WOODBRIDGE—Wanted: Some- thing to cuddle and take care of; something that will accept love easily and will love unconditionally in return.

Thirteen years and nine months later

Wanted: HELP!!!!!!

Dan Quayle had it wrong. It’s really not about a potential threat to the “institution of family.”

I read, almost daily, about the strength of single mothers. I read about their determination to build a good life for their children; I read about their struggles for financial and emotional independence.

As the mother of three, I can appreciate their exhausting efforts and I honor the choices made by many. It’s not always easy to put someone else’s life ahead of your own, particularly without the support of a partner.

But, it’s really not about the single mother, either.

It’s about the child.

My husband teaches middle school. More and more, he’s being asked to mentor this young man or to keep a special eye on that young man. More and more, he comes home late, worrying about one student’s lack of motivation or another student’s emotional distress.

More and more, he arrives home after his own 5-year-old son is in bed, because he’s busy trying to save someone else’s 14-year-old.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that most, if not all, of the young men who need that extra support are living without their own fathers. Some never had even the shadowy presence of a father; others have watched their dads simply fade away until they’ve disappeared altogether. Many have seen their mothers struggling to get the support needed to provide food and clothing, and they live with the knowledge that their fathers don’t care.

It hurts.

In middle school, a young man isn’t supposed to show that hurt. He’s old enough to feel that gap in his life, to need the approval and the guidance of a father, and, in its absence, there’s a tangible pain that’s not socially acceptable. It seeps into his pores and mixes with the hormones of adolescence and is battered further by the unrivaled peer pressure of middle school. It is no wonder that many of these kids implode.