Today is the 10^th Anniversary of National Fatherhood Day.

I have been contemplating for weeks what I would write about on this special Anniversary to celebrate a decade of National Fatherhood Day observance.

I decided that I would ask a question.

Has any of this made a difference?

Has my messaging, and highlighting, and promoting of the importance of a family structure and a father in the home been an impulse to thought- and, more importantly, to action for anyone, anywhere?

Have people- has any person- amplified and distributed these ideas and concerns to their friends, or associates, or neighbors, or viewers? Have people- or any person- taken an action that he or she may not have otherwise taken to help a child in his or her community- or taken responsibility for his own child for whom he has been derelict and irresponsible?

I said early-on in this venture that The Fatherhood Assignment and National Fatherhood Day were not created to raise money- they were created to raise hopes and awareness, and to stir thoughts and encourage actions.

Has any of this happened from these efforts?

National Fatherhood Day was created to encourage this country- this broken, damaged country- to give thought to what is really happening in society, and to society, and to contemplate how the breakdown of the family may be at the root of our problems (we know- or any thinking person knows- that the Internet is a major cause of society’s problems). If every child had a present, active, caring father, could every problem, or most problems, even the problem of the devastating drug that is the Internet that causes and enhances so much evil and depression, be overcome? Could all or most people be better, stronger, happier with the teaching of values and feeling of security that a father- a sober and active father- provides to and for a child.

Maybe my messages have resonated and been amplified and shared. Maybe they have been an impulse to action by a person, or by many people who have the resources and reach to effect change.

Maybe not. But I will press on.

Because without hopes, and dreams, and goals, and purposes beyond our own self-interests, then we become the negative impulses that we fear will surround children who need hopes, and dreams, and goals, and purposes- and children without fathers really need these things and really need places to find them.

Be well. Stay well. Do well. And Happy 10-year National Fatherhood Day Anniversary!

Yours truly,

-Neil Siskind, Founder, National Fatherhood Day, 2014