A belated, but heartfelt Happy Father’s Day to all you fathers
out there. Our culture takes a low view of fathers.
A belated, but heartfelt Happy Father’s Day to all you fathers out there. Our culture takes a low view of fathers. Television and movies generally portray them as ineffectual buffoons. Starting in the 1960s, divorce was promoted as being better for children than an unhappy marriage. For the last three decades, out of wedlock childbearing has become more acceptable and more prevalent, to the point that now one in three children in the United States lives apart from his father.
My sister-in-law’s hairstylist voices the current thought. During her first pregnancy, she stated that she did not want to get married “just because she was pregnant.” Now she does not think that the father of her two children is good enough to marry. Statistically speaking, the chance that he will stay in the home until the kids are grown is infinitesimal.
The U.S. Census Bureau reports that one of every three children lives apart from his father. Unfortunately, the conventional wisdom is dead wrong. A mounting stack of statistics shows that fathers are critically important in socializing and rearing healthy children to be productive adults. Generally, these statistics are reported as dire statements about the effects of father-absence on children.
For example, children in father absent homes are more likely to be poor. As a father’s day gift, I will turn these statements around.
Children who live with their fathers and mothers are less likely to be poor: 7.8 percent of married-couple families were living in poverty compared to 38.4 percent of fatherless households.
Babies of married in-home fathers are twice as likely to live as fatherless babies. These lucky babies are more likely to receive prenatal care, and more likely to have normal healthy birth weight, even when other factors such as maternal education levels are taken into account.
Married mothers are half as likely to suffer depression. They have less stress, more contacts with family and friends, and more involvement with church and social groups.
Toddlers living in intact biological families were less likely to suffer a burn, have a bad fall, or be scarred from an accident. At all ages, children with in-home fathers are half as likely to suffer emotional, physical, or sexual abuse. Middle-schoolers living with their fathers and mothers have one-quarter as many affective disorders. Children who live with their fathers are half as likely to suffer from asthma, and have only one-sixth as many asthma related emergency room visits, regardless of demographic and socioeconomic conditions.
Even after controlling for income, boys and girls with present fathers are much less likely to go to jail, drink alcohol, smoke tobacco, commit violent crimes, or use drugs. Girls with present fathers are one-half as likely to engage in early sexual intercourse and one-seventh as likely to have a teen pregnancy.
Little children are more likely to be read aloud to every day if they have a father in home. Kindergartners with fathers are 30 percent more likely to be on track physically, emotionally, and cognitively. Children with fathers in home are half as likely to repeat a grade and twice as likely to graduate from high school. The more involved a father is, the more likely that a student will get all A’s.
Children under the age of 13 with fathers in home spend more time with their parents on a daily basis: 1.77 hours with dad and 2.35 hours with mom, as opposed to 0.42 hours with dad and 1.26 hours with mom for kids in broken homes. Kids are even less likely to be fat if their dads live at home with them.
Also, children’s fitness levels tend to mirror their dads’ fitness levels, not their mothers’.
So again, a belated happy Father’s Day. Thank you for marrying your wife, for cherishing her, for putting up with her moods, for being there to protect and provide for your children. Even if our culture does not acknowledge it, bask in the knowledge that because of your presence, your children are growing up to be healthy and wealthy and wise. Our nation and our world will benefit from your hard work and sacrifice.
Cynthia Anne Walker is a mother of three, a mathematics teacher and a former engineer. She is a published, independent author. Her column appears each Friday.
