Sunday, June 17, 2007
In honor of fathers, be sure to set bar high
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Shanna Flowers is The Roanoke Times' metro columnist.
Shanna Flowers
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I interrupt this Father's Day column to salute healthy and happy marriages.
Why? Because strong men make strong marriages, and strong marriages make strong families.
And strong families make strong communities.
I'm not diminishing the contributions of singles, because I'm one. But when I look to the larger community and its future, it is personified in children.
As a society, we've tried to diminish the role of dad in the well-being of families and children, to deem him irrelevant or unimportant. Tragically, too many men have gladly embraced that ill-conceived notion.
Nationally, one-third of all children are being raised in single-parent families; that percentage is double for black children. Most of them are headed by women.
Today, on Father's Day, set the bar high. All of us can see the devastating consequences of setting it low.
Children are more likely to flourish in a household with a happily married couple.
That's why the work of people such as Thomas and Towanda Penn and Samuel and Gail Thompson is so vital to our community.
The Roanoke couples, with more than six decades of marriage between them, are on the front lines of trying to enhance family and marriage.
Five years ago, they established a biblically based marriage enhancement group called FLAME -- Family Life and Marriage Enrichment.
FLAME is not a Bible study, emphasized Thomas Penn, 55, pastor of Big Hill Baptist Church in the Dixie Caverns area. The group, which meets monthly in Roanoke, is open to everyone.
"It's not counseling," Penn said. "We believe that a strong marriage makes strong families. The best thing a man can do for his children is to love their mother."
More than 60 couples have attended FLAME meetings at different points over the past five years, Penn said. Only one of them has divorced.
FLAME meetings are free. The only requirement is that couples are married or engaged, with a wedding date.
What makes a healthy and happy marriage?
The ability to communicate and resolve conflicts is key, Towanda Penn said. "If you can learn those things -- it's so many things involved in those -- you can work out anything."
FLAME exposes couples -- particularly men -- to what healthy relationships are all about.
"A whole lot of men don't know what their roles are," said Samuel Thompson, an analyst with the state Department of Rehabilitative Services. "We know cars, computers, but we don't know relationships.
"If you have fathers in position of leadership, gangs wouldn't exist," Thompson said.
Penn added, "The salvation of the family is in the men coming home."
Happy Father's Day, with a special nod to the ones handling their business as husbands at home.
FLAME meets at 7 p.m. the second Saturday of each month at the YMCA Family Center, 108 Orange Ave. N.W., Roanoke.
