FATHERLESSNESS IN AMERICA: The Secret Soul-Killer

For some, Father's Day means balloons, cake and an outing for dads and kids. But for those who don't have dads in their life, it's the saddest, emptiest day of the year. We pretend that it's okay for men to abandon their 'baby mamas', when it's really not okay at all. These men not only abandon their women, they abandon their children - who are then many times more likely to join gangs, have behavioral problems, become homeless, runaways, high school dropouts and criminals. Today's guest, Lee Habeeb, is the Executive Producer of The Streets Were My Father: A Story of Hopelessness and Redemption. The film features the stories of three inner city Chicago men - one African-American and two Hispanic - and their journey from fatherlessness to gangs, and from prison to encounters with prison ministry programs that set each of them on the road to redemption. The poignant stories of these men illustrate the problems and the pain of fatherlessness - which perpetuate the cycle. Boys who grow up fatherless don't know what it means to care for a woman and a child enough to take responsibility for them because their father did not model it for them or teach them how. But, there are ways out of this cycle, as you will hear.