At a recent trip to Qdoba (one of my favorite places to eat), I was walking behind this small boy and his grandmother on the way in. The boy, which I would guess was about 1-2 years old, was hanging back near the sidewalk toddling around while she was waiting for him by the door. As I approached the sidewalk, he jogged toward me with a stretched-out arm momentarily before turning his attention toward the big ascension onto the sidewalk.
 After his little legs successfully made the climb, I soon followed behind. Halfway to the door, he turns back around and again toddles toward me with his arm outstretched, this time with much more purpose than before. He started making those "unh unh" sounds, the kind that toddlers often make when they want something...not the upset kind, just the variation that says, "I can't talk yet, but there's something I really need you to know and this is the only means I have of informing you."
 By this time I had deduced what he was looking for and offered my hand, but did so cautiously on the small chance that my perception of the situation could be wrong, in which case I didn't want to inadvertently pose a threat to the child. But my supposition turned out to be correct; he immediately took hold of my hand and had me escort him to the door.
 The grandmother sheepishly apologized, which of course was completely unnecessary. I was going the same direction anyway, so it certainly was no imposition on my part to comply with whatever need a child had for guidance at that time. I'm sure I would have done it even if I hadn't been. Anyway, I found myself subtly keeping an eye on the pair after we had all entered the restaurant.
 It turned out they were there to meet his mother. She called him over, he'd take a few steps and stop, she would then have to call to him again. This process repeated itself about three times until they were close enough for her to pick him up. She was sporting a gaudy handbag, was somewhat overweight and wearing a raggedy t-shirt, had multiple piercings and bi-colored hair...and no wedding ring. That's when it occurred to me just what God had used me for in that moment.
 While I cannot know how much of a presence that young man's father has in his life, it was quite obvious he had a pronounced need at that time for the sure leadership of a male figure he perhaps did not have regular access to. It spoke to me that even children know that a situation like his isn't right, yet we adults in our "sophisticated" reasoning seem to continually attempt to program this idea out of them by varied means. To try and convince the child they are wrong in such thinking is a mistake, because this is an unalterable coding!
 The Commission on Children at Risk, formed a few years back to research the trends of troubled children, compiled a report that stated, among other things, that the need to form relationships is hardwired. Also, the report refers to recent neuroscience research that found the environment a child is raised in "not only shapes a child’s psychological and emotional development, but also alters brain development in ways that profoundly affect long-term health." (Hardwired to Connect: The New Scientific Case for Authoritative Community, p.1)
 In his analysis on the report, "Children at Risk", W. Bradford Wilcox notes:

 "So, how have authoritative communities fared in recent years in the United States? The sobering reality is that authoritative communities have not done so well over the last half-century. The family, which the report correctly notes is “the first and most basic association of civil society,” has been battered and buffeted in recent years. In particular, increases in divorce and unwed childbearing since the 1960s have left an indelible mark on the lives of millions of children. As a consequence of these changes, fewer and fewer children go to bed at night in a home that they share with mother and father. In the 1950s, almost 80 percent of children spent their entire lives in an intact family, whereas in the 1990s only about 50 percent of children spent their entire childhood with their biological mother and father. Children who grow up outside an intact family are more than twice as likely to experience serious psychological or social problems as their peers who grow up in intact families."
 Taking a page from Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone, the report notes that other authoritative communities in civil society—e.g., religious institutions, Parent Teacher Associations, and YMCAs—have lost ground over the last half century. For instance, the percentage of Americans attending religious services in any given week fell from 49 percent in 1958 to 43 percent in 1990. The decline was more precipitous among teenagers: weekly religious attendance among high school seniors fell from 40 percent in the late 1970s to 31 percent in 1991. Because religious institutions provide moral meaning, spiritual sustenance, and social support to parents and adolescents, and because religious participation is associated with the social and psychological health of adolescents, there is strong prima facie evidence that the secularization of American life has helped fuel the downward spiral in social and psychological well-being among adolescents. (Full disclosure: as a member of the Commission on Children at Risk, I helped to frame the report’s treatment of religion.)

 You can put a child into any two-daddy, two-mommy, no-daddy or no-mommy situation you wish; but at the end of the day, I really believe something occurs to them, even in the most rudimentary portions of their developing minds, that the ideal situation for them is comprised of Mommy and Daddy. Of course I understand the lack of this ideal is an unavoidable reality in many situations, as I have people I care about in my own life facing such realities.
 Never having been a parent myself, I am ill equipped to speculate as to how to help children reconcile the inborn need for a nuclear family with the decidedly non-nuclear environment they are left to face, often due to poor judgement by those who gave them life. Whatever the case, it is incumbent upon servants of the risen King to offer support to these fractured homes wherever possible (Job 29:11-12).