Fathers are
fast disappearing from American homes and one in three children, or
approximately 15 million live without one according to the U.S.
Census.
The problem is
especially pronounced in black families, where the figure increases to over half
or around five million children.
In fact, as the
census recorded that 160,000 new families with children were added, the number
of two-parent households decreased by 1.2 million and nearly five million live
without a mother.
These
astonishing figures can be unfavorably compared with 1960, when just 11 percent
of all American children lived in homes without fathers.
Blame for the
prevalence of low income families where children fall into crime and drugs has
been laid at the door of these damning numbers.
“People look at
a child in need, in poverty or failing in school, and ask, ‘What can we do to
help?’” said Vincent DiCaro, vice president of the National Fatherhood
Initiative.
“But what we do
is ask, ‘Why does that child need help in the first place?’ And the answer is
often it’s because the child lacks a responsible and involved
father.”
The spiral
continues each year to the point where married couples with children have an
average income of $80,000, which is compared to $24,000 for single
mothers.
“We have one
class that thinks marriage and fatherhood is important, and another which
doesn’t, and it’s causing that gap, income inequality, to get wider,” said Mr.
DiCaro to The Washington Times.
Men walking away
from babies is a problem concentrated to the inner cities, with Baltimore having
only 38 percent of families that have two parents and St. Louis has 40 percent
of families that have two children.
The primary
indicator for the problem is income - 12 percent of black families who live
below the poverty line boast two parents, while among poor Latino families that
figure is 41 percent and 32 percent among white families.
In all but 11
states, most black children do not live with both their parents while across
every state, seven out of ten white children do.
“Something has
to be done about it, and it starts with the culture and reversing the attitude
that marriage is not important. The president has a role to play in that. He’s a
married African-American father who can make a huge difference with words
alone,” said Mr. DiCaro.
The decline in
two parent families has also disproportionately hit the South, which has long
been a bastion for traditional family values.
Even in places
where the percentage of the black population declined, single parenthood
increased.
In South
Carolina, where the black share of the population fell by 2 percent, single
parenthood rose by 5 percent. In Kentucky and Louisiana, where the black
population was constant, single parenthood increased 6 percentage points
according to the Washington Times.
The largest
contiguous area of sustained fatherlessness is in the largely black poor across
Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana running along the Mississippi River from
Memphis, Tennessee. Daily Mail
AHT/HJ
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