"Papa was a rolling stone, (my son)
Wherever he laid his hat was his home
(And when he died) All he left us was alone
Well, well"
"Papa Was a Rolling Stone" by the Temptations (Written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong, 1972)
A young child questioned his mother about the character of his father: “Hey Momma! Is it true what they say that Papa never worked a day, in his life? And Momma, some bad talk goin' round town sayin' that Papa had three outside children….”
This narrative from “Papa Was A Rolling Stone” was made famous by the Temptations. Eventually, the song would garner the Temptations their last number one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 and three Grammy Awards.
Unfortunately, according to Dr. Daryl D. Green, the song represents an underpinning theme for millions of children who exist with a dysfunctional father in their lives.
Father’s Day isn’t a pleasant experience for many folks in society. This unfortunate fact is worthy of consideration as the holiday nears.
There are 72.2 million fathers in the U.S. as of the latest U.S. Census.
2.6 million households in the U.S. are led by a single father. (Comparatively, there were only about 1.2 million single dad households in 1990.)
In 1960 only 9.1% of children were living with a single parent; by 2012 the number had risen to 20.7% of all children. By 2019, 23% were living with a single parent.
33% of U.S. children live in a home without their birth father while 1 in 4 live without a biological, step, or adoptive father in the home.
57.6% of black children, 31.2% of Hispanic children, and 20.7% of white children are living absent their biological fathers. (Source: Family Structure and Children’s Living Arrangements 2012. Current Population Report. U.S. Census Bureau July 1, 2012.)
72.2% of Americans think an absent father in the household is the most important problem facing American families (Fathering in America Poll, 1999: National Center for Fathering).
Many individuals are fortunate to have a caring, supportive father. Unfortunately, large numbers of others live without one. Across the social spectrum, lots of individuals are living with deep wounds left by their fathers. While a substantial body of research indicates high levels of involvement by fathers contribute to children’s well being, the U.S. Census Bureau confirms there is a father absence crisis in America. The impact of fatherlessness can be seen in our homes, schools, hospitals and prisons.
Related research found that children from fatherless homes are:
2 x more likely to suffer obesity
2 x more likely to drop out of high school
2 x greater risk of infant mortality
4 x greater risk of poverty
7 x more likely to become pregnant as a teen
More likely to have behavioral problems
More likely to go to prison
More likely to commit crime (some experts say 3 x as likely before age 18)
More likely to face abuse and neglect
More likely to abuse drugs and alcohol
(Source: U.S. Census Bureau. (2020). Living arrangements of children under 18 years old: 1960 to present. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Census Bureau.)
I don't want to paint a totally negative portrait of fathers on this holiday; however I do hope this entry draws attention to a problem that must be addressed. If you have never considered a negative connotation associated with Father's Day, I hope you will understand the serious effects fatherly neglect can have upon so many children today.
The modern day father comes in various forms. Today’s father is no longer always the traditional married breadwinner and disciplinarian in the family. He can be single or married; externally employed or stay-at home; gay or straight; an adoptive or step-parent; and a more than capable caregiver to children facing physical or psychological challenges.
Psychological research across families from all ethnic backgrounds suggests that fathers' affection and increased family involvement help promote children's social and emotional development. A good father can lay the foundation for his child’s success. Yet, a biological live-in father isn't a requirement to pass down the benefits of fathering. Experts agree kids can get the same benefits by having a dedicated stepdad, father figure, or two moms.
"Form is not nearly as important as content," explained author and sociologist Michael Kimmel. "The gender differences are outweighed by the gender similarities."
Still, a father's influence has many factors on a child's life, notes Dr. Kyle Pruett, a child psychiatrist and clinical professor of child psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine.
Society and Father's Day
The statistics above put the worth of a father in a different perspective as fatherhood relates to the celebration of Father's Day. Yet, ironically, the history of the holiday seems to reflect society's view that a father may take a backseat to a mother.
It took many years to make the holiday official.
First observed in Fairmont, West Virginia, 1908, in the Williams Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church South, now known as Central United Methodist Church. Grace Golden Clayton was mourning the loss of her father when, on December 1907, the Monongah Mining disaster in nearby Monongah killed 361 men, 250 of them fathers, leaving around a thousand fatherless children.
Clayton suggested to her pastor Robert Thomas Webb that he should honor all those fathers. Clayton chose the Sunday nearest to the birthday of her father, Methodist minister Fletcher Golden. Father's Day had its beginnings.
(Kelly Barth. “First Father's Day Service.” Morgantown Dominion Post. June 21, 1987.)
In spite of support from the YWCA, the YMCA and churches, the holiday ran the risk of disappearing from the calendar. Where Mother's Day was met with enthusiasm, Father's Day was met with laughter.
The holiday was gathering attention slowly, but for the wrong reasons. It was the target of much satire, parody and derision, including jokes from local newspapers. Many people saw it as just the first step in filling the calendar with mindless promotions like Grandparents' Day, Professional Secretaries' Day, etc., all the way down to "National Clean Your Desk Day."
Merchants recognized the tendency to parody and satirize the holiday, and used it to their benefit by mocking the holiday on the same advertisements where they promoted the gifts for fathers. People felt compelled to buy gifts even though they saw through the commercial facade, and the custom of giving gifts on that day became progressively more accepted.
By the 1980s, the Father's Day Council proclaimed that they had achieved their goal: the one-day event had become a three-week commercial event, a "second Christmas." Its executive director explained back in 1949 that, without the coordinated efforts of the Council and of the groups supporting it, the holiday would have disappeared.
(Leigh Eric Schmidt. Consumer Rites: The Buying & Selling of American Holidays. 1995.)
A bill to accord national recognition of the holiday was introduced in Congress in 1913. Years later, in 1924, President Calvin Coolidge recommended that the day be observed by the nation, but stopped short of issuing a national proclamation. Two earlier attempts to formally recognize the holiday had been defeated by Congress.
In 1957, Maine Senator Margaret Chase Smith wrote a proposal accusing Congress of ignoring fathers for 40 years while honoring mothers, thus "[singling] out just one of our two parents.”
(“Father Finally Granted A Day.” Nashua Telegraph. June 18, 1977.)
In 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson issued the first presidential proclamation honoring fathers, designating the third Sunday in June as Father's Day. Finally, six years later, the day was made a permanent national holiday when President Richard Nixon signed it into law in 1972.
Defining “Deadbeat Dads”
Denouncing deadbeat dads has become a cultural tradition. It is easy to cast blame. The U.S. Census Bureau reports …
The proportion of custodial parents who were supposed to receive support, but received none, increased from 24.2 percent in 1993 to 30.7 percent in 2015
About 7 in 10 custodial parents (69.3 percent) who were supposed to receive child support in 2015 received some payments.
Less than half (43.5 percent) of custodial parents who were supposed to receive child support received full child support payments.
(Timothy Grall. “Custodial Mothers and Fathers and Their Child Support: 2015.” United States Census. Revised January 2020.)
Of the nation’s 13-14 million single custodial parents in 2015, five out of six were mothers, and half have formal or informal child-support agreements, yet about 30 percent do not receive any agreed-upon payments.
(“Custodial Mothers and Fathers and Their Child Support: 2015.” Series P60-262. Detailed Tables.)
While the median amount that custodial parents are supposed to receive was $4,200 per year in 2015, the median payments actually received was only $1,656.
Among the 5 million mothers awarded child support, 1.4 million fathers paid nothing. Although their absolute numbers are smaller, the proportion of custodial fathers who were supposed to receive support was actually higher – 365,000 out of 884,000.
(Andrew Yarrow. “Deadbeat Dad: The Myth and Reality of America’s Feckless Fathers.” Fatherly. September 06, 2019.)
The notion that most fathers who aren’t in their children’s lives are callous deadbeats refusing to pay child support while avoiding parental involvement is untrue.
Studies have estimated that low-income, noncustodial fathers are disproportionately black and that black men are more likely to be poor, face labor market discrimination, and have limited social networks to help them stay employed and able to pay their child support orders. Current child support enforcement policies harm black, low-income, noncustodial fathers and negatively affect their children.
In fact, the reasons that most fathers are “missing” or fail to pay child support are complicated.
They are poor, don’t work, incarcerated, or in low-paid, insecure jobs that make child support unaffordable. As an Urban Institute study found, “no- and low-income parents owe the largest percent of arrears,” which can lead to a vicious cycle of repeat jail sentences for nonpayment, making it virtually impossible for these men to hold a job. And, perversely, tax and child-support laws can disincentivize men from even taking low-paid jobs.
(Eleanor Pratt. “Child Support Enforcement can hurt black, low-income, noncustodial fathers and their kids. Urban Institute. June15, 2016.)
According to the social policy research organization MDRC, “Low-income noncustodial fathers are a disadvantaged group…. Many live on the edge of poverty and face severe barriers to finding jobs, while those who can find work typically hold low-wage or temporary jobs. Despite their low, irregular income, many of these fathers are quite involved in their children’s lives and, when they can, provide financial and other kinds of support.”
(Cynthia Miller and Virginia Knox. “The Challenge of Helping Low-Income Fathers Support Their Children.” Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation. November 2001.)
Andrew L. Yarrow – former New York Times reporter, history professor, and author of Man Out: Men on the Sidelines of American Life (2018) – says …
“Most 'absent' fathers are not selfish deadbeats. Instead, the vast majority are hurting, and their children are hurting from their fathers not being a regular part of their lives. Rather than damn these men, we should recognize that they often ache for their children, and should be helped to be able to have meaningful relationships with their kids. Attitudes, policies, and the law need to change, and poorer fathers need better access to jobs, training, and other supports that could enable them, to contribute much more to their children …
“Despite reams of evidence that children do better when both parents are in their lives, the public and policymakers cling to wrongheaded ideas that all “missing” fathers are bad guys, failing to see that keeping fathers in their children’s lives benefits children, fathers, and society at large.”
(Andrew Yarrow. “Deadbeat Dad: The Myth and Reality of America’s Feckless Fathers.” Fatherly. September 06, 2019.)
Unwed Fathers
John Prine
In an Appalachian
Greyhound station
She sits there waiting, in a family way
Goodbye
brother, tell mom I love her
Tell all the others, I'll write
someday
From an teenage lover
to an unwed mother
Kept undercover like some bad dream
While
unwed fathers, they can't be bothered
They run like water through
a mountain stream
In a cold and gray
town, a nurse say's, "Lay down"
This ain't no
playground, and this ain't home
Someone's children out having
children
In a gray stone building all alone
From an teenage lover
to an unwed mother
Kept undercover like some bad dream
While
unwed fathers, they can't be bothered
They run like water through
a mountain stream
On somewhere else
bound
Smokey Mountain Greyhound
She bows her head down, hummin'
lullabies
Your daddy never meant to hurt you ever
He just don't live here, but you've got his eyes
From an teenage lover
to an unwed mother
Kept undercover like some bad dream
While
unwed fathers, they can't be bothered
They run like water through
a mountain stream
Well, they run like
water
Through a mountain stream
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