"Studies in the United States suggest children brought up by only their mother are four times more likely to drop out of school, become delinquent or commit suicide as children brought up by their fathers.

"Henry Biller, professor of psychology at Rhode Island University and author of 'The Father Factor', said delinquency was three to four times as frequent in children in the care of only their mother.

"We are talking about drug use, criminal behavior, school drop out, unmarried pregnancy,' he said. "Paternal deprivation is much more of a problem than maternal deprivation.'

"According to Richard Warshak, professor of psychology at the Texas University Southwestern Medical Center, boys suffer 'harmful effects' of being brought up without a father. 'Children are more likely to avoid harmful effects of divorce if they live with the parent of the same sex.'

"Dr Warshak said: 'There is no reason to believe that mothers have the monopoly on competence at bringing up children. Fathers can do just as well, and in some cases better."

Life Without Father: What Happens To The Children?

March 28, 2002

(American Sociological Association) -- Why do children raised without their fathers run serious risks? Sara McLanahan, Princeton University explores this issue in an article, "Life without Father: What Happens to the Children," in Contexts, the newest journal of the American Sociological Association. Answering this question can help shape productive policies and perhaps quiet the culture war raging around single parenthood.

Since the 1980s, a new consensus holds that, although most children of divorced parents do all right, growing up without a father increases the risk of numerous undesirable outcomes. For example, girls from father absent families are more likely to become sexually active at a younger age and to have a child outside of marriage. Boys who grow up without their fathers are more likely to have trouble finding (and keeping) a job in young adulthood. Research studies also indicate that the penalties associated with single parenthood appear to be more or less similar for children from all socioeconomic backgrounds.

Whether or not these outcomes are caused by the divorce itself, as opposed to something else about the family, remains controversial. In sum, the evidence is mixed with respect to whether divorce causes children to have problems, or whether the problems associated with divorce are due to poor parenting or even poor genes.

McLanahan concludes that three general factors account for the disadvantages associated with father absence: economic deprivation, poor parenting, and lack of social support. She also discusses social policy approaches that could help to reduce potential harm for father-absent children, such as making sure that policies do not discourage marriage, and insisting that fathers support their children even when they live elsewhere. Policies that strengthen fragile families (defined as unmarried parents who are raising a child together) also could have potential benefits for children in these unions.

Complementing the McLanahan analysis of these issues is a photo essay by Dona Schwartz, School of Journalism and Mass Communications, University of Minnesota.

Importance of Father Love for Child Well-Being

In an analysis of nearly 100 studies on parent-child relationships, father love (measured by children's perceptions of paternal acceptance/rejection, affection/indifference) was as important as mother love in predicting the social, emotional, and cognitive development and functioning of children and young adults:

• Having a loving and nurturing father was as important for a child's happiness, well-being, and social and academic success as having a loving and nurturing mother.
• Withdrawal of love by either the father or the mother was equally influential in predicting a child's emotional instability, lack of self-esteem, depression, social withdrawal, and level of aggression.
• In some studies, father love was actually a better predictor than mother love for certain outcomes, including delinquency and conduct problems, substance abuse, and overall mental health and well-being.
• Other studies found that, after controlling for mother love, father love was the sole significant predictor for certain outcomes, such as psychological adjustment problems, conduct problems, and substance abuse.

Source: Rohner, Ronald P., and Robert A. Veneziano. "The Importance of Father Love: History and Contemporary Evidence." Review of General Psychology 5.4 (December 2001): 382-405.

Consequences of Divorce on Father-Child Relationships

In a longitudinal study of 2,500 children of divorce, twenty years after the divorce less than one-third of boys and one-quarter of girls reported having close relationships with their fathers. In contrast, seventy percent of youths from the comparison group of intact families reported feeling close to their fathers.

Source: Hetherington, E. Mavis, and John Kelly. For Better or For Worse: Divorce Reconsidered. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2002: 231.

"Fragile Families" Findings

Preliminary survey data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a longitudinal study of 2,670 unmarried couples with children, suggests that most unwed fathers are highly involved shortly after the child's birth:

• 50% of unmarried parents were living together at the time of the child's birth, and another 33% were romantically involved but living apart.
• 80% of the fathers were involved in helping the baby's mother during the pregnancy, either financially or in other ways (such as transportation).
• 73% of mothers reported that the chances that they will marry the baby's father are "fifty-fifty" or greater; 88% of fathers reported that the odds of marrying the mother of their child are "fifty-fifty" or greater.
• 64% of the mothers and 75% of the fathers agreed with the statement, "it is better for children if their parents are married."
• 90% of unmarried mothers rated "husband having a steady job" and "emotional maturity" as very important qualities for a successful marriage.
• 37% of the mothers and 34% of the fathers lack a high school degree, and less than a third had any education beyond high school.
• 30% of the fathers were unemployed in the week before their child was born.

* Compared to a nearly perfect response rate from mothers, only 75 percent of fathers responded to the survey, resulting in a selection effect that most likely inflates the above percentages for fathers.

Source: McLanahan, Sara, Irwin Garfinkel, Nancy E. Reichman, Julien Teitler, Marcia Carlson, and Christian Norland Audigier. The Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study Baseline Report. The Center for Research on Child Wellbeing (Princeton University) and the Social Indicators Survey Center (Columbia University), August 2001.

Wilson, K.C.,

Where's Daddy? The mythologies behind custody-access-support.

This book offers striking insights into our perceptions of ourselves and other. The author contends that only when we examine our social practices in their cultural context do their distortions become clear, as do the equally obvious solutions. If you must endure divorce, should the process itself be more destructive to all than the separation alone? Or should the process act to preserve as much of the family as possible, accommodating only changes in the parents' relationship, ensuring only their separation? No other society has so thoroughly removed the father from the family as the U.S has done in recent years.

Even notions of male nurturing are gone, his only use, money. The divorced male continues cast in public as a villain, even when divorce was not his idea. Maleness as villainy has never seen such heights as today. But if we simply commit the same abuse to mothers in the name of gender balance, if we simply become more "equal" in which parent is denied to a child, which parent stripped of the dignity of their parenthood, is this progress? This is not a male-female issue.

It is an issue of social justice, especially for children. The author contends that we do not need more gender wars, themselves another symptom. Being equal parts of the same whole, men and women need each other to be strong and independent. All the more so, children need both parents, for both similar and different nurturing, and need each to have their strength and dignity. Our current divorce practices not only fail to ensure this, but undermine it. This hurts everyone who would otherwise be part of a child's life and heritage. Why? On what self-hatreds are these practices based?

In this book, the author contends that we must understand what needs correcting, or we may "correct" the wrong things. It examines the five myths most used to defend Custody-Access-Support. Many things that have worked for us in some ways defeat us in others. Seen in their context, we can tell them apart, and make choices for our benefit and mutual strength. The answers are easy and close at hand, sometimes too obvious to see. This book is not just about divorce. It has profound implications for all social policies.

• 90% of homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes. U.S. D.H.H.S., Bureau of the Census.
• 80% of rapists motivated with displaced anger come from fatherless homes. Criminal Justice & Behavior, Vol. 14, p. 403-26, 1978.
• 60% of repeat rapists grew up without fathers. Raymond A. Knight and Robert A. Prentky, "The Developmental Antecedents of Adult Adaptations of Rapist Sub-Types," Criminal Justice and Behavior, Vol. 14, Dec. 1987, p 403-426.
• 71% of pregnant teenagers lack a father. US Dept. of Health & Human Services press release, Friday, March 26, 1999.
• 63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes. US D.H.H.S., Bureau of the Census.
• 85% of children who exhibit behavioral disorders come from fatherless homes. Center for Disease Control.
• 90% of adolescent repeat arsonists live with only their mother. Wray Herbert, "Dousing the Kindlers," Psychology Today, January 1985, p.28.
• 71% of high school dropouts come from fatherless homes. National Principals Association Report on the State of High Schools.
• 75% of adolescent patients in chemical abuse canters come from fatherless homes. Rainbows for all Gods Children.
• 70% of juveniles in state operated institutions have no father. US Dept. of Justice, Special Report, Sept. 1988.
• 85% of youths in prisons grew up in a fatherless home. Fulton Co. Georgia jail populations, Texas Dept. of Corrections, 1992.
• 75% of prisoners grew up without a father. Daniel Amneus, The Garbage Generation, Alhambra, CA: Primrose Press, 1990.
• Fatherless boys and girls are: twice as likely to drop out of high school; twice as likely to end up in jail; four times more likely to need help for emotional or behavioral problems. US D.H.H.S. news release, March 26, 1999.
• 43% of US children live without their father. US Department of Census.
• Two years after divorce, 51% of children in sole mother custody homes only see their father once or twice a year, or never. Guidubaldi, 1989; Guidubaldi, 1988; Guidubaldi, Perry, & Nastasi, 1987.
• 42% of fathers fail to see their children at all after divorce. Frank F. Furstenberg, Jr. and Christine Winguist Nord, "Parenting Apart," Journal of Marriage and the Family, vol. 47, no. 4, November, 1985.
• 90% of father disengagement is caused by obstruction of access by a custodial parent anxious to break the father-child ties. Kruk, 1992, cited by Prof. John Guidubaldi in his Minority Report and Policy Recommendations of the US Commission on Child & Family Welfare, US Code Citation: 42 USC 12301, 1996. Same cause identified by Braver, Wolchik, & Sandler, 1985, without incidence values.