85% of prisoners, 78% of high school dropouts, 82% of teenage girls
who become pregnant, the majority of drug and alcohol abusers – all
come from single-mother-headed households. Less than 1% of any of
these categories come from single-father-headed households. This
seems to indicate that the problems children encounter are not
related to single-parent households, but are related specifically to
single-mother-headed households. So, should we blame the mothers or
the fathers? Perhaps, neither. There is no question that father-
absence has reached epidemic proportions. According to Wade Horn of
the National Fatherhood Initiative, we must reverse the trend in 7 –
8 years or it will be too late to do so.

And, how has our government responded to this crisis? By continuing
to drive fathers out of the family. It is bad enough that some
fathers abandon their families, but it is unconscionable that our
federal and state policies drive fathers away from their families.
With 80+ percent of divorces involving children resulting in sole-
mother-custody, combined with a “no man in the house rule”
and “presumptive sole-mother-custody” in welfare cases – we are not
blameless from a policy perspective. We must change our policies,
practices and procedures to specifically include fathers in
families. If not, we can be certain that social spending will
continue to increase and we will be plagued with an ever burgeoning
population of maladjusted children who will fill our prisons and
wreak havoc on society.

Social research data reveal that our blind reliance only on the
nurturing value of mothers is inadequate and misplaced. According to
the National Center for Health Statistics, a child living with
his/her divorced mother, compared to a child living with both
parents, is “375% more likely to need professional treatment for
emotional or behavioral problems and is almost twice as likely to
repeat a grade of school, is more likely to suffer chronic asthma,
frequent headaches, and/or bedwetting, develop a stammer or speech
defect, suffer from anxiety or depression, and be diagnosed as
hyperactive.”

However, these afflictions were surprisingly uncommon in the 15% of
single-parent households headed by men. A study of all state child
protective services agencies in the country – by the Children’s
Rights Coalition, a child advocacy and research organization in
Austin, Texas – found that biological mothers physically abuse their
children at twice the rate of biological fathers. The majority of
the rest of the time, children are abused because of single-mothers’
poor choices in the subsequent men in their lives. Incidences of
abuse were almost non-existent in single-father-headed households.

The data shows that placing children only with mothers is likely to
be detrimental to children and society, so why do we continue public
policies favoring sole-mother-placement? Have we become so
paternalistic toward women that it anesthetizes our common sense?

Surprisingly few people realize that, until the end of WW I, U.S.
laws and courts automatically placed the children of divorce not
with their mothers, but with their fathers. For thousands of years
societal conventions instructed the placement of children with their
fathers in most cultures all over the globe. Why? Because it works.
It puts children with their strongest protectors and it puts boys
with their traditional guides to civilized manhood. Yet, these
essential fatherhood roles – protector and civilizer – seem to have
been forgotten, today.

Never before have fathers been cast aside as they have been in the
United States during the last 30 – 40 years. Never before has such a
strong society become as threatened as we are, for this solitary
reason. Regrettably, as long as we continue to hold to the
relatively new idea that only mothers are capable of being parents,
and ignore the essential role of fathers, our children will remain
at risk.

The single-mother-headed-household must go the way of the slum high-
rise dwelling. Both are human disaster zones. Both are exalted
attempts at social engineering that ignore God’s blueprint for human
society.

What is needed? Our Father in heaven and our fathers here on earth –
as well as a society that values them, includes them, and encourages
their involvement in their families.

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Stuart Miller and Rich Zubaty are Political Analysts with the
American Fathers Coalition in Washington, D.C.
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Fatherhood and Fatherlessness
Men’s Issues Page