families are falling apart and how you as a family leading man can combat them so that we can stop contributing to this statistic.

Today, we are talking about the importance of the nuclear family and I’m gonna go over 10 reasons why I believe they are falling apart, not only in our world as a whole, but in the U.S. in particular. According to some of these stats I’ve been seeing, we are leading the charge in single parent households. That’s not exactly something to brag about as a country.

And if you’re reading this and you grew up in a single parent household. Please understand that I’m not ragging on you by saying that. You might’ve ended up just fine and your mom or dad is your hero and that is all great, and awesome. I’m glad that it worked out for you and you were able to make it, but there are many men out there who did not have that same experience. Sadly, a lot of them are in prison right now. And even given your situation, if it was up to you, I would bet that you would have preferred to have your mom and dad both in the home growing up. Would life have been perfect, no. But just by growing up with the support of both your parents, it would’ve given you a massive advantage.

So let’s get into this list and see what you guys think about this.

1. Failing Marriage

The very first relationship kids get to witness is that of their mom and dad. If mom and dad always fight and disrespect each other, what sort of impression about relationships and marriage are the kids downloading? It ain’t a good one I can tell you that. Now a marriage can fail for so many reasons and I’ll definitely make a video surrounding that topic so we can go more in depth, but one big reason that I see marriages fail is due to interest vs commitment.

My mentor growing up who I call Pops asked me this question one time. “What does it mean to be in-love with your wife?” I couldn’t really find a rational answer at the time. I just sort of listed out emotions, talking about the way I felt around her, or how I feel about her. And he stopped me as I ranted on and he put it to me like this. Look, it’s one thing to say that you love the Army, but it’s an entirely different thing to say that you’re IN the Army. When you’re IN something, you are committed, not just interested.

That has stuck with me in my marriage for so long now. Most people that are married right now and are struggling are not committed to one another. We recite these vows, “through sickness and in health, ’til death do us part,” yeah it sounds awesome. But are you committed to following through? I’ll have young married couples say to me sometimes, we’ve tried everything, I just can’t do it anymore. And they’ve only been married like 2-3 years.

Our modern day culture has taken the beauty and benefits of a marriage and has made it easy for people to express interest in getting married, without understanding the commitment you are going into. That’s a bad foundation to lay for a family, like building your dream home on sand, it’s not gonna hold up when the storms come. It’s alright G, if it doesn’t work out we can just get a “Divorce.”

Which is reason number 2 on my list.

2. Divorce

Man, I hate this word so much, because it’s become such a common thing nowadays. And it has been the cause of so many broken homes. So many children out there missing out on the nuclear family experience simply because their parents took the easy road out. Now I’m not saying, that in some cases it’s not an option. Of course if there’s physical abuse or psychological abuse of any kind, that’s not a relationship you want to continue being in. But if we do our due diligence of finding the right spouse and not getting caught up in just the “feelings” chances are you won’t get put into a situation where you marry a psycho.

I’ve met many men, who did not do their due diligence when it came to selecting the woman that they married and ended up precisely with a narcissistic psycho. A woman who verbally abused them and emasculated them at every turn. And it was that woman that put divorce on the table and top of that ended up with full custody of the kids. I’m sorry to say this to you fellas, but the court system absolutely hates you as a dad. The woman can literally say that you raped her or abused the kids, without any evidence to support it, just the mere allegation and destroy your entire life and reputation.

Divorce is a horrible thing. And the best way to combat it is to not take marriage lightly. View it as a lifelong commitment and make sure that the woman you are committing to is worth your commitment. If you’re already married and the waters are looking rough right now, take a step back and take ownership of where you and your wife are at. Yes, even if it’s not your actual fault, operate under the guise that it is your fault as the leader of your home that your marriage is not where you both want it to be. There’s great power in this because when something is your fault, you can do something to change it and make it better.

3. Absent Father

The role of a father is so crucial in a family. I don’t know if you really comprehend how much of a perfect compliment the mother and father are to each other. While the mother brings the dynamic of nurture and support, the father brings a sense of security and leadership. I think about my own kids, as young as they are at only 4 and 1, they look to me for guidance and they also look to me for protection when they feel scared. And I don’t know about you guys, but I really love being that guy. I like being the man that my family looks to for guidance and reassurance that they are ok.

There are millions of kids here in America right now that don’t have that man in their home right now. And they are growing up with no guidance and no protection from those that seek to harm them. This is why we see so many fatherless children end up in jail, in gangs, on drugs, becoming criminals. If you take every mass shooter we’ve had, almost all the time you can point back to the cause being an absent father. Everybody is always quick to make the conversation about guns and gun laws, but they don’t want to entertain the root cause of the issue.

An absent father, isn’t only a dad that decided to split and leave the mom to fend for herself with the kids. It can also be a dad who may live in the home, but he’s always working and never spends any time with his children. Some men, use the amount of money they work hard to make as a measurement for how good of a dad/provider they are. And they’ll excuse themselves from the actual work of raising their kids, instead of being intentionally present in their lives. So many family’s would be restored and strengthened if dads just took ownership of this in their own home.

4. Money

Money is a point of contention in many families. From families fighting over inheritances when the dad dies, to mom and dads arguing over money. My own parents would do this to me as a kid. My mom would tell me that my dad was hiding money from her and that he didn’t want her to have access to it. And my dad would tell me that my mom spends all of our money on things we don’t need. Think about how much that sucks to be stuck in the middle of that feud, especially as a kid.

My parents missed out on a lot of our childhood due to the pursuit of money. They settled for jobs that didn’t care about them because they felt like they had no other choice. And I’m not blaming them for that. They came from El Salvador, so just even having a steady job was already something to be proud of in their book. Money is definitely important and you should care about it, but it shouldn’t be the thing you care about the Most.

What is the point in making a lot of money or having a lot of money as a resource, if you do not get to use that resource for the betterment of your family. And I’m not saying buy your kid an iPad because you didn’t have one growing up, what I’m saying is figure out how to buy back more time for you to invest that time into your family. Imagine if you made enough money to eliminate the problem of not having enough money. Where if something like a carton of eggs or a tank of gas gets expensive, it doesn’t phase you because money itself does not hold power over you anymore. And you’re left with the freedom of time, which you can devote and pour back into your family.

Your child is only 4 years old once, and if you miss that year in pursuit of money, that time is gone. Time will always be infinitely more valuable than money because you can’t get it back.

5. Vices

A vice can be defined as a fault, defect or shortcoming, but I like to call it a consistent bad habit or addiction. When people think about vices, people almost always go to gambling, porn, drugs and alcohol and while those are definitely bad habits or addictions, they’re not the ones I wanna focus on right now.

I wanna dig a little deeper and look at some of the most common pass times dads give their time to. For example, video games. This one is hard for me personally because I grew up on video games. You could even argue that my devotion to video games as a teen saved me from being out in the streets joining gangs when I lived in Inglewood, CA. It still doesn’t change the fact that it was a heavy vice for me.

I used to stay up until 4am playing video games, waking up feeling horribly tired the next day having to go to work and function like that. This vice almost caused me my marriage at one point. Until I broke free from the addiction and changed my habits. Do I still own a gaming system? Yes, I do and on occasion I’ll play a bit, sometimes even with my wife funny enough. But it is not something that dominates my life anymore, like it once did.

Here’s another common vice that a lot of men don’t like to talk about, and that’s sports. Now before you stone me out in the public square hear me out. I’m not saying sports are bad, in fact I think sports are great, especially when you play them and win. But when all you do with sports is spectate and recite stats of your favorite athletes, how does it improve your life or that of your family’s in any way?

There are some dads out there that will complain about not having a great marriage. They’ll say I wish I made more money and got this business going. They’ll say I wish I had more time to spend with my kids. But come football season they are locked in to every game, even the ones where their favorite team is not playing. Like I mean they’ll watch every single game without fail, every single year, and then they’ll also watch a few guys after the game talk about the game even more.

If that’s you and your family life ain’t what you want it to be, let me ask you this, how does this serve you? I’m not saying you can’t enjoy watching a game, but again just like the video games, don’t let it consume all that time that you could use to pour into your family life.

6. Cheating

This one goes hand in hand with the failing marriage reason I talked about earlier. Why does a husband or wife cheat? Primarily it happens due to needs not being met within the marriage. You often hear a man say that he cheated because his wife just doesn’t listen to him anymore or appreciate him for what he does for her or the kids. A lack of intimacy coming from the wife side will lead a man to search somewhere else too.

Same thing with the wife, if she doesn’t feel that deep emotional connection with you. Given enough time she may go out and seek that from someone else. Most of these quote and quote affairs happen in the workplace because that tends to be the most common place where you or your wife spend 8 hours a day 5 days a week with people of the opposite sex.

This kills families all the time and leads to divorce and all sorts of damage to the kids. For some men, the act of cheating is almost like a game. Like how many women can I have on the side while still having the benefit of the wife at home. It’s a sick game in which you never come out the winner. Everyone involved loses and in my humble opinion, your kids suffer the most.

My dad was this way unfortunately as he cheated on my mom for close to 20 years of their marriage. He was never faithful to her and as a kid finding out that your hero dad lived that kind of life, well it wasn’t very inspiring. In fact, the disappointment of finding that out crushed me for many years and caused a huge split between me and my parents. We’ve since made up and we have good relationship now, but it took quite some time. Stay faithful fellas and remain a man of integrity even when things aren’t perfect in the marriage. Remember that you have the power to change how you lead and show up as a husband.

7. Lack of Leadership

If I were to ask each member of your household, on a scale from 1-10, how they rate you as the leader of the family, what score would they give you? Would some of them even view you in that light? Would your wife meet that question with contention and claim that she wears the pants in the household? What would your kids say?

Tough questions right, but they’re important. Even more controversial in today’s day an age is the idea of having the man be the leader of the family/home. Now before you start calling me a masogynist pig, for you sensitive types, hear me out. A lot of people hear the term “leader of the home” and immediately jump to this machismo ideology where the man is the BOSS of the house. Like, a tyrant dictator telling everyone what to do and when to do it. I got news for you, that’s not what a leader is.

The leader is the one who takes ownership and responsibility for those he leads and brings out the best in them by leading by example. Yes, hard decisions fall on him, but not without the counsel of his wife and even his children. This is lacking in many families today because the man of the house is not owning that leadership role like he should. Instead, he’s passing the buck over to the wife who already has enough on her plate to deal with. Most guys love the idea of having an agreeable and submissive wife, but they fail to realize that it all depends on how they show up to lead.

When I was consumed by vices, jealous, overprotective, demanding, and insecure in my marriage, my wife wanted nothing to do with me. She definitely didn’t wanna follow my lead anywhere. But when my switch flipped to showing up as a leader in our home every day, her perception of me changed and I became a man worthy of being followed. And the work didn’t stop there. I continue to focus on improving myself as a leader for her and our kids because they deserve the best from me. They are counting on me and I cannot let them down. When you take ownership of your role as a leader and strive to set a great example for your family, they will naturally want to follow you.

8. School

I heard this from Tim Kennedy recently, he said that “from the moment your child is born you start to lose a little bit of influence in their life every day as they get older.” And it’s a very true statement. One of the places where the influence you have over your children is drained the most is school. We have been convinced as a society that school is the only place for a child to get their education and that could not be further from the truth.

The values and morals that you instill in your children are yours to instill because they are your children. But if those values and morals don’t align with the values and morals of “school”, school will do it’s very best to turn your kids against you. You tell your kids don’t do drugs because they can harm you and they understand it. But in the same breath parents will allow them to go to school knowing that there will be other kids there doing drugs and have a much bigger influence on your child.

You may bring up your children in a certain religion, but school will work hard to get them to go against those religious beliefs and make them see you as the enemy. You may teach your children that there are only 2 genders, male and female, but school will try to convince them otherwise. School will allow a grown man to be present in your daughter’s locker room simply because that man has decided to identify as a female. If you take any advice from this episode to better your family situation, let it be this. Don’t be a fool, take your kids out of school. They will have a much better education being educated by those that love them the most, you and your wife.

9. Lack of Growth

One of the worst things you can do as a man is stop growing. When you become stagnant and live in what JP Sears likes to call the coffin of comfort, you lose your sense of fulfillment. I’m not saying you won’t have happy moments. Like when your baby girl or boy gives you that big cheesy smile. You’ll smile and you’ll feel happy in that moment, but as soon as that moment is gone, you’ll go back to being unfulfilled. For many men this leads to a depressive state of mind. Sometimes it’s expressed in anger or outbursts of anger like your mad at the world, but you can’t really put a finger on why it is that you’re mad.

Some of you men know what I’m talking about and for the most part it’s a lack of personal growth. If you’re not developing your mind by learning something new every day and you’re just distracting yourself with tv or whatever other pass time you like participating in, you’re in the coffin of comfort. If you’re not being active every day and getting your body moving, you’re in the coffin of comfort. If you’re not where you wanna be financially and you’re not spending time every day figuring out how to get to your goal to give your family a better life, you are in the coffin of comfort.

Life is not meant to be experienced as a passenger. You are supposed to be in the driver seat and the more you take charge of being the driver and getting to new destinations. The more you will grow as a man, husband and father. And in your growth you will inspire others, especially those in your household to do the same. Your kids and your wife are always watching you. Imagine how much of an impact you will make in their lives if every time they see you, they see a man working hard to better himself every single day. There’s a lot of power in that type of influence as a dad, don’t let it slip you by.

10. No Concern for Truth

Given everything that’s happened in the past few years in this country with the ‘rona, jabs and everything in between. One thing that I believe is really hurting our families is that we as men no longer have a deep concern for what is true. We’ve gotten to the point where we’d rather accept comfortable lies than uncomfortable truths. And that in turn has made us and our families weaker. We’ve stopped questioning things, instead we just accept what the talking heads on the tv tell us to believe.

If you wanna keep your family from falling apart, especially during these times, always seek the Truth. Work hard to instill that in your children as well. We’ve been made to believe that anyone with authority or some jester of a celebrity is the bearer of truth, and that is far from the truth. You are capable of thinking for yourself and you have common sense. You also have a good sense of what is right and wrong. Don’t lose those characteristics for they will serve you in leading your family well.

Many men have lost sight of this and their families are suffering because of it. I’m gonna do my part to make sure we always stand firm on what is true in our household and if you do the same my brother, then I have faith that our families will be alright.

Until next time my fellow Alpha Dad,
- G. Vidal