The Impact of Fatherless Children
Alexander Ontiverios
Essay Report

The last several decades have seen an alarming trend of increasing father absence or fatherlessness. Fatherlessness is widely recognized as a contributing factor to a myriad of social maladies in the United States. Father absence has been a subject of heated debate and the center of countless surveys, focus groups and opinion polls. There are some who disagree as to exactly how culpable absent fathers are for many of the social ills we’re seeing in our society today, but there’s no denying it is a problem. This paper will endeavor to show that in spite of often heroic efforts by single mothers to rear their children as productive members of society, there is an overwhelming amount of data indicating fatherlessness as a significant factor of violent crime, educational under-achievement, high rates of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), teenage pregnancy and behavioral disorders and it is vital that children have a father proactively involved in their lives wherever possible.
Arguably the most desperate reason for fathers to engage in a positive way in their children’s lives is reflected in the statistics of violent crime. The young men of society today are growing up without fathers to guide them and teach them right from wrong. This has produced a generation of young men who are astonishingly angry. According to a report by Criminal Justice and Behavior, “Eighty percent of rapists motivated by displaced anger come from fatherless homes” (Children of Divorce and Separation – Statistics, 2001). This means that a male growing up in a fatherless home is ten times more likely to commit rape. Obviously there are copious other factors that play into this extreme level of violent behavior, but it is no coincidence that where fathers have taken perpetually diminished roles in their son’s lives the levels of violence toward women rise. Fatherlessness is by no means a guarantee of future violence but if the number of men willing and/or able to shepherd their children decreases, is it any surprise that the resulting anger boils over in such unthinkable, deplorable acts? Possible explanations for this behavior will be discussed later.
In another telling indicator of the anger produced by fatherlessness, a 1993 survey by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found that “Fatherless children are at dramatically greater risk of suicide” (USA Suicide Deaths 1979 to 1996, 2004). It goes without saying that just as there are other factors which play into rape, murder, and robbery besides fatherlessness, there are additional psychological and social factors that drive some toward suicide. But the hole that is left in a home and in a child’s soul as the result of an absent father and the emotion that is produced can manifest in many different forms. Some fires burn hot and explode. Other fires smolder and destroy quietly. Both are tragic.
One of the factors to consider when correlating rates of violent crime and the increased level of father absence is the age of the children involved. There is a gap of about 20 years from when a child is born into a fatherless home and statistics can begin to be accrued based on their very adult behaviors (Mackey and Immerman, 2007). Logical process would indicate that where violence increases along with fatherlessness, the opposite must surely be true as well, when controlling for other related factors. “If the biological and social fathering increases within a community, then (1) violent crime would be expected to decrease…” (Mackey and Immerman, 2007).
Juvenile delinquency is another index by which we can measure the damage done by father absence. According to a U.S. Department of Justice report, “70% of juveniles in state operated institutions come from fatherless homes” (U.S. Department of Justice special report, 1988). Fatherlessness is a social problem that government is neither designed nor equipped to handle. But as the statistic proves, government and society are forced to deal with the implications and ramifications of children growing up without the guiding influence of proactive fathers. Much of what leads to juvenile delinquency is the allure of gangs – for young men particularly. Robbed of the sense of identity and belonging that comes from a stable, loving home life, young men often turn to gangs in an effort to fill the void left by an absent father. Gang leaders become father archetypes and command the misguided loyalty and respect of younger men.
Closely related to the tendencies toward violence and juvenile delinquency is educational underachievement. In a report conducted by the National Principles Association it was found that 71% of high school dropouts are the products of fatherless homes (National Principles Association - Report on the State of High Schools, 2010). Not to cast any undeserved blame on hard-working single mothers, but having one parent absent puts an enormous amount of emotional and economic strain on the remaining parent. In a traditional unionized family with two incomes and double the amount of support and oversight, children have infinitely more resources at their disposal for achieving in school. This ideology is supported by the findings of Wade C. Mackey and Ronald S. Immerman in 2007. Mackey is a faculty member of the Department of Behavioral Sciences at Cy-Fair College in Cypress, Texas and Immerman is a faculty member of the Department of Psychiatry School of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Their study of the results of fatherlessness by divorce compared to fatherlessness through out-of-wedlock births found that children from out of wedlock birth are less likely to graduate from High School. In contrast, their research found that “the relationship between divorce rates and high school graduation rates was not significant” (Fatherlessness by Divorce Contrasted to Fatherlessness by Non-marital Births, 2007). This lack of relationship between divorce and graduation rates has much to do with the fact that fathers who have previously had a bond with their children continue to be involved with the children even when they are not the custodial parent, post-divorce. Results of the 1988 census show that more than 90% of fathers with joint custody pay the support due and nearly 80% of fathers with visitation privileges remain current with child support (Child Support and Alimony, 1989). This is significant because the wallet always follows the heart. This is backed up by research from Sanford L. Braver, Ph.D. and Diane O’Connell. In their 1998 book Divorced Dads, they found that “If a father obtains joint legal custody…he almost always acts responsibly (Braver and O’Connell, 1998).
Grogger and Ronan (2003), reporting for the Bureau of Labor Statistics in their National Longitudinal Survey Discussion Paper Series found similar data, showing that for whites and Hispanics, the greater the number of years a child spends in a fatherless home, the more their educational attainment suffers. Interestingly they found that this statistic did not hold true across the board for blacks. When they controlled for “family specific unobservables” they found on the surface that black children from fatherless homes actually achieved a higher level of education. “This result is puzzling, and calls for further study. Indeed, until it is confirmed by future research, it is best to view this finding as tentative” (Ronan, 2003). Statistics like this, however tentative, point to the un-measurable aspects of fatherlessness and are a nod to the resilience of human nature when facing seemingly insurmountable odds. It is entirely possible for children from fatherless homes to recognize their disadvantage and push themselves beyond societal expectations.
Evidence in numerous studies has shown that a father’s employment status is not directly related to or responsible for their children’s educational success. Where the father’s employment affects the child is the overall economic atmosphere of the home. Unless the mother’s income is sufficient to provide for all the needs of the family, the loss of the father’s income is felt quite acutely. However, the father having or not having a job does not necessarily have an impact on their child’s development. This should be particularly encouraging to men in the present state of our economy. It is no secret that much of a man’s identity and feeling of self-worth is tied to his ability to be the bread winner for his family. But with jobs harder to find and many men struggling to remain gainfully employed, fathers can take comfort in the fact that what is most important to a child and their mother is that the father is present and engaged. There could even be a case made that in a depressed economy fathers have a unique opportunity to get creative and find ways to earn income for their families and prove to their children that resourcefulness will rule the day. This nation was forged by resourceful men who always found a way to make it work and the fathers of today are no less capable.
As educational underachievement is one of the unfortunate results of fatherlessness, inadequate social reproduction is a disastrous byproduct of that lack of education. Social reproduction refers to the processes by which a set of social structures and traditions are propagated from one generation to the next. Thus social fathering becomes an important concept to mention briefly and to consider throughout the discussion of the impacts of fatherlessness. Where the biological father is absent it has been shown that when a male relative is involved as a “surrogate” father in a child’s life they are more likely to achieve higher levels of education than when that social father is the mother’s adjunct boyfriend (Jayakody and Kalil, 2002). This finding shows the vital role that men play in the growth and development of children. When the social father is a male relative (most commonly a grandfather or uncle) they provide a stabilizing influence in a child’s life. Let’s move now from social reproduction to reproductive issues of the more traditional kind.
Absent fathers put their children at a much higher risk of abuse (especially sexual abuse) and STDs and place their daughters at a more advanced risk of teenage pregnancy. According to Mackey and Immerman’s research, children in fatherless homes are at “an increased risk of serious child abuse”. This finding is backed up by the research of Patrick F. Fagan and Dorothy B. Hanks in their report on child abuse. “Fatal abuse, serious abuse, and neglect are…highest in households in which the biological mother cohabits with someone who is not the parent…” (Fagan and Hanks, 1997). In the same report it was shown that from 1980 to 1993 child abuse had increased 84% and sexual abuse had increased 350% (Fagan and Hanks, 1997). A Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics found that children from one-parent homes are almost twice as likely to fall victim to abuse as children residing with both biological parents (Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, 1997). The evidence is clear that when a positive male role model is absent from the home the effects on the children are staggering.
The mother’s choices in her relationships have much to do in contributing to the danger children face with the absence of protective fathers. Single mothers who do not remain abstinent but introduce their children to a string of fleeting boyfriends place their children in greater danger. Another scary aspect in the mother’s choices is that single men are less likely to marry women who have multiple sexual partners (Mackey and Immerman, 2007). Thus the equation goes something like this: women with multiple sexual partners plus hesitance by men to marry these women equal less social fathers. This is specifically concerning when you understand that numerous studies have shown marriage to be far and away the best environment for children, all other measures being equal.
Sexual abuse becomes of particular concern when considering young, fatherless girls. Research has shown that girls who experience sexual abuse are at much greater risk of developing Post- Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) (Underwood, Stewart and Castellanos, 2007). In further research they found that girls are most likely to suffer sexual abuse between the ages of 10-14, an especially critical time in a young girl’s life. This abuse has long-lasting implications on a girl’s psychological development. If the father is unavailable to his daughter during these formative years “then the psycho-sexual template may be more diffuse and less discriminating (Mackey and Immerman, 2007). David Blankenhorn, who is a board member of the National Fatherhood Initiative, put it very succinctly when he said,
When a girl cannot trust and love the first man in her life, her father, what she is missing cannot be replaced by her mother. Nor can it be replaced by money, friends, teachers, social workers, or well-designed public policies aimed at helping her. She simply loses. Moreover, as more and more girls grow up without fathers, society loses (Blankenhorn, 1996).
Responsible fathering promotes behavioral health in boys and girls as they grow to maturity. Young boys develop a sense of respect for authority and learn to self-monitor their natural aggression when parented by a loving father. The anger and misguided aggression displayed by so many young men is the result of an absence of constructive imprinting of the father on his son. The “larger, stronger father impresses on his smaller, weaker son the idea of obeying authority. The large man who loves the small child is the same man who inhibits him (Mackey and Immerman, 2007).
The evidence is overwhelming that fathers of every race and socio-economic status must engage positively with their children as soon as possible. Our society is witnessing a generation in upheaval because preceding generations of men have increasingly thrown off the yoke of fatherhood and left women and children to fend for themselves. There are untold millions of single mothers desperate for a helping hand from the fathers of their children. A dynamic, in-tact and healthy marriage is the best possible scenario for any child to grow up in, but at the very least, fathers owe it to their children to commit fully to them as soon as possible. There is strength in numbers and the art of fatherhood is not completely lost. Men need to band together and begin to lean on one another in the fight to reclaim the greatness of masculinity, the greatness that is found in self-sacrifice for the good of others and in laying a foundation for our offspring. It is possible to turn the tide of destruction and abuse but we must start now. If the withdrawal of fathers has meant increases in violent crime, sexually transmitted diseases, educational under-achievement and behavioral disorders then the positive reintroduction of fathers into their children’s lives will certainly be a significant step in restoring the bright future our children deserve.

References

1.) Blankenhorn, D. (1996). The first man in every girl's life. Headway, 8(9), 10. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. 2.) Braver, S.L., O’Connell, D. (1998). Divorced Dads. New York, NY: Penguin Putnam, Inc. 3.) Children of divorce and separation – Statistics. Retrieved June 3, 2011 from http://fathersforlife.org/divorce/chldrndiv.htm 4.) (1989). Child support and alimony, retrieved from http://fathersforlife.org/divorce/chldrndiv.htm 5.) Fagan, P. Ph. D., (1997). The child abuse crisis: The disintegration of marriage, family, and the American community. Retrieved from www.heritage.org/research/reports/1997/05/bg1115-the-child-abuse-crisis 6.) Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics. (1997). America’s children: Key national indicators of well-being. Retrieved from http://www.fafny.org/FamilyHelpPDFfiles/17-FatherFacts.pdf 7.) Grogger, J., Ronan. N. (2003). The intergenerational effects of fatherlessness on educational attainment and entry-level wages. Retrieved from http://stats.bls.gov/nls/nlsdis30.htm 8.) Jayakody, R., & Kalil, A. (2002). Social fathering in low-income African American families with preschool children. Journal of Marriage & Family, 64(2), 504-516. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. 9.) Mackey, W. C., & Immerman, R. S. (2007). Fatherlessness by Divorce Contrasted to Fatherlessness by Non-Marital Births: A Distinction with a Difference for the Community. Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, 47(1/2), 111-134. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. 10.) (2010). Report on the state of high schools. Retrieved from http://www.fathersrightsdallas.com/tag/national-principals-association-report-on-the-state-of-high-schools/ 11.) Underwood, L., Stewart, S. E., & Castellanos, A. M. (2007). Effective practices for sexually traumatized girls: Implications for counseling and education. International Journal of Behavioral Consultation & Therapy, 3(3), 403-419. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. 12.) USA suicide deaths 1979 to 1996. Retrieved June 3, 2011 from http:// fathersforlife.org/suicides/US_suicide_deaths.htm#Single_Parent_Homes 13.) U.S. Dept. of Justice, Special Report, September, 1988. Retrieved June 3, 2011 from http://fathersforlife.org/divorce/chldrndiv.htm