A recent Pew Research Center Report on the rise in children being born to single mothers is sobering, to put it mildly. From the report:
Another notable change during this period was the rise in births to unmarried women. In 2008, a record 41% of births in the United States were to unmarried women, up from 28% in 1990. The share of births that are non-marital is highest for black women (72%), followed by Hispanics (53%), whites (29%) and Asians (17%), but the increase over the past two decades has been greatest for whites—the share rose 69%.
The rest of the report may be seen here.
Lest one think that these numbers are without consequence, the impact on a fatherless child’s life is all-too-often devastating. Consider the breakdown of fatherlessness by race from the pew report in light of these percentages of the American prison population in the graph below.
These numbers are being hailed in some quarters as representative of women’s strength and accomplishment. In truth, they represent the implosion of marriage and family as the numbers represent the number of women who have given up on family and marriage, choosing to go the single route. None suspects that her child will suffer for want of a father. The numbers suggest that those hopes may be whistling past the graveyard:
63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes (Source: U.S. D.H.H.S., Bureau of the Census)
90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes
85% of all children that exhibit behavioral disorders come from fatherless homes (Source: Center for Disease Control)
80% of rapists motivated with displaced anger come from fatherless homes (Source: Criminal Justice & Behavior, Vol 14, p. 403-26, 1978.)
71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes (Source: National Principals Association Report on the State of High Schools.)
75% of all adolescent patients in chemical abuse centers come from fatherless homes (Source: Rainbows for all God`s Children.)
49 percent of all child abuse cases are committed by single mothers.)Joan Ditson and Sharon Shay, “A Study of Child Abuse in Lansing, Michigan,” Child Abuse and Neglect, 8 (1984) )
70% of juveniles in state-operated institutions come from fatherless homes (Source: U.S. Dept. of Justice, Special Report, Sept 1988)
85% of all youths sitting in prisons grew up in a fatherless home (Source: Fulton Co. Georgia jail populations, Texas Dept. of Corrections 1992)
In 1988, a study of preschool children admitted to New Orleans hospitals as psychiatric patients over a 34-month period found that nearly 80 percent came from fatherless homes.(Jack Block, et al. “Parental Functioning and the Home Environment in Families of Divorce,” Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 27 (1988) )
Even controlling for variations across groups in parent education, race and other child and family factors, 18- to 22-year-olds from disrupted families were twice as likely to have poor relationships with their mothers and fathers, to show high levels of emotional distress or problem behavior, [and] to have received psychological help.(Nicholas Zill, Donna Morrison, and Mary Jo Coiro, “Long Term Effects of Parental Divorce on Parent-Child Relationships, Adjustment and Achievement in Young Adulthood.” Journal of Family Psychology 7 (1993).)
And those are just a few of the statistics from an appalling list found here.
A mother’s love is simply not enough. Children need a mother and a father. Men and women bring very different skill sets and perspectives to the table. Fathers nurture in a different way than mothers do, as we tend to have a different style of disciplining that comes with masculinity. That masculine presence is essential in reining in teenage excess and keeping the wolves at bay who would tear our children apart.
Fatherless children are easier marks.
This is the consequence of radical feminism which has shredded our families. Look at advertisements on TV, or listen on the radio. Better than 90% of the time if one party is buffoonish or clueless, it is the male. Look at sitcoms. Almost without exception men are portrayed as weak, stupid, gay, and clueless. Of course when men are not portrayed in these ways on TV and in movies, they are usually portrayed as testosterone-fueled homicidal, sex-crazed maniacs.
Within families where divorce rates have hovered around 50% for forty years, two full generations, the damage has been done. When not glued to mass media portraying men horribly, over half of our children, those missing a father as the counter-balance to that message about men, hear an endless litany from embittered mothers of the inadequacies and sins of men.
Is it any wonder that women are deciding in increasing numbers to forego husbands?
In the end, this is all about despair. Increasing numbers of men and women living without hope: in themselves or each other. But the data don’t lie, and tell the reason why God, throughout scripture, has identified Himself so strongly with the plight of widows, the fatherless, and orphans.
Coming Home 
I totally agree about the importance of two-parent families, especially with a mother and a father. The studies and statistics on everything from abuse, to brain development, to even pheromone research emphasize the importance of each child having a mother and a father.
As for the lampooning of men on television, I can’t help wondering how much of it is a lampoon and how much of it is a reflection of some realities. It is a common comment amongst many women of my acquaintance to refer to their husband as the “extra child”, because he seems as dependent on her for every little thing as the real children and seems more interested in playing with his grown-up toys than being a true partner. Many is the married woman I know who handles not only all traditional female roles but most of the traditional male roles (bills, yard work, home and car repair) as well.
Is the lack of masculine responsibility a symptom or a cause of single-parent homes? I know that men have undergone a lot of confusion as the roles for women have changed, but how do you change that in our society when there are so few models of real masculinity in television or in reality?
Barboo,
You raise a good question regarding cause and effect as regards the lampooning of men. I think it safe to say that for every married woman that regards her husband as the extra child, there is a married man who regards his wife as a “B” word.
I’m not starting or fighting that war here on this thread. Rather, my intent is to cut through the argument with a few observations.
The etiology of the toxicity which gives rise to these respective denunciations is multifaceted. The ridicule of men didn’t begin with men acting as children. That line of ridicule was preceded by a denunciation of the male patriarchal role on TV shows such as Father Knows Best. It was followed by the lie that women can have it all and have it all at the same time. Not a few embittered women discovered that they waited too long for children.
In making way for women, men were turned upon and savaged. The new feminism shredded the institution of marriage and set up the ruinous cycle of divorce, fatherlessness, overworked and overwrought custodial mothers, embittered men and women, and devastated children. It is within this context that women complain about men being babies. It’s the feminist lie told often enough to become part of the contemporary landscape.
Before we started homeschooling our children last year, we would drop them off at school and marvel at the cliques of stay-at-home mothers standing around, running their husbands down as little boys. Most of these men work two jobs , or one job with plenty of overtime to make their wive’s dreams of being stay at home mothers a reality.
Then, on the guy’s only day off, when he wants to play with his children and relax, he is castigated for not executing the “honey-do” list with alacrity.
What feminism has destroyed is mutual respect, which starts with an understanding and acceptance of the fact that men and women are very different creatures. Feminism spits on the notion that there are gender roles, then ridicules men for not acting as men.
Everyone loses, the children most of all as they have no role-modeling to help shape the direction of their lives.
Then they recapitulate it all in their generation.
“What feminism has destroyed is mutual respect, which starts with an understanding and acceptance of the fact that men and women are very different creatures.”
Indeed we are very different creatures.
However, Gerard, there is more to “mutual respect” than that. It’s treating your spouse – regardless of the gender difference, and regardless of their financial contribution – as your equal. Conservatives, including my father, will never own up to the fact that the caste system at home was a driving force of feminism. I grew up in a home where my stay-at-home mom was nothing more than an indentured servant. My father made ALL of the decisions, regardless of my mother’s wishes. If she asked for help with the children, she was told, “That’s YOUR job.” That is the short version of what she endured. And she is one of MANY who endured the same. It wasn’t a picnic for us children, either. We would have been better off without my father.
So much for the Biblical quotes (Ephesians, et al) about cherishing one’s wife. Nice concept. Realistic? Not so much. (My parents were Catholic, for what it’s worth.)
Donna, I understand your frustration at your family situation. Yes, there were many families like that, human nature is imperfect and, even though we were church-going Catholics, our parents did not hear and put into practice the real Christian virtues that they should have (for a myriad of reasons).
However, even though my own family was quite dysfunctional, we were still better off than if we had had no father around. So many children today have mothers with boyfriends and all the mess that brings, serial relationships, unstable relationships with significant others – surely those kids are worse off than those who have a less-than-perfect father.
I would have been worse off if my parents had split up early in my life (they split up when I was 21) because I would have been unprotected from lots of things that their being together shielded me from.
Dear Dr. Narad,
Your statement, “That masculine presence is essential in reining in teenage excess and keeping the wolves at bay who would tear our children apart.” is not borne out in the research.
Actually, recent research on raising children supports the importance of authoritative parenting as being the crucial factor in raising well-adjusted children. Authoritative parenting is carried out very well by both women and men. Authoritative parenting is composed of sensitivity, showing respect to the children, helping the children see the impact of their actions on others, stating firm limits, expectations, and reasoning about parental decisions that are that are adjusted to take into account the mental age of the child, and that allow the child to take more responsibility for their actions based on their developmental age as they grow.
Research has shown that authoritarian parenting, where the child is ordered about “because I said so”, to be associated with less well-adjusted children.
This is more important to child-rearing than masculism or feminism.
A very complex problem that has been caused by many factors.
I think men have been struggling to find their place in modern society for some time.
For one thing, many masculine jobs which require physical activity and hands -on are now gone. So it the “family wage”.
The importance of a father in the home cannot be underestimated.
Without a father, a young man has no role model. But more importantly, a young man needs to respect his father. Without respect, the man has no one to look to.
While it’s true that many women are forgoing finding a husband, it’s also true that many women are unable to find a man to step up to the plate, commit and be married. Many men are simply interested in playing the field and having their fun.
Try being a single woman on a single’s site and refusing to sleep with a man. This equals NO DATE. I have Catholic friends who have gone on first dates with men and laid it out, only to have the man get up and walk out. What cads.
At one time a woman’s virtue was so important that without it, she couldn’t get married.
Now a virtuous woman has slim hope of marrying.
Kathy, I believe that men and women parent differently and that BOTH types of parenting are needed by children.
Children also learn how to interact with the opposite sex by seeing their parents work and live together.
This is something I’ve been reflecting on quite a bit lately, and I have a couple observations
First, the economic burden has, since WW2, shifted heavily and rapidly onto men. I think women used to make a substantial contribution to the material household of things that we now purchase instead. We don’t make a family’s clothing anymore, or keep chickens, or have a substantial kitchen garden, preserve food for the off season, or perform basic medical care. We just pay for these, and if it’s the husband’s role to provide for his family, he must now provide more in order to provide for things that used to be produced or provided in the home.
Second, with the advent of appliances, the amount of time required for a household’s upkeep has dropped drastically. I work 20 hours a week (more really, but I only get paid for 20) and I don’t have a problem keeping up with housework, even with a small child. And I’m lazy and unorganized, but I still have time for hobbies and extensive reading.
Third, the spreading out of families means women are more isolated and lacking support of nearby extended family. It is not something that can be substituted with relationships with neighbors.
In summation, women are increasingly, isolated, idle, and deprived of meaningful work. This is a bad thing, and I think it was inevitable that a demand for work would come from it. It unfortunately got wound up with the sexual enslavement movement of the 60s and 70s and is proving hard to disentangle the two. Women are consequently expected to be just like men, and to work just like men and be compensated just like men instead of being able to be women and work. And instead of approaching the dilemma of motherhood and work in a reasonable manner, we get the mommy wars.
I will confess myself disappointed and distressed by the continual focus, in homily and the prayer life of the Church, on vocations to the priesthood and religious life while the vocation of marriage and the foundation of a stable society just crumbles around us.
I think that “gender roles” can be a tricky thing, because one’s genitals do not automatically equip one person to be better at laundry while the other is better at mowing grass. Obviously, a man can’t breastfeed his child. And many women aren’t physically designed for some of the physical heavy lifting that a man can do. When you hear of happy marriages, though, it usually involves two people who are both willing to do whatever needs to be done in spite of gender roles. To borrow a catch phrase from the movie ROBOTS: See a need; fill a need.
Kathy wrote: “Your statement, “That masculine presence is essential in reining in teenage excess and keeping the wolves at bay who would tear our children apart.” is not borne out in the research.”
It depends on what research you’re looking at. Neuro-psychological research of brain development by gender shows that around age 10 boys instinctively desire a strong male role model and feel an innate desire to separate from their mother’s authority. (See “The Wonder of Boys” by Michael Gurian.) This lasts into adulthood. The more a father-figure takes them in hand the less likely they are to become rebellious.
On the female front, research into pheromones has shown that the constant presence of the father’s pheromones can counteract the influence of teenage male pheromones in a teenage girl’s body. As a result, she is less willing to trust unworthy males (due to the chemical nature of how pheromones work) and engage in sexual activity with them. (See “You’re Teaching My Child What?! by Dr. Miriam Grossman.)
On a personal note, I have seen firsthand two generations of fatherless men and it’s effects. My grandfather died when my father was just a baby; his only saving grace was that he and his mother lived with his grandfather for most of his young life. My husband’s father died when he was five, and it wasn’t until after we were married that he began to fully realized how much he really needed a constant male influence even though, Lord knows, his mother tried her best to be both parents to him the best way she knew how.
Mary Catherine, I know what you mean about how hard it is for a virtuous woman to find a man who appreciates it. Even if they can find a man willing to wait until marriage to have intercourse that doesn’t mean that he won’t expect her to engage in unchaste behavior before and after marriage.
Barboo, I am referring to academic research that has been done by a number of psychologists and social scientists that supports the importance of an authoritative parenting style in raising children here in the United States. There is a good summary on the webpage athealth dot com, easily google-able.
Both men and women can do this style of parenting. Both men and women can be loving and firm. It is best if they do it together, with both the mother and the father present in the home so pheremones and nature can work as they should.
Great post and great responses. FWIW, I can speak as someone raised by two fatherless individuals of the “Greatest Generation.” It might be said they had a headstart on things we see in our modern culture.
My father lost his at the age of 9 to pnuemonia, my mother lost hers when he was driven out of the house by his wife and oldest daughter (sexual politics played out in the 1930’s! It happened at times.)
Neither of my parents had a clue about the role of a man. It made for an “interesting” early life. The attitudes referenced by Donna were very evident in my father’s actions, my mother could have written scripts for “Father Knows Best”. Oil and water from day one with a perpetuation of the dysfunctional attitudes/thinking onto future generations. Been there, done that.
From personal experience I’ll opine that a strong committment to God and placing Him as the true Head of the Household is the only remedy. That thinking comes after two failed marriages, numberous “relationships” and the final discovery, relatively late in life, of a compatible spouse who also feels marriage entails subjugation to God first and foremost.
But that, along with so much already mentioned in the original post, runs directly counter to our culture.
Boy, do we have a lot of work to do!
Okay, I fell in love with and married a fatherless guy. He suffered from some transient depression as a young man–overwhelmed with college coursework–but nothing out of the ordinary. After the children started to arrive, one with some learning issues, he started to fall apart. He didn’t see himself as an important, irreplaceable father, since he hadn’t experienced having a father and thought he was peripheral. I was preoccupied with kid issues at the same time that his behavior became more erratic and his depression deepened. We couldn’t get it figured out–he wanted more time than I had to give, and I was fearful of putting our “different” kids into the hands of the available inexperienced teenybopper babysitters. Now the cycle is being repeated because our kids won’t grow up with him in the house.
What I can’t see is how to break the cycle. He can’t provide what he doesn’t know and what he isn’t mentally well enough to offer. I can’t be the father that he should be and I can’t give him the skills to do it, I can only be the mother that I am. I just don’t see where the healthy substitute father figures are supposed to come from, and there sure don’t seem to be enough of them available.
New Divorcee,
I’m sorry to hear of what has been a tremendous suffering for you.
This statement:
“He didn’t see himself as an important, irreplaceable father, since he hadn’t experienced having a father and thought he was peripheral.”
I’m willing to bet that the reality behind even his earlier depressive episodes is that he felt that he wasn’t an important, irreplaceable son, who was peripheral. His feelings in fatherhood are really all of the unresolved issues stemming from his own fatherlessness. He really needs counseling around his own childhood issues, preferably with a cognitive therapist.
Once those issues are squared away, there’s great hope that he can come into his own as a dad, albeit a little later than you would have hoped for.
You’re all in my prayers.
God Bless
I was at Chilli’s eating dinner yesterday next to a group of 3 African American ladies and their 6 or 7 children.
There was a precious little girl, around 9 years old, and it was her birthday.
She wore a little crown, like a young princess, and they celebrated and sang to her “Happy Birthday”.
Then she leaned over her cake, with 9 burning candles and she closed her eyes, paused, and said, “I wish my Daddy would come home.”
I haven’t read all the comments yet but I’m going to start with one and that’s by GeekLady.
Yes you make some interesting points especially this one:
“I will confess myself disappointed and distressed by the continual focus, in homily and the prayer life of the Church, on vocations to the priesthood and religious life while the vocation of marriage and the foundation of a stable society just crumbles around us.”
I think this is the whole problem for those of us who do not support “gay marriage”. Really we have no grounds for our arguments against such “marriages”.
This is because those of us who are Christians have not nurtured the vocation of marriage. IF marriage is so special then why do we allow divorce? Why in fact do we now have unilateral divorce where one party can simply walk out on the other because they “want to let it all hang out”? (This was the reason I was given by my husband.)
If we don’t nurture marriage and help those in crisis marriages, then there really can’t be anything special about marriage and surely then it can be between anyone and anything.
Personally, I am very angry for the lack of resources and help I received when my marriage was in crisis.
We have ourselves and our church to blame for the crisis of marriage today.
It’s no wonder so few want to partake. 😦
“What I can’t see is how to break the cycle. He can’t provide what he doesn’t know and what he isn’t mentally well enough to offer. I can’t be the father that he should be and I can’t give him the skills to do it, I can only be the mother that I am. I just don’t see where the healthy substitute father figures are supposed to come from, and there sure don’t seem to be enough of them available.”
Yup. These men can’t give what they don’t have. We learn to be mothers because our biology really does help us along.
But men have it much tougher and maybe that’s why the example of a living breathing at-home father is so very important.
And of course the media message is that fathers are useless dumb-asses whom women can do without anyway. 😦
[…] comments on the Growing Fatherlessness post have been an occasion of deep, deep thought for me, and prayer for one commenter in […]
“This is the consequence of radical feminism which has shredded our families. Look at advertisements on TV, or listen on the radio. Better than 90% of the time if one party is buffoonish or clueless, it is the male. Look at sitcoms. Almost without exception men are portrayed as weak, stupid, gay, and clueless. Of course when men are not portrayed in these ways on TV and in movies, they are usually portrayed as testosterone-fueled homicidal, sex-crazed maniacs.”
My husband and I have noticed and been discussing how many men have been feminized. By that I mean, they do not take leadership in their families and seem content to play a secondary role and as one commenter said the fourth child. They leave the making it all work to the wife and are content with their hobbies. The women not only run the house and raise the children but also go out and makes the living and balance the budget and the men never seem to notice. We are seeing this happen with so many families where the parents are in their 30-40 range. Did the feminist movement do this? These women are wanting true partners in their husbands but are stepping up to fill the blank space left by the impotence of their husband.
Does this make sense?
Words, words, words!!!! I would challenge every couple to spend 5 minutes a day reading TOGETHER the Bible. Want advice on child rearing? Read a chapter a day of Proverbs. The Bible is His love letter to you. Just do it – it will seem awkward at first, but soon the kids will see where your wisdom comes from and a pattern will be set for their lives. It will change your lives – guaranteed! He loves you and wants the best for your family. You’ll still have problems, but if you’re listening, He has the answers for you. And there can be no love where there is no respect for the beautiful roles each carries out. And after 49 years of marriage, I believe, one of the worst things to undermine a marriage is to speak disparagingly of your spouse in front of someone else. That is the height of disrespect.