March 2022: Join The ConVersation

Recently, amidst all the last minute details to work out for Father-Con 2022, I had the opportunity, ok the request from my wife, to drop by on the way home from work to pick up a few things from Target.  I ran into a guy obviously from Texas, the accent and permanent hat band mark engraved in his forehead were dead giveaways, and we ended up having a long conversation in the parking lot. Turns out he and his wife couldn’t have kids of their own so they adopted a little girl then a little 1 year old boy.  He was the child of a crack dad who couldn’t take care of him, and a mother who committed suicide. This man and his wife took in this little boy and gave him a home that was safe and his.  Then after some years, the mother shows up and wants the boy back.  Recognizing that she was not in the condition to care for this boy, they fought to keep him.  Their case exhausted their funds and took them to the Supreme Court where they finally won the privilege of being parents to a very difficult, autistic boy.  This was not an act of emotional virtue signaling, but real in the trenches love for a child who needs someone in his court, watching his back and preparing him for his future.

And then there are the Supreme Court hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson and the questioning about an 18 year old boy tried for being in possession of over 600 pornographic child sexual abuse images.  Regardless of how you may feel about the sentencing of this young man, the real tragedy here is we have children determining who they are and how they feel about others from an industry that is hell bent on commercializing and exploiting what should be a child’s natural curiosity.  I had a conversation last night with a forensic nurse who had been a victim of human trafficking earlier in her life.  She has seen a rise in child on child sexual assault cases recently due to children acting out what they see in pornography.  Our children are learning to deal with life-with us, or without us.  They need their fathers to be there for them.  Remember, as Dr. Meg Meeker has said, “Nothing we say or do is neutral.”  Please come to Father-Con and learn how to keep children, our homes and communities safe.  Get inspired to be the fathers and fathers to come, that will not be caught in the merciless winds blowing from the hearts of those with the worst of intentions for our children.   

Patrick Erlandson, Founder: Father-Con, and See it. End it. Film & Arts Festival