Consequences of father absence: It's
Official, the experiment has failed. For the best part of thirty years we have been conducting a vast
experiment with the family, and now the results are in...Full
Story
Does a child have the right to have
its father in its life and to bond with him?...Full
Story
The fatherless society
is the title of the cover story of the November 17, 1997 issue
of Der Spiegel, a widely-read German newsweekly in the
style of Time Magazine. The article depicts social devastation and calamities resulting from the
gender wars that we have all become
only too familiar with. ...Full Story
....Virtually every major social pathology has been linked to fatherlessness: violent crime,
drug and alcohol abuse, truancy, teen pregnancy, suicide—all correlate more strongly to fatherlessness than
to any other single factor. The majority of prisoners, juvenile detention inmates, high school dropouts,
pregnant teenagers, adolescent murderers, and rapists all come from fatherless homes. The connection is so
strong that controlling for fatherlessness erases the relationships between race and crime and between low
income and crime....Full
Story
...Suppose you were not able to hike
and otherwise share precious moments with your son because the
mother, the courts and the law prevented it? Would Bly be enough
then? Is the power of inner work an adequate substitute for
liberty? ....Robert Bly, bang the drums and write a poem for
fathers...Full Story
A Prayer for Children and
Families....Full Story
A few excerpts from Maggie Gallagher's
book, The Abolition of Marriage: How We Destroy Lasting Love:
Maggie Gallagher explains that
fatherlessness is the source of the increases in many of our social pathologies.
She also provides a few proposals for strengthening and reviving the institution of the traditional nuclear family.
However, she indicates that none of them are likely to see the light of day unless married people become a powerful
lobbying group. ...Full Story
Maggie Gallagher participated in the
production of the study report:
[US] Taxpayer Costs of Divorce and Unwed Childbearing: at
least $112 billion a year (2008, Institute for American
Values; Georgia Family Council; Institute for Marriage and
Public Policy, and Families Northwest)
By David Popenoe
Reader’s Digest (Canada) November 1997, page 117
What a man contributes to child rearing may surprise you
THE DECLINE of fatherhood is one of the most unexpected and extraordinary social trends
of our time. In just three decades — 1960 to 1990 — the number of children living apart
from their natural fathers nearly doubled. By the turn of the century almost 50 percent
of North American children may be going to sleep each evening without being able to say
good night to their dads.
There was a time in the past when
fatherlessness
was far more common than it is today, but death was to blame — not divorce, desertion or
out-of-wedlock births. Most of today’s fatherless
children have fathers who are perfectly capable of shouldering the responsibilities of
fatherhood. Who would ever have thought that so many of them would choose to relinquish
those responsibilities? ....Full
Story
By Stephen Baskerville
Fatherhood is now the rage: presidential initiatives, federal staff conferences,
congressional task forces and resolutions, federal grants, new nonprofit organizations,
and media reports now “promote” fatherhood.
Yet the nation’s discovery of fatherhood also has a darker side: law
enforcement initiatives targeting “deadbeat dads,” federal registers monitoring
millions of parents, databases and information gathering on American citizens accused of
nothing, new cadres of armed, plainclothes police, and endless “crackdowns” on
allegedly dissolute parents. Campaigning for president, Al Gore calls for incarcerating
more fathers.
What we are seeing today in fact is nothing less than the criminalization of
fatherhood: criminal penalties imposed on citizens who have committed no act but are
made outlaws through the actions of others. This phenomenon proceeds largely from
involuntary divorce and is effected by family courts. ....Full
Story
Fatherless homes have become the norm in the
western world. In Canada, it is still customary to award sole custody to the mothers after
a marital break-up, without any regard to the "best interest of the child"
principle.
We have seen an alarming increase in childhood pathologies. Results from a recent
study show that childhood obesity, among other things, is a cause for concern.
What is often ignored is that fathers typically are the ones who engage in physical
play and sports with their children. There is a need to develop a holistic, rather
than a piecemeal, approach to children's health. ....[by Eeva Sodhi]
Full Story
... However, unless the real causes for fatherlessness
are weeded out, there can be little hope of any progress in the
efforts to introduce fathers back to their families. The current
efforts are nothing more than an attempt to repair a compound
fracture with a tiny Band-aid. And we wonder why the breach does
not heal....Full Story
Many people are enthused about what
the Austrians are doing, and some of what is in the program
outline is impressive. However, there is also considerable
reason for concern. .... Absent universal recognition of the need to eradicate the problem of fatherlessness,
there cannot be any or at best only marginal success with the strategy outlined by the
Austrian government and interest groups. "Fatherhood Today: Opportunities and
Risks in the Process for the Evolution of the Family" – there are risks
all right. The risk takers will be men and the risk they are expected to accept is greater
than that experienced by playing Russian roulette with every second chamber loaded.
It is too bad, because although otherwise the opportunities could be great,
the rewards for society would be even greater if only there were some respect, enough
respect to make heroes out of bums and fathers out of second-class citizens....Full
Story
In media interviews, Australian Family Court Chief Justice Justice Alistair Nicholson
expressed bigoted and extremely biased opinions about fathers. Such a man is not
part of the solution to the problem, he is the problem!....
... right! An example of a letter
sent. ....Full
Story
If we truly wish to restore marriage, we must change not males but laws. Yet we are
refusing to face this politically unpleasant truth and filling the public payroll with
therapists and police.
... If fatherlessness is behind most of today's social ills, the
realization that the
engine generating fatherless children is not the fathers, but the
state, takes on implications few have dared to confront. ...Full
Story
By Daniel Amneus, Ph.D.
The Case for Father-Custody is
a well-researched and valuable source of information and statistics relating to fatherlessness.
The book is accessible as a an easily navigable PDF file at
Fathering Magazine
....Fathers Day took the place of our
respect and appreciation of fatherhood that had until that time
[in 1966, when Fathers Day was declared in the US to be a day to
be celebrated] been thought a necessary part of social life. A
whole year of respect for fathers got reduced to a single day each
year of
celebrating fathers....Full Story
... Though there are always exceptions, the single most powerful
predictor of
violent behavior among boys and young men is fatherlessness. ...Full
Story
... The Internet is awash in men's rights websites, many of which
urge males not to marry or have children. Bookstore shelves
are filling up with books that deliver the "Don't marry.
Don't have children" message to young men. The admonition
springs from the assumption that men are victims of what political
science professor Stephen Baskerville of Howard University in
Washington, D.C., terms "the most massive civil rights abuse of
our time." [1]
Book titles include Lost Fathers: The Politics of Fatherlessness in
America and The Father's Emergency Guide to Divorce-Custody Battle. The
latter is billed as a "militant exposé" that goes well beyond the usual
allegations of anti-male discrimination in the courts to charge that family courts are
operating a profit-making racket in children, at men's expense. ...Full
Story
Incredibly, in the face of declining birth rates, escalating divorce
rates and epidemic numbers of children who increasingly suffer the consequences of
fatherlessness, the federal government of Canada provides $640,000 in funding to
"women's" organizations for the express purpose to operate a program that will
ferret out, label and eventually prosecute pro-family men, their supporters and their
organizations as enemies of feminists?....Full
Story
It All Began With Welfare. The marriage initiative ostensibly
targets the poor,
a group which has a higher concentration of fatherlessness. ...Full
Story
... Years from now when the negative effects of this human
experiment can no longer
be ignored, the lesbians will claim that it was not fatherlessness
which caused the problems, but society's homophobic refusal to embrace diversity in family
structure. ...Full Story
New federal divorce and child-protection
amendments anger family advocates
by KEVIN MICHAEL GRACE [Footnote 8] Under the sponsorship of the Heritage Foundation, Patrick Fagan
produced a good number of reports that provide irrefutable evidence of
the extensive destructiveness of divorce and
fatherlessness with respect to outcomes in children and in single-mother
"families"....Full
Story
... It would probably not be unreasonable to assume that the same
proportions hold true
for suicides. Fatherlessness in Native communities is rampant. ...Full
Story
... Fatherlessness is a direct result of the Sexual Revolution,
men and women walking
away from marriage because they value a transient affair, or never
marrying ...Full Story
The following is a
collections of links to more articles and study reports that focus
on father absence or fatherlessness.
-
Effects on children of removing a father from the life of a
child., Center for Children's Justice
-
The
Consequences of Fatherlessness — The [US] National Center
for Fathering
-
Effects of Fatherlessness on Children – Social Consequences.
Statement of Bill Wood and Jay Gell, Children's Legal
Foundation, Charlotte, North Carolina
-
National Review:
Fatherlessness: The Root Cause: The link between crime and
fatherlessness is astonishing, By Dave Kopel, Independence
Institute
-
Turning the Corner on Father Absence in Black America, A
Statement from the Morehouse Conference on African-American
Fathers; Washington, June 16,1999
-
Fatherlessness is the greatest social problem in Canada,
Canadian Children's Rights Council
-
THE FACTS ON
FATHERLESSNESS, Prepared for the Fatherhood Foundation by
Bill Muehlenberg, Australian Family Association - August 2002
-
Transforming
the Culture of Fatherlessness, by Rev. Robert A. Sirico,
Acton President
-
Boston Globe:
The black rebellion against fatherlessness, By Eugene F.
Rivers III | July 9, 2006
-
Townhall.com:
Fatherlessness A Problem for Kids, Not Mothers, By Maggie
Gallagher
Tuesday, June 12, 2001
[US] Taxpayer Costs of Divorce and Unwed Childbearing: at least
$112 billion a year (2008, Institute for American
Values; Georgia Family Council; Institute for Marriage and
Public Policy, and Families Northwest
That is a fairly weighty
collection of facts and opinions regarding fatherlessness. It
is important to note that even the U.K. lately joined the choir
singing praise of fatherhood, sort of, but nevertheless welcome
after more than eight years of continuous slander, vilification and
demonization of fathers. Here it is, the first pro-father
commentary after about ten years in an official party organ in the
U.K.:
thisislondon.co.uk:
Married parents are best, admits Blairite think tank
That is all nice and good,
although it is obvious that the U.K. is a late-comer in the debate
on fatherlessness and may need a while longer to catch on to what is
going on in that department.
It seems that Maggie
Gallagher deserves the last word on what we should be after.
In the early '80s, Becky Peck was one of a new generation of
women experimenting with what optimists dub alternative family
forms. She chose to use an anonymous sperm donor to create a
deliberately fatherless household. Just her and her cuddly
babies. Sixteen years later, she tracked down the DNA provider,
David Ross. After making sure her motives were not financial
(i.e. meeting his kids wouldn't cost him any money), David was
thrilled. Instant family -- no diapers to change, no college to
pay for. What's not to love?
But why would a woman who chose anonymous sperm donation
suddenly decide at that late date to attach a face and a name to
the DNA? The kids, of course. In spite of all the love a mother
could provide, they still longed for Daddy. Becky never planned
on that. Too many women still don't.
The actress Calista Flockhart, Miss Ally McBeal, adopted a
baby. She recently confessed to the New York Post, "I want more
children. I guess it would be nice to have a husband, too, and
if you know where I might find the right one, let me know. But
meanwhile, the baby is all I really want."
Maybe so. But what does her baby want, or what will he want a
year from now? Children's hearts will keep fracturing until more
mothers, especially privileged mothers, recognize that giving
their baby everything he needs includes giving him a loving
father. That's the old, stubborn idea of marriage, the place
where a man and woman pledge themselves in love, not only to
each other, but to their future children.
As President Bush said so bravely and truthfully, "a child's
greatest source of security today is not only knowing 'my mom
loves me' and 'my dad loves me,' but also that Mom and Dad love
each other. If we are serious about renewing fatherhood, we must
be serious about renewing marriage."
But wait a minute, that
means that what the children need comes first, and that mutual love
between the two parents, marriage for life, that is, will be a
necessary social obligation for parents! Exactly!!
Children's hearts
will keep fracturing until more mothers, especially privileged
mothers, recognize that giving their baby everything he needs
includes giving him a loving father.
_____________
Posted 2004 12 10
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