It may cause me physical pain to admit this, but Bill O’Reilly has a point. Not that Jennifer Aniston herself is destructive to society (although her movies are another matter entirely), but the sentiment that she expressed in support of her new film, The Switch, may be. There is a huge difference between the situation of the average single mother and the situation of a wealthy, older woman who has reached a point where she has doubts about finding a suitable mate but no doubt about the fact that she wants a child.

I was surprised how reasonable O’Reilly actually was in the clip. His comments have been compared to the Dan Quayle / Murphy Brown row, but O’Reilly didn’t say anything directly about the movie or Aniston’s screen character. He called Aniston out for her real life comments at the movie’s press conference. Whether you agree with him or not, he has clarity on this issue that Quayle was sorely lacking.

It’s not pc to say (especially for a known liberal like myself), but it is preferable to have two parents involved in child rearing. No, this doesn’t mean that single moms can’t be great parents or that intact families can’t mess up children severely. But, a two parent family generally provides more economic stability, which affects so many aspects of child-rearing. Families with two parents are able to be more involved with their children as the responsibilities are shared and the parents have a partner in the efforts.

O’Reilly also has a point about the role of the father being diminished among many sectors of our society. There are many reasons for this attitude, most attributable to the current widespread absence of fathers in their children’s lives. I have heard teenage girls who are working part time in a restaurant proclaim that they don’t need a man to raise their child, even refusing to try to collect child support. When their mothers, their friends, their peers are doing just that, it’s hard for them to appreciate how much better their lives and the lives of their future children could be if they waited, continued their education, began a career, established a stable loving relationship, and were better prepared for parenthood. I don’t think Jennifer Aniston’s opinion is going to affect a 12 year old nearly as much as what that young woman sees in her community, where it may have become accepted that the majority of young women will have at least one child before she’s out of her teens and that the men in their lives are not to be counted upon.

Those of us who grew up with fathers who were strongly present in our lives are rarely going to say fathers don’t matter, even if we do end up raising children on our own. Having raised my two daughters with little involvement from their father, I’ve stressed to them that raising children on your own can be done, and done well, but it is inherently more difficult and should never be a decision made cavalierly. Hopefully, girls will have a parent or two who will talk to her about her choices and her ability to control her own future before it becomes an issue.