693. Ryan Bomberger confronts America’s fatherlessness epidemic: Nothing can replace a father

[00:00:00] Family, did you know that one in four children in America are growing up without a father? And

[00:00:05] that children raised in homes without fathers or father figures are more likely to face abuse

[00:00:10] neglect, drop out of school, abuse drugs and alcohol, suffer obesity and even go to prison.

[00:00:17] Ryan Bomberger is on a mission to fix this.

[00:00:30] I talk a lot about different topics relative to areas where we have the opportunity to make some

[00:00:35] impact and fatherlessness is one of those areas. But sure, I am a person who grew up who lost

[00:00:42] this father way too early in life and sometimes people look at you and they don't understand a story

[00:00:46] behind what you've been through. Well guess what? There aren't millions. I mean millions of Americans

[00:00:52] suffering the same thing, household suffering that which means communities are also being negatively

[00:00:57] impacted by it. And I've got somebody with me today who is on a mission to help remedy this

[00:01:02] situation. Ryan Bomberger is an Emmy award-winning creative professional columnist,

[00:01:08] Factoress, and author of the powerful book Not Equal Civil Rights going wrong. He is also the

[00:01:13] co-founder and chief creative officer of radiancefoundation.org, a life affirming organization

[00:01:19] based on a belief that every human life has purpose. Ryan, welcome to the show.

[00:01:24] Hey, it's great to be here with you. Thank you so much for taking the time. So let's start here.

[00:01:28] I'm going to ask you a difficult question. I think for people who are always in the public sphere,

[00:01:33] what is one thing that you might be able to share with our audience that even those closest to Ryan

[00:01:39] do not know? Oh wow. So I got to reveal some stuff. That's right. Okay, so the people today don't

[00:01:48] know that I used to DJ for years. Is that right? They wouldn't believe yeah.

[00:01:54] It's cheesy. I was a DJ, right, but it put me through grad school. So yeah, I used to love

[00:02:00] radio. I was involved in radio as a music director, a promo creator, all that kind of stuff,

[00:02:04] but I love radio. It couldn't be that cheesy. Put you through grad school.

[00:02:08] Couldn't be that cheesy. No, I met my name. Okay, that's awesome man. So this topic of

[00:02:16] fatherlessness, I know we're going to dive into some of the data, some of the things you've learned

[00:02:22] personally being involved in it. But I'd like to understand what led you to getting immersed

[00:02:26] in this work? My own dad. I grew up in a small family of 15, I have six brothers, six sisters,

[00:02:35] ten of us were adopted. So I had a father who modeled Christ to her whole family. He loved my mom.

[00:02:42] So I watched a man who truly loved his wife and served as a role model for a husband and also

[00:02:50] love those other men abandoned. I mean, ten of us, I was the first of 10 adopted and we're a very

[00:02:54] mixed family. We're white black, white and black Native American Vietnamese just mixed. So

[00:03:00] my understanding and my passion for fatherhood came from my own dad who sacrificed everything

[00:03:07] for us because if you have 13 kids, you do a little sacrificing. I shoot if you have one kid,

[00:03:12] you do a lot of sacrificing but that's why I'm so passionate. My parents actually are the reason why

[00:03:18] I was so inspired to work with young kids from a really early age actually starting in high school

[00:03:23] and continue to on through college and for years and years thereafter. They're the reason why I have

[00:03:29] this passion for just loving kids who come from brokenness because that's pretty much

[00:03:36] most of the kids in my family, we came from extremely broken backgrounds.

[00:03:39] No, I get that. I had a guest on a few shows ago who talked about a lot of our purpose and things

[00:03:46] that we perform well at are birthed out of our pain and that just stuck with me. I think

[00:03:52] here to four, I'd always ask about the why, right? It's the why. I guess interchangeable terms but

[00:03:58] the pain I think just, I don't know, makes it further. You just refined the point that much more.

[00:04:05] So talk to me about Radiance Foundation and the work you're doing at Radiance Foundation.

[00:04:10] One of the things I know that was you were named one of the 50 greatest pro-life leaders in the

[00:04:15] last 50 years in a book entitled Legacy of Life. Tell me about that, how did that make you feel too

[00:04:22] as a part of this journey you're on? I was surprised and quite honest there are so many people that

[00:04:28] could be named in that book. There's so many people that inspired me who aren't mentioned,

[00:04:33] who may never show up in any kind of book or any kind of article. But I do appreciate the Florida

[00:04:38] Family Institute that really was trying to talk about here some innovators, here are people

[00:04:43] who've come before us. I mean many of them are looking through the book and thinking man they've

[00:04:48] inspired me so much. And so it was a shock. It was surprised. I didn't know it my mom, my mom,

[00:04:54] that was weird. My wife had been working with one of our colleagues who actually wrote it

[00:04:59] Alicin Centafonte. And so it was just a surprise but honestly in the end you know we don't need

[00:05:05] accolades in this life. It's nice to have them but really it was just an affirmation of I'm

[00:05:12] living out God's calling in my life. My wife and I through the Radiance Foundation where we're

[00:05:16] illuminating that every human life has God given purpose with your plant, unplanned, able to

[00:05:21] say, well, Red Yellow Black Brown and White whatever beautiful you have skin you have every human

[00:05:26] life has God given purpose. And so it just kind of confirmed in me that just keep going.

[00:05:30] Now despite the hate, death threats, the crazy fatigue, it is worth it all to be able to impart

[00:05:38] to somebody hate. I don't care what your current, I do care what your current situation is but

[00:05:42] I'm saying that it doesn't matter what your current situation is that God can pull you through

[00:05:48] triumph, can rise from tragedy. And so that is what I felt like I took away from that little

[00:05:54] way. That's good. And so again, leading a foundation, founding the organization, Chief Creative

[00:06:01] Officer, several books to your name and who knows what else speaker. When people ask you what it

[00:06:08] is that you do? What do you say? I craft messaging that is fearless, factual and freeing. I used to

[00:06:15] be a creative director in the Ad agency world and I was tasked with creating stuff, creating marketing

[00:06:22] campaigns, ad campaigns. So what I really love doing is illuminating that inherent irrevocable

[00:06:29] worth we all have. And the challenge of figuring out how do I communicate that? How do I design

[00:06:34] that? And so that's really what we try to do as far as ray and foundation is that we try to set it

[00:06:39] apart by our creative sort of approach. Refuse the educational with the creative, the emotional

[00:06:45] with the evidential. So I love creating stuff. That's good. And that's a great segue to with

[00:06:51] the evidential because you were labeled as a factivist, is it? I could tell right? Yes, fact,

[00:06:56] I've never heard the term before but I love it. It's easy to understand. Actually, my shirt says

[00:07:01] less activism, more factivism. And if we had that in our society, we wouldn't have so much

[00:07:06] the chaos. So how that term came to be as a part of your moniker and descriptor?

[00:07:13] Well, it was really just my years and years of working in all kinds of outreach is all kinds

[00:07:19] of urban ministries. And just looking at life in general, hearing the news and not trusting the

[00:07:26] news because there's a lot of context missing. So my my whole approach to this is that context

[00:07:32] brings clarity. And as a Christian, I want to know the context. I want to be able to think

[00:07:38] clearly through these things and that way I can act responsibly and compassionately. And so

[00:07:43] that's why as a factivist, I do thousands of hours of research on all these issues because I

[00:07:49] want to understand them. I want to know how to message about them and you can't do that

[00:07:53] if you're clueless. And the sad thing is we've seen the result of acting without the facts. I mean,

[00:07:58] emotions don't set us free. Truth does. And so we see some of the dangerous consequences of that.

[00:08:03] We've seen them the last few years with some of the writing and understanding. There's a perception

[00:08:08] of injustice, but we still have the responsibility of one acting righteously. And you can there could

[00:08:15] be right as anger. There's nothing wrong with the right as anger. But we have to act with the facts.

[00:08:21] And so that's why I'm really passionate about factivism. That's so good.

[00:08:24] And so slight departure from the topic just to stick on factivism for a second and go deeper.

[00:08:30] I think it's incredibly important in the political season that we're in as we march towards another

[00:08:36] election to be factivists. I'm going to start using a word and we did this four years ago and we walk

[00:08:42] through making sure our audience gets vested in understanding who the candidates are.

[00:08:48] Local out concentric circle approach so locally in your county, your city, your state,

[00:08:54] then to national knowing what the issues are and the key topics and knowing where said persons

[00:09:00] forget party lines for a second. Just talk about the individuals. What topics are bubbling to

[00:09:06] the top for you? Where do those individuals stand on the topics? And if they do they have track

[00:09:11] records that show they stand where you think they are in those topics and so on and so forth. So

[00:09:16] I just want to use your term in the platform you've established around gathering facts to encourage

[00:09:21] people we're going to do it again this year y'all get your facts. So Ryan with that point of facts

[00:09:27] give us an understanding of what you've uncovered in terms of what fathers excuse me what

[00:09:33] fatherlessness does in America today. I know the absence of fathers. I mean it's the devastation

[00:09:41] is so widespread. I mean, I mean you're talking okay let's just talk from a poverty standpoint.

[00:09:46] How do we battle poverty? One of the biggest contributors to poverty is the absence of fathers.

[00:09:51] So when you're talking about two parent married homes versus single parent home which 80%

[00:09:58] of those single parent homes today in America are female led and this is not disparaged.

[00:10:02] Single mom 80 80 80% of the single parent led homes are led by my wife was a single mom for a while

[00:10:11] so we know some of those dynamics but the reality is you're talking a poverty level that is five

[00:10:17] times higher among single parent led homes versus intact married families. We keep hearing all

[00:10:22] these social re-engineers talking about how you know any family is equal with other families.

[00:10:28] It's not that a person's worth is less, but all families are not equal and so when you have those

[00:10:34] intact married families they do provide a different environment a more stable environment.

[00:10:38] So fatherlessness is devastating on so many levels. Let's talk about high school dropouts.

[00:10:42] I talk about increased violence rates. I talk about pregnancy rates. I talk about higher abortion

[00:10:47] rates. I mean obesity rates seven times higher in followers at home. So on nearly every metric

[00:10:56] there are negative consequences to fatherlessness yet we also hear this rhetoric and this propaganda

[00:11:03] fathers aren't needed and that in particular that black families aren't as impacted by

[00:11:08] followers since that's nonsense. I mean that was a study that came out from the CDC years ago.

[00:11:13] The devastation is real. I mean I've spent many years working with young children

[00:11:19] on every level who are impacted by the absence of their father and to deny that is really just

[00:11:26] to deny reality. Well we do live in a culture right now that denies all kinds of reality so

[00:11:31] that it's kind of the norm unfortunately. Yeah that number is close to seven million homes

[00:11:37] impacted by fatherlessness is that right? I think it's 20 million. 20 million. I think it's 20

[00:11:43] million. I think it's one out of four children yes are impacted by that and then there are other

[00:11:49] rates you're talking about like unmarried birth rates the number of children born outside of

[00:11:54] marriage and it's devastating back in the 60s it was 25% when a congressman Daniel Patrick Moynihan

[00:12:01] sounded the alarm that in the black community it was 25% well you fast forward now and it's over 70%

[00:12:07] and it's increased in every people group and we can't ignore it. I mean it's devastating on so many

[00:12:13] levels how do we raise strong children? How do we raise strong communities? Well you cannot do it

[00:12:18] when we have the deterioration. That doesn't mean that like single parents I mean a lot of them

[00:12:24] do all they do all they can to raise their children love their children but you know mothers weren't

[00:12:30] meant to be both mothers and fathers right right and so it's not trying to do to mean those who do

[00:12:36] all they can but that is not the ideal and we've got we've got an emergency here I mean this is an

[00:12:42] epidemic of fatherlessness that has spread across our nation and I've seen the toll it's taken

[00:12:49] some of the kids that I work with with my peers and we're a nation that cannot ignore this

[00:12:56] particular epidemic. We talk about existential threats this is the existential threat yeah

[00:13:01] and with some of those data points I mean the numbers are staggering one out of four children

[00:13:06] impacted by it the exponential or at least multiplier rate of poverty

[00:13:12] into your point degradation of health so on and so forth has the data shown that this is correlated

[00:13:19] or there's causation. Fatherlessness and poverty yes and some of these are causation.

[00:13:24] Absolutely causation I mean the socioeconomic impact of the father being out of the home I mean if

[00:13:29] you look at just the salaries for for instance if you have a single male at home it's he makes about

[00:13:35] $51,000 a year I'm sorry that's a single female at home. A single male at home is 71,000 versus

[00:13:41] a two-parent married household 107,000 so just from those numbers alone you're talking there's obviously

[00:13:49] going to be a socioeconomic impact. Absolutely so there's a lot of causation on a number of these

[00:13:56] factors I mean just an involved father even if father who reads more to his children they're going

[00:14:02] to have better educational outcomes just from the mere fact that he's reading to them and so

[00:14:07] that's why we have to be attuned to what is going on and this massive absence that is causing

[00:14:14] these these negative ramifications. Yes that's good we know sometimes we talk about problems we say

[00:14:19] you know something went wrong instead that's a quote unquote a bug in the program right

[00:14:23] the PC has a bug and then sometimes you go well that's not a bug that's a feature okay that's

[00:14:28] the part of a system we have commissioned right excellent mission or commission when you think

[00:14:33] about this one and kind of turning our attention to how we put people in the position to remedy

[00:14:39] the situation and walk alongside you on that road just help us understand from a point of priorities

[00:14:45] per se right what things must we fix to begin turning this around. We have to fix the way that we

[00:14:51] talk about what is truly empowering I mean we live in a we live in a culture right now that

[00:14:59] things are being empowered but oftentimes are being fooled by those in power and part of the

[00:15:04] being fooled is the nonsense that somehow we need a dismantle for instance I'm just going to say

[00:15:08] black lives matter talking about dismantling the Western hemispheres concept of the nuclear family

[00:15:13] no we don't need to dismantle it's been dismantled it has been for decades and decades

[00:15:18] and it's had the you know destructive impact and so part of it is just

[00:15:25] rejecting this nonsense that somehow one women and men are simply interchangeable they're not they

[00:15:31] offer something valuable and irreplaceable each one of them as someone who was rescued from the

[00:15:39] the violence of abortion I was conceived and raped yet I was adopted in love and so when I talk

[00:15:45] about the need for fathers to be in this place this comes from such a deep comes from such a

[00:15:52] deep place and to see the impact on children I'm a huge adoption advocate when I see the dysfunction

[00:15:59] and the deterioration of families and what does that child who's in foster care need they need

[00:16:04] rescue they need that stability that a mom married mom and dad can provide and that's not to say

[00:16:09] that single parents cannot adopt I have friends who are single parents who adopt and I and I applaud

[00:16:14] them to but we have a situation where we're pretending that fathers don't matter yeah and dads

[00:16:22] matter I don't care how they try to to restate I don't care the euphemism they throw out there

[00:16:27] dads always matter and when we when we realize this and work toward this for instance you know women

[00:16:35] who are facing unplanned pregnancies why in the world are we encouraging young men to abandon

[00:16:39] their responsibility the moment you become a father is the moment you step you should be stepping

[00:16:43] into that responsibility yeah and yet we we've created this culture of abandonment which is

[00:16:49] allowed you know 64 million abortions since roe weight that is not a way to strengthen the community

[00:16:55] the way to strengthen the community is say hey young men rise up to be fathers that sad thing is a lot

[00:17:02] of them don't have that role model but yet there are those of us who could spend the time being

[00:17:07] that mentor that's why I encourage I encourage fathers hey take some time help me a father and teach

[00:17:12] a young man how to be that father for his child I have four kiddos I have two girls two boys and

[00:17:19] I try everything I can to pour my life into them I want them to know that I'm giving everything

[00:17:24] that that I have for them so that they can understand what it means for for for father to sacrifice

[00:17:31] for father to be present for father to be involved absolutely and so one of the things I think I hear

[00:17:36] you saying incorrect me if my paraphrasing is incorrect I hear you saying one of the points

[00:17:42] of remedy is reaffirming the importance of the father and the family as opposed to a bunch of

[00:17:50] there I say optionality all over the place as if you know it's okay you don't have to have that

[00:17:58] you got all these other options and things you can pursue in ways to to make a family you know

[00:18:02] family continue to function with with or without right and I think what I hear you saying is no

[00:18:07] reaffirm factually the importance of fatherhood and the family oh yeah I mean it's the way God

[00:18:13] designed it yeah I mean it is an intentional design it's the framework that we thrive best in

[00:18:18] yeah so that's the that's the model that I'm trying to promote trying to encourage that's good

[00:18:23] and it's good how can people walk alongside you support this word they say yep I'm with him I've

[00:18:29] been waiting to get involved or something like this or I'm enlightened by this conversation what's

[00:18:34] the best way for people to tap into and add some momentum to this if you will well one of the

[00:18:40] ways we have these workshops with teens and we do these multimedia presentations where we talk about

[00:18:44] what it means to be a man in fact we have guys by design or men by design that's one of the presentations

[00:18:50] we also have another one that's called remote control versus I'm sorry self-control versus remote

[00:18:55] control and that's really a character building workshop and part of it is you know supporting

[00:19:00] the work that we do through the ratings foundations so that we can impart I mean these are some

[00:19:03] basic truths we say basic but for some people regardless of you of skin they're not so basic

[00:19:10] that's right because they just didn't have that in the home and so this is part of what we do

[00:19:14] through the ratings foundation and just when we illuminate that every human life is God given

[00:19:19] purpose well that purpose is intentionality that is a design by God that that's irrefutable and when

[00:19:26] we veer from it we see the consequences of it so you know supporting our work that way sharing

[00:19:31] some of our work go to radiance.life it's the easiest way to get to us sharing some of that content

[00:19:36] but we're really passionate about fatherhood because for me everything it's so inextricably tied

[00:19:42] to our human existence I mean God created my own female and you leave out 50% of it there's a problem

[00:19:51] and so as a father I'm passionate as someone who's worked with thousands of teenagers and actually

[00:19:59] preteens my heart is driven toward the fatherless. I think it's such a good area of focus and a lot

[00:20:07] of times I believe when we talk about people and what they're going through you talk about the state

[00:20:12] of mental health, youth depression, I recently was talking about youth suicide statistics and

[00:20:19] they would just blew me away right oh the percentage of high school students who had considered

[00:20:24] suicide the percentage that planted and the percentage actually tried it right and so we have

[00:20:30] I remember analysts analysts used to work for me used to always say ask why five times you

[00:20:34] used to get closer to the truth right and so you keep asking why and unpacking and some of it comes

[00:20:40] down to these foundational things many of us had grown used to accepting that the father not being

[00:20:46] there was just the way it is. We'd sit in the barbershop talk about it right be it the boys clubs,

[00:20:51] you know hoops, oh what you got to find in the house that that was like abnormal.

[00:20:55] It was a certain degree of an unknown way you grew up right and I love this conversation because we

[00:21:01] should not accept it to your point we should get grounded in the facts and the outcomes and such

[00:21:08] that happen because of it to your point causation and then that guess what there is a way to swit

[00:21:13] to swing at this right there is a way to swing at this and what you said is so profound yes so simple

[00:21:20] reaffirm the importance of it start there right I love that right yeah it's true and when we talk

[00:21:26] about mental health I mean faith in mental health people don't want to talk about the fact that those

[00:21:30] who actually have this abiding faith, this foundational faith they have far better mental health outcomes

[00:21:36] positive mental health outcomes and part of creating that spiritual life is also the role

[00:21:43] of the father yes and we tend to forget that I'll take my my barber is an ex-fellon

[00:21:50] didn't have a father in the house and the beautiful thing about life is that you don't have to

[00:21:55] repeat a cycle yes you don't have to repeat the mistakes if your parents you can break break free

[00:22:01] from that yes and I see that all the time and it's an amazing thing when you see that I mean

[00:22:06] I mean people really close to me I won't mention their names but they had you know a father who was

[00:22:12] largely absent and they are one of this particular individuals I'm one of most involved fathers

[00:22:17] I've ever seen and we don't have to live with that that that curse that's right abandonment

[00:22:24] that's right and that's the beautiful thing about life we can break free from that's right that's

[00:22:27] right hey family you've heard it here from Ryan Bomberger again founder chief creative officer at

[00:22:34] Radiance Life excuse me the Radiance Foundation please please please visit him at www.radient.life

[00:22:42] to find out more about him his books etc visit their social media pages and if you believe

[00:22:47] that fatherlessness counts and matters show up folks appreciate it Ryan thank you so much for being

[00:22:52] here thanks a lot