Jennifer Aniston and Bill O'Reilly Spar Over Importance of Dads
The reason Hollywood and the media play such an important role in society is because they are often the mouthpieces for what's happening in our real lives.
Divorce rates have been hovering around 50% for a while now; no doubt there are lots of split up families out there. For some of those families, that means there are kids who are growing up with a parent missing from their lives. More often than not, it's dad.
So that brings us to actress Jennifer Aniston. Jennifer Aniston is 41, not married and with no viable hubby/daddy prospects in her near future — sorry Jen, just stating the facts. She's stated she would love to start a family, and also suggested she isn't opposed to taking the matter into her own hands, either through adoption or artificial insemination. It just so happens, Aniston is starring in a film that addresses this very issue. The Switch is about a woman who uses a sperm donor to have a child after getting fed up waiting for the perfect guy. Sounds a little bit close to home for Aniston, if you ask me.
Jennifer was discussing the film with reporters and said this about modern motherhood,"Women are realizing it more and more knowing that they don't have to settle with a man just to have that child. Times have changed and that is also what is amazing, is that we do have so many options these days, as opposed to our parents' days when you can't have children because you have waited too long."
Seems reasonable and measured. Jennifer wasn't advocating poor unwed mothers go out and get knocked up and expect the government to pay for it. Nor was she saying children who grow up without fathers aren't at a disadvantage. She simply said women now have options for entering parenthood.
Bill O'Reilly, always the arbiter of half-baked thoughts and ill-conceived ideas, did what he often does, zeroed in on one statement, usually taken out of context, and then gnaws on it like a pitbull. O'Reilly responded to Aniston's comment on his show, stating her comments were "destructive to our society," accusing her of "diminishing the role of the dad." He also added: "Dads bring a psychology to children that is in this society, I believe, under-emphasized. I think men get hosed all day long in the parental arena."
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