Analyst’s note: Nothing so negatively impacts our American society and thus ultimately our national security than failure in the home.
Related items:
The Importance of the Family
L. Tom Perry with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
In our opinion: Fatherhood hasn't received the attention it deserves
Deseret News Editorial
Being a parent is hard work. It involves countless hours, of pain and joy, of being a father or a mother to a child who needs you.
Families and their parents are under so much strain today. It is vital for news organizations to dig deeply so as to understand both challenges faced by parents and solutions that might help them.
[....] this series shows how important fathers are for the protection and emotional maturity of both sons and daughters. It demonstrates how single-father homes are growing faster than single-mother homes. It probes whether government welfare policies are creating a class of “dispensable dads.” And it offers a ray of hope for an encouraging apprentice-based approach to high school education that could address one of society’s most-significant family challenges: a spiraling crisis of boys dropping out of school, becoming unmoored from anchors of socialization and incapable of forming healthy relationships leading them to become good fathers themselves.
“The time a dad spends with his children is a particularly strong predictor of how empathetic a child will become,” the Deseret News reports in the first article in the series. “Children who lack contact with fathers are more likely to be treated for emotional or behavioral problems. Girls with absent or indifferent fathers are more prone to hyperactivity. If dad is around, girls are less likely to become pregnant as teens.”
[....] “the U.S. has done a better job of integrating women into the workplace than in integrating men into the family — especially into the lives of children in the non-intact family. We have valued men as wallets more than as dads.” The result is “moms feeling deprived of resources and dads feeling deprived of purpose and children feeling deprived of the full range of parenting input.”
[....] With dads increasingly out of the picture, marginalized from the heart of the family, boys are losing their sense of purpose. They are doing worse in school and are more likely to suffer depression or — between ages 15 and 19 — commit suicide. Last year, according to the U.S. Department of Education, 140 women graduated with some kind of a college degree for every 100 men. And the National Center for Education Statistics projected female college enrollment would grow 16 percent by 2021 while male college enrollment would increase 7 percent.
Apprenticeships for young men (and young women) may be a way out by putting “boys in a real-world situation outside the classroom, with skilled adults as mentors,” according to TheAtlantic.com. This gives students “a chance to engage in on-the-job training in a wide range of fields from baking to boat-building, farming to architecture, public health to civil engineering.”
Dads provide essential physical and emotional health for their children. It’s time for society to help them realize that. [....]
Part one: What happens when dad is nowhere to be found?
By Lois M. Collins and Marjorie Cortez with Deseret News
[....] More than half of babies of mothers under 30 are born out of wedlock. The divorce rate among those who do marry exceeds 40 percent, according to the 2012 State of Our Unions report.
These statistics play out most often in the form of absent fathers — or the arrival and departure of serial father figures involved in romantic relationships with a child’s mother. (Moms still usually retain custody in a breakup or divorce.) Twenty-four million American children — one in three — are growing up in homes without their biological fathers, the 2011 Census says. Children in father-absent homes, it notes, are almost four times more likely to be poor.
[....] children may grow up with lots of father figures but no real dad. Or they can be .... in foster care, ... in a virtually man-free zone.
[....] Most children weather family turmoil and wind up OK, said Cherlin, who coined the term “family churn” to describe what happens to families as couples split, often moving dad out of the home and a new man in. A study in the Journal of Marriage and Family said children in such homes experience an average of more than 5.25 partnership transitions. That’s tough for kids who are used to having their own fathers within reach.
“Dad also helps with impulse control and memory and enhances a child’s ability to respond effectively to new or ambiguous situations, for boys and girls,” said Warren Farrell, author of "Father and Child Reunion." Children who are close to their fathers tend to achieve more academically, while kids with absent fathers are more likely to drop out. Fathers are the biggest factor in preventing drug use, Farrell said.
Burgos said one of his biggest challenges growing up without a father figure has been impulse control and anger management.
The time a dad spends with his children is a particularly strong predictor of how empathetic a child will become, according to a commission of experts who wrote a proposal asking President Obama to create a White House Council on Boys and Men. The group, which Farrell helped assemble, compiled research showing infants with dads living at home were months ahead in personal and social development. Children who lack contact with fathers are more likely to be treated for emotional or behavioral problems. Girls with absent or indifferent fathers are more prone to hyperactivity. If dad is around, girls are less likely to become pregnant as teens.
[....] “There is a great deal of evidence that children from single-parent homes have worse outcomes on both academic and economic measures than children from two-parent families,” .... “There is a vast inequality of both financial resources and parental time and attention between one- and two-parent families.”
The report also said absent fathers particularly impact the psychosocial and academic development of boys.
[....] If parents get along, their children tend to be more psychologically and emotionally healthy. Moms who feel their child’s father backs them up are better mothers through all stages of the child’s development, reports the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — “more responsive, affectionate, and confident with their infants; more self-controlled in dealing with defiant toddlers; and better confidants for teenagers seeking advice and emotional support.”
[....] The federal government is beginning to recognize how important fathers are to children after years of focusing almost exclusively on mothers. (YET) The odds are still stacked against fathers in many government and nonprofit agencies designed to assist families, he said. Often, men’s names are not included on case files, even when parents are married.
Simply improving the job market for young adults, especially men, would do wonders to stabilize families — particularly those just starting out, Cherlin said. Experts have been surprised by the real drop in divorce among the college-educated, who still can get good jobs. He said young people need more job training opportunities and apprenticeships, especially if they’re not college-bound. Making sure tax policy doesn’t discourage marriage and providing a modest earned income tax credit for disadvantaged childless young adults would also encourage formation of stable relationships, he added.
Why the number of single dads is on the rise
By Caroline Kitchener, TheAtlantic.com
A recent study published by Pew Research found that 8 percent of households with minor children are now headed by a single father, up from just 1 percent in 1960.
Should welfare programs pay more attention to dads?
How apprenticeships empower fathers and strengthen marriages
By Christine Gross-Loh, TheAtlantic.com
Bringing apprentice-based learning to America's schools could both raise earnings and give young men the skills they need to be good husbands and fathers.
The Family: A Proclamation to the World
The First Presidency and Council of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
We, the First Presidency and the Council of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, solemnly proclaim that marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God and that the family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children.
All human beings—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny. Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.
In the premortal realm, spirit sons and daughters knew and worshipped God as their Eternal Father and accepted His plan by which His children could obtain a physical body and gain earthly experience to progress toward perfection and ultimately realize their divine destiny as heirs of eternal life. The divine plan of happiness enables family relationships to be perpetuated beyond the grave. Sacred ordinances and covenants available in holy temples make it possible for individuals to return to the presence of God and for families to be united eternally.
The first commandment that God gave to Adam and Eve pertained to their potential for parenthood as husband and wife. We declare that God’s commandment for His children to multiply and replenish the earth remains in force. We further declare that God has commanded that the sacred powers of procreation are to be employed only between man and woman, lawfully wedded as husband and wife.
We declare the means by which mortal life is created to be divinely appointed. We affirm the sanctity of life and of its importance in God’s eternal plan.
Husband and wife have a solemn responsibility to love and care for each other and for their children. “Children are an heritage of the Lord” (Psalm 127:3). Parents have a sacred duty to rear their children in love and righteousness, to provide for their physical and spiritual needs, and to teach them to love and serve one another, observe the commandments of God, and be law-abiding citizens wherever they live. Husbands and wives—mothers and fathers—will be held accountable before God for the discharge of these obligations.
The family is ordained of God. Marriage between man and woman is essential to His eternal plan. Children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and a mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity. Happiness in family life is most likely to be achieved when founded upon the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities. By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children. In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners. Disability, death, or other circumstances may necessitate individual adaptation. Extended families should lend support when needed.
We warn that individuals who violate covenants of chastity, who abuse spouse or offspring, or who fail to fulfill family responsibilities will one day stand accountable before God. Further, we warn that the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets.
We call upon responsible citizens and officers of government everywhere to promote those measures designed to maintain and strengthen the family as the fundamental unit of society.
