“The supreme test of any civilization is whether it can socialize men by teaching them to be fathers.”
Margaret Meade
Father absence refers to the fact that there are now 18.4 million children, 1 in 4, who are growing up in homes without their biological, step, or adoptive father in the home.[1] Tragically, father absence affects minorities disproportionally, especially the Black community. Roughly two-thirds of Black and one-third of Hispanic children live with only one parent and the research shows this puts children at risk.[2] For instance, father absence increases the chance of a child dropping out of school, and Blacks and Hispanics raised by single moms are 75% and 96% respectively more likely to drop out of school.[3]
As a busy pastor in the late 90s, I knew little of father absence as a social issue. Typical of most white evangelicals at that time, although I agreed with James Dobson that the biggest issue in our country was “the breakdown of the family,” I thought the two biggest social maladies were abortion and homosexuality (including the threat, then, of the legalization of gay marriage). One of my congregants, Roland Warren (who later became the president of the National Fatherhood Initiative and then Care Net), recommended that I read Fatherless America by David Blankenhorn. In it, I came across a provocative statement by the late anthropologist, Margaret Meade, that ended up altering the course of my life. She said, “The supreme test of any civilization is whether it can socialize men by teaching them to be fathers.”[4] In Fatherless America, Blankenhorn corroborates her assertion and makes the case for why father absence is our most damaging and consequential social trend. What I learned, and what he meant by quoting that statement, is not that it is the only important social issue, but that it has a unique consequential relationship to many other social issues. For example, like father absence, poverty is also a critical social issue to address. But the strategic, consequential nature of the relationship between father absence and poverty is clearly seen by the fact that in 2011, children living in female-headed homes with no spouse present had a poverty rate of 47.6%, which is over four times the rate for children living in married couple families.[5]
It is because of those kinds of statistics that father absence is rightly seen by many as a primary cause behind “the breakdown of the family.” Again, my vocational course was altered by learning that for many of the most intractable social ills affecting children, father absence is to blame.[6] Even if we take a seemingly unrelated hot topic like gun violence, the unique consequences of father absence can be seen: Individuals from homes without a father are 279% more likely to carry guns and deal drugs than their peers who live with their fathers.[7] Rarely has a Marvel character said something as profound as the hero in Netflix’s Luke Cage in commenting on the violence in his own community:
“Everyone has a gun. No one has a father.”
Luke Cage
There is no place, however, where the issue of father absence shows up more vividly than behind bars. Ninety-two percent of parents in prison are fathers.[8] Furthermore, even after controlling for income, youths in father absent households still have significantly higher odds of incarceration than those in mother-father families. Youths who never had a father in the household experienced the highest odds.[9] Again, minorities are affected disproportionally: In 2012, Black males were six times more likely to be imprisoned than White males. Hispanic males were two and a half times more likely.[10]
[1] U.S. Census Bureau, 2021.
[2] “My Brother’s Keeper Task Force Report to the President,” May 2014, accessed October 25, 2016, https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/053014_mbk_report.pdf.
[3] Ibid., 5.
[4] David Blankenhorn, Fatherless America: Confronting Our Most Urgent Social Problem (New York: Harper Collins, 1996), 3.
[5] “Information on Poverty and Income Statistics: A Summary of 2012 Current Population Survey Data,” U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, accessed November 14, 2016, http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/12/PovertyAndIncomeEst/ib.cfm.
[6] Sara McLanahan, Laura Tach, and Daniel Schneider, “The Causal Effects of Father Absence,” Annual Review of Sociology, 39 (2013): 399–427.
[7] Andrea N. Allen and Cecilia Lo, “Drugs, Guns, and Disadvantaged Youths: Co-occurring Behavior and the Code of the Street,” Crime & Delinquency 58 (2012): 932-953.
[8] Lauren E. Glaze and Laura M. Maruschak, “Parents in Prison and Their Minor Children,” Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report (2010): 2, accessed November 14, 2016, https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/pptmc.pdf.
[9] Cynthia C. Harper and Sara S. McLanahan, “Father Absence and Youth Incarceration,” Journal of Research on Adolescence 14 (September 2004): 369–397.
[10] E. Ann Carson and Daniela Golinelli, “Prisoners in 2012: Trends in Admissions and Releases, 1991–2012.” Bureau of Justice Statistics 25 (2013): 25, accessed November 14, 2016, http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p12tar9112.pdf.