Fathers: Optional Accessories in Families?

Saturday June 21, 2008

With the observance of Father's Day and the heartbreaking, sudden death of Tim Russert, author of the best selling Big Russ & Me, the nation's attention has been focused on fathers. Russert's Big Russ & Me about Tim's working class, "Greatest Generation" father and his enormous influence on his "Baby Boomer" son helped countless American sons and daughters more fully appreciate how much their own fathers have influenced their lives. I know it served that purpose for me.

Sadly, for many children today, such a relationship with their father is an unknown and foreign experience. As late as the early 1960's, when Tim Russert was in his early teens, only 2.3 percent of white children and 24 percent of black children were born to single mothers. Now, approximately 28 percent of our nation's children live in a household without their fathers, up from 14 percent in 1970. The vast majority of such boys and girls see their fathers less than once a month if at all. For such children, Father's Day is more of an illusion than reality.

Over the past four decades, our society has conducted an unwitting experiment on whether fathers are optional accessories in rearing healthy, well-balanced children. They are not.

Having a father is rapidly becoming a luxury, rather than the norm it has been in the past. This development has had devastating impact on our children and on our society. Children who have fathers in the home are nine times less likely to drop out of school, five times less likely live in poverty, and twenty times less likely to end up in prison. The negative impact of fatherlessness is even more dramatic when girls are taken out of the equation and just boys are considered.

And when the children's fathers attend church regularly with their families good things happen. As W. Bradford Wilcox points out in his Report on Faith, Fatherhood, and Marriage (Institute for American Values), "Religious faith is linked to happier marriages, fewer divorces and births outside of marriage, and a more involved style of fatherhood."

Religion is not the only answer to the vexing problem of absent fathers, but research and experience show it is an excellent place to start mending this terrible hole in the nation's social fabric. As Wilcox reports, "Religious fathers are about 65 percent more likely than unaffiliated fathers to report praising and hugging their school-age children 'very often.'"

What better place to start the "refathering" of America than to encourage Dads to take their families to worship services on a weekly basis.

Advertisement
Comments
Gene
June 22, 2008 3:17 PM

I'm not trying to throw a pity party for myself or anything, but my father was very absent from my growing up. I'm 33 now, and expecting my first child. I must say that I find myself occasionally wondering about my role and what exactly makes a "good dad." It becomes a worry if I focus on it too much.

I've also become aware that people with problems in their relationships with their biological fathers have trouble with the concept of a Heavenly Father. I'm not sure that this has been addressed very much.

Post a Comment

By submitting these comments, I agree to the beliefnet.com terms of service, rules of conduct and privacy policy (the "agreements"). I understand and agree that any content I post is licensed to beliefnet.com and may be used by beliefnet.com in accordance with the agreements.



Please type the text you see in the box below to verify your post and help us prevent spam. You have a limited time to type - you may wish to compose your comment in a separate document and paste it here upon completion.

Type the characters you see in the picture above.

Advertisement

Search This Blog

About Casting Stones

This blog is no longer updated and is closed for comments. We welcome your comments about politics in our Politics forums.

Diana Butler Bass is a religion scholar and author of Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church is Transforming the Faith. She blogs at God’s Politics.
Tony Campolo is Professor Emeritus at Eastern University and author of The God of Intimacy and Action: Reconnecting Ancient Spiritual Practices, Evangelism, and Justice, with Mary Darling. He blogs at God’s Politics.
Rod Dreher is a columnist for The Dallas Morning News and author of Crunchy Cons: The New Conservative Counterculture and Its Return to Roots. He blogs at Crunchy Con.
Bruce Feiler is the author of seven books, including Walking the Bible: A Journey by Land Through the Five Books of Moses. He blogs at Feiler Faster.
Dan Gilgoff is Politics Editor at Beliefnet and author of The Jesus Machine: How James Dobson, Focus on the Family, and Evangelical America are Winning the Culture War. He blogs at God-o-Meter.
David Kuo served as a special assistant to President George W. Bush and is the author of Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction. He blogs at J-Walking.
Dr. Richard Land is president of The Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and author of The Divided States of America? What Liberals AND Conservatives are missing in the God-and-country shouting match!
Michele McGinty is a mom and a student at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. She blogs at Reformed Chicks Blabbing.
Brian McLaren is a pastor, musician, and author of Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope. He blogs at God’s Politics.
Steven Waldman is co-founder, CEO, and Editor-in-Chief of Beliefnet. His book Founding Faith will be published in March, and he can be reached through the Beliefnet community.
Jim Wallis is executive director of Sojourners/Call to Renewal and author of God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It. He blogs at God’s Politics.

Advertisement

Advertisement


About Beliefnet

Our mission is to help people like you find, and walk, a spiritual path that will bring comfort, hope, clarity, strength, and happiness. More about Beliefnet.

Legal

Copyright © Beliefnet, Inc. and/or its licensors. All rights reserved. Use of this site is subject to Terms of Service and to our Privacy Policy. Constructed by Beliefnet.

Advertisement

Report as Inappropriate

You are reporting this content because it violates the Terms of Service.

All reported content is logged for investigation.