Where Have All The Fathers Gone?

Rising crime rates, teen pregnancy, welfare moms, abused and battered children-- a wide variety of social ills are plaguing America. What causes these social ills? Is there a root cause? Families without fathers are on the rise in America, and this is a direct cause of America's social problems.

According to David Blankenthorn, author of "Fatherless America," fatherlessness is our most dangerous social trend. It weakens the family, harms children, causes or aggravates many of the worst social problems, and makes individual success more difficult to achieve. Fathers are increasingly being regarded as unnecessary and expendable. They are frequently being replace by the mother's boyfriend, the guy next door, or even the state. The fathers who remain are being pressured and transformed. Society tends to denigrate the traditional, masculine, working father while glorifying the new, sensitive, just-like-mom father. In 1960, for example, the percentage of children living with their natural fathers was over 80 percent. In 1990 that percentage had dropped to under 62 percent. In 1994, over 40 percent of children were not living with fathers. This trend shows no sign of slowing, according to Blankenthorn, and best estimates show that over half of all children will spend significant time separated from their fathers. For most children the opportunity to be fathered has disappeared. Is this necessarily a bad thing? Does it really have that much effect on children?

According to columnist William Raspberry, in "Superfluous Dad: Disaster for Society," the fatherless trend is the engine driving America's social crises. The lack of importance placed on fathers in the public's mind has resulted in economically challenged homes, and increases in crime and violence. Where Blankenthorn points out causes, Raspberry focuses on the effects. Economically, fatherless households are statistically among the poorest. Physical and sexual abuse take place in all economic classes but is more prevalent in lower class homes. Children from poor families are less likely to receive prompt medical attention, and proper preventive care. Boys who grow up without fathers are more likely to be involved in crime. This is partly because they are less likely to receive the discipline needed to keep them straight, and also because the decline in the importance of marriage makes boys feel less important to their families and communities. Both of these situations feed anti-social behavior.

Blankenthorn and Raspberry do an excellent job of identifying the problem, but offer few solutions. The question, and the frustration, is what can be done about it. Few have experience trying to reverse social trends to address such issues.

Bill Cosby, in his book "Fatherhood," says that having a child is the most beautiful, irrational act that two people in love can commit. Raising children is a hard and risky business. There is no cumulative wisdom gained from one child to the next. The reason this is done, of course, is love--love for the woman and mother, and love for the baby. Being an effective father, according to Cosby, Blankenthorn and Raspberry is no easy task. Children are born looking like lizards, and though their looks improve their dispositions rarely do. From toilet training to curfews, from loud stereos to friends, the father has his work cut out for him. To survive a day with a minimum of open wounds and noise, the father has to impose order on the domestic scene. The behavior of children has changed little since Joseph's brothers sold him to the Egyptians, and the fathers role has also changed little. The father's job is to be there. The father needs to be there after the mom has the baby, and to try to share in every job around. The father needs to pay attention to the child, to discipline the child, to talk to the child, to listen to the child. The father's most important job, though, is to love the child.

Even if all fathers become models of loving parents, would it really make a difference? The answer is unknown, but current trends and attitudes towards fathers is clearly not working. Solutions lie somewhere between Ozzie Nelson and Murphy Brown. If the belief that fathers can be replaced by a government check continues, the U.S. is destined for failure. It is time to try to reverse this troublesome social downward-spiral.

God's unbroken hold on us is something that will never permit us to feel right when we do wrong or to feel natural when we do the unnatural. Martin Luther King, Jr.

lyle.jones@asu.edu