Children with involved Fathers are more confident, better able to deal with frustration, better able to gain independence and their own identity, more likely to mature into compassionate adults, more likely to have a high self esteem, more sociable, more secure as infants, less likely to show signs of depression, less likely to commit suicide, more empathetic, boys have been shown to be less aggressive and adolescent girls are less likely to engage in sex.
63% of teen suicides come from fatherless homes. That’s 5 times the national average.
SOURCE: U.S. Dept of Health
90% of all runaways and homeless children are from fatherless homes. That’s 32 times the national average.
80% of rapists with anger problems come from fatherless homes. 14 times the national average.
SOURCE: Justice and Behavior
85% of children with behavioral problems come from fatherless homes. 20 times the national average.
SOURCE: Center for Disease Control
71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes. 9 times the national average.
SOURCE: National Principals Association Report
75% of all adolescent patients in chemical abuse centers come from fatherless homes. 10 times the national average.
SOURCE: Rainbow’s for all God’s Children
85% of all youths in prison come from fatherless homes. 20 times the national average.
SOURCE: U.S. Dept. of Justice
Daughters of single parents without a Father involved are 53% more likely to marry as teenagers, 711% more likely to have children as teenagers, 164% more likely to have a pre-marital birth and 92% more likely to get divorced themselves.
91% of 701 fathers surveyed by the University of Texas at Austin agreed that there is a “father-absence crisis in America.” What were the 4 major obstacles for fathers to overcome? 1) Work demands 2) The media 3) Pop Culture 4) Finances
Researchers of Columbia University found that children living in two-parent households with a poor relationship with their father are 68% more likely to smoke, drink or use drugs compared to all teens in two-parent households. Moreover, teens in single-mother households fared much worse. They had a 30% higher risk than those in all two-parent households.
“Without two parents, working together as a team, the child has more difficulty learning the combination of empathy, reciprocity, fairness and self-command that people ordinarily take for granted. If the child does not learn this at home, society will have to manage his behavior in some other way. He may have to be rehabilitated, incarcerated, or otherwise restrained. In this case, prisons will substitute for parents.”
SOURCE: Morse, Jennifer Roback. “Parents or Prisons.” Policy Review, 2003
Children with Fathers who are involved are 40% less likely to repeat a grade in school.
SOURCE: National Household Education Survey
Children with Fathers who are involved are 70% less likely to drop out of school.
Children with Fathers who are involved are more likely to get A’s in school.
Children with Fathers who are involved are more likely to enjoy school and engage in extracurricular activities.
Even in high crime neighborhoods, 90% of children from stable 2 parent homes where the Father is involved do not become delinquents.
SOURCE: Development and Psychopathology 1993
Adolescent girls raised in a 2 parent home with involved Fathers are significantly less likely to be sexually active than girls raised without involved Fathers.
SOURCE: Journal of Marriage and Family, 1994
How important is marriage for the well being of children?
“The real source of the welfare problem is the inordinate number of out-of-wedlock births in this country.”
SOURCE: Former President Bill Clinton, 1995
“And baby makes three! Remember that? Man and woman wed in holy matrimony followed by baby? Forget it. We don’t do that anymore. Today, having a baby is like swinging through McDonald’s for a burger. One baby all the way, hold the dad.”
SOURCE: Kathleen Parker, Syndicated Columnist for the Orlando Sentinal, March 29, 1998
85% of Americans say that “the number of children being born to single parents” is either a “serious” or “critical” social problem.
SOURCE: Gallup, George. “Report on Status of Fatherhood in the United States.” Emerging Trends 20
54% of teenagers today agree with the statement, “Having a baby without being married is a worthwhile lifestyle or not affecting anyone else,” compared to only 37% in 1976.
SOURCE: Bachman, J.G., L. D. Johnston and P.M. O’Malley. Monitoring the Future: Questionnaire Responses from the Nations High School Seniors, 1996
Marital Status is the strongest predictor of father presence/ father absence. Compared to children born within marriage, children born to cohabitating parents are three times more likely to experience father absence, and children born to unmarried, non-cohabitating parents are four times as likely to have an absent father.
SOURCE: Clarke, L., E.C. Cooksey, and G. Verropoulou. “Fathers and Absent Fathers: Sociodemographic Similarities in Britain and the United States.”
In an analysis of data from both waves of the National Survey of Families and Households, a national probability sample of over 13,000 households, it was found that the most important determinant of whether a father lived with his children was marital status at the time of the child’s birth. Fully 80% of men who were married to the child’s mother at the child’s birth were living with all of their biological children, compared to only 22.6% of men who were not.
SOURCE: Clarke, L., E.C. Cooksey, and G. Verropoulou. “Fathers and Absent Fathers: Sociodemographic Similarities in Britain and the United States.”
“Marriage remains the best solution we have ever come up with for helping to ensure children the protection, love and support of their mother and father. Marriage is neither a conservative nor a liberal idea.”
SOURCE: Elizabeth Marquardt in “The other kind of relationship,” Chicago Tribune, December 19, 2004
“In the movies and on television, as well as in much of the print media, the portrayal of the sexual abuse of children follows a strict formula. It is never the butler. Always, the father did it…But the weight of the evidence is clear. What magnifies the risk of sexual abuse for children is not the presence of a married father but his absence.”
SOURCE: David Blankenhorn, Fatherless America, New York Basic books, 1995
50% of all children with highly involved fathers in two-parent families reported getting mostly A’s through 12th grade, compared with 35% of children in homes without the father.
A study of 1,330 children from the Panel Survey of Income Dynamics showed that fathers who are involved on a personal level with their child’s schooling increase the likelihood of their child’s achievement. When fathers assume a positive role in their child’s education, students feel a positive impact.
According to data from the National Survey of Families and Households, greater care from a father is beneficial for difficult children. For fathers registering high on the care scale at an initial measurement, their child’s behavior problems were lower five years later. In contrast, children who received low levels of paternal care were not likely to be free of problems at the five year mark; they were at the greatest risk of being the most troubled. Hence, father’s greater involvement when children are pre-schoolers decreased the likelihood of problem behavior in grade school.
“Promoting responsible fatherhood is the critical next phase of welfare reform and one of the most important things we can do to reduce child poverty.”
SOURCE: Former Vice President Al Gore, speaking at the National Fatherhood Initiative’s 3rd Annual Summit on Fatherhood in Washington, D.C. 2000
“Don’t ever doubt the impact that fathers have on their children. Children with strongly committed fathers learn about trust early on. They learn about trust with their hearts. They learn they’re wanted, that they have value, that they can afford to be secure and confident and set their sights high. They get encouragement they need to keep going through the rough spots in life. Boys learn from their fathers how to be fathers. I learned all those things from my own father, and I count my blessings.”
SOURCE: Former Vice President Al Gore. 2000
“If there is one thing in this life I know, it’s that children need mothers and fathers. This is my whole public life, that children deserve, as a sort of birthright, mothers and fathers --- preferably the mothers and fathers who brought them into this world.”
SOURCE: David Blankenhorn in “Reasons for Marriage,” The Washington Post, February 23, 2004
90% of fathers surveyed said that being a father is the most fulfilling role a man can have.
SOURCE: W. Jean, et al. “Children’s Time with Fathers in Intact Families.” American Sociological Association. 2000
“The research is absolutely clear… the one human being most capable of curbing the antisocial aggression of a boy is his biological father.”
SOURCE: California-based Forensic Psychologist Shawn Johnston, as quoted in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review, March 29, 1998
Teens with parents who are in the home at key times of the day, such as breakfast, after school, at dinner, and at bedtime are less likely to try alcohol, tobacco or marijuana.
SOURCE: Resnick, Michael, et al. “Protecting Adolescents from Harm.” Journal of American Medical Association. Sept. 1997
“Family structure is one of the strongest, if not the strongest, predictor of variations of urban violence across cities in the United States… all else equal, in cities where family disruption is high the rate of violence is also high.”
SOURCE: Sampson, Robert J. “Unemployment and Imbalanced Sex ratios: Race-specific consequences for Family Structure and Crime. 1995
A survey of 720 teenage girls found: 97% of girls said that having parents they could talk to helped reduce teen pregnancy. 93% said having loving parents reduced the risk of teen pregnancy. 76% said that their fathers were very influential on their decision to have sex.
SOURCE: Clements, Mark. Parade. February 2, 1997
According to a Gallup Poll, 90.9 percent of Americans feel “it is important for children to live in a home with both their mother and father.”
SOURCE: Gallop Poll, 1996. National Center for Fathering. “Father Figures.” Today’s Father, 4.1 (1996): 8
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