Herschel Walker, Critic of Absentee Fathers, Has a Second Son He Doesn’t See
Herschel Walker, the Republican nominee for Senate from Georgia, who has often spoken out against absentee fathers, particularly in Black households, on Tuesday publicly acknowledged having fathered a second son with whom he is not in contact.
...a report by The Daily Beast,...confirmed the 10-year-old boy’s parentage but withheld his name and that of his mother. It said the child’s mother had sued Mr. Walker a year after giving birth to obtain a declaration of paternity and child support, and that the suit lasted until August 2014, when Mr. Walker was ordered to pay child support. The boy, by then more than 2 years old, took Mr. Walker’s last name.
Walker, who faces Senator Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, in November, has praised his relationship with his 22-year-old son, Christian, in interviews and campaign speeches.
At the same time, he has repeatedly criticized fatherless homes in Black communities: In a 2020 interview with the conservative activist Charlie Kirk, he called the absence of fathers “a major, major problem” in Black households and boasted of having been “like a father” to many young people in his hometown in Georgia.
And in a 2021 interview with the Black conservative media personalities Diamond and Silk, Mr. Walker lamented that “the father leaves in the Black family. He leaves the boys alone so they’ll be raised by their mom,” comparing the dynamic to family separations during slavery.
“If
you have a child with a woman,” Mr. Walker continued in that interview,
“even if you have to leave that woman — even if you have to leave that
woman — you don’t leave that child.”
