How Many Children Won’t Be With Dad?

As Father’s Day 2016 approaches, it’s time to take stock of how many children won’t experience the joy of giving their dad a gift and the smile, hug and kiss that follows.

More than 24 million children, 1 in 3, grow up without their biological father. That’s enough children to populate New York City nearly three times.

Perhaps you wonder whether the number is still bleak when considering that so many children today live in blended or adoptive families. It’s still bleak. More than 20 million children, slightly more than 1 in 4, grow up without a biological, step or adoptive father. 

Nevertheless, there is some good news in the battle against father absence as reflected in the chart below.

Percentage of Children Living in Father-Absent Homes: 1960 – 2014stat-chart.jpg

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the percentage of children in the U.S. living without a dad began to soar in 1960. It rose unabated until 1995 when it suddenly hit the skids—sort of. For every five-year period from 1960 to 1995, the percentage rose. Since then, it has fallen and risen like clockwork. The result is a hold-steady pattern of 27.5 percent.

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The good news is that the percentage of Black and Hispanic children living without a dad has fallen in the past 25 years. The drop for Black children from 62.8 to 56.9 percent is heartening because these are the children most likely to live without a dad. The drop for Hispanic children—ever so slight from 32.9 to 31.9 percent—is encouraging nonetheless. Even more good news is the percentage of Asian children living without a dad—tracked by the Census Bureau since 2005—has also fallen from 12.8 to 11.5 percent.

Now, you might wonder which children account for holding the overall percentage steady. It’s White children. Although less affected as a group by father absence than are Black and Hispanic children, a greater percentage of White children today (22 percent) live without a dad than in 1995 (20.8 percent).

What so many people fail to realize is White children make up more than half of all the children living without a dad. Indeed, 58.7 percent of children living without a dad are White.

Father absence is an enemy that wages a color-blind battle. It affects children of every race and ethnicity. It affects children in urban and rural areas. It affects every state and community. It wages a battle everywhere that leaves in its wake a range of poor outcomes for children, families and communities that include poverty, drug and alcohol abuse, poor academic performance, criminal behavior and suicide.

While we have held the line for the past quarter century, we must now push father absence back from whence it came.

Are you a dad looking for help or are you interested in volunteering to help fathers and families? Please visit our Fatherhood Program Locator™ and enter your city and state on the map to find programs and resources in your community.

Source: How Many Children Won’t Buy a Gift for Dad?

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American Fathers

So you’d rather watch tournament games and go bowling than support a “We Are Fathers” campaign for justice and equality. Well that’s your choice, it’s a free country, in theory anyway. But you should know that countless lawyers, child experts and bureaucrats are cheering you on because they profit from all this apathy and a misguided sense of priorities. In America today, our government is engaged in the lucrative expansion of a child control bureaucracy that is harming our families, productivity and moral fiber as a nation. This vast public enterprise has invaded every aspect of private life, often wielding power beyond that exercised by the NSA, CIA or IRS. It is a silent and insidious trend eroding parental rights repeatedly declared by our Supreme Court to be the “oldest liberty interest” protected by the United States Constitution. This interest is shared equally by fathers and mothers. But in practice, the male half has not been accorded its rightful place among our human rights due to a profit motive in family court driven by needless custody, support and divorce contests. Census Bureau reports continue to show the gender disparities on all domestic fronts. After promoting a parental rights cause in Paris recently, I was amazed to note how a million people together with world leaders could rally in that city within days to support free speech. Meanwhile, here in the states, more than 70 million fathers have yet to mobilize after a century of widespread discrimination. Such discrimination is having harmful impacts on all aspects of society and quite likely the female population more so than its counterpart. Veterans, minorities and high profile figures are particularly vulnerable to a court system that has placed money and politics over genuine parent-child relationships. Fathers are a vital component of any social or family structure as they have been since the beginning of civilization. Unfortunately federal entitlement laws and incentive funding to the states have marginalized that role to a point of virtual extinction. This has led to educational costs, heinous crimes and moral deterioration on a vast scale corroborated by an exodus from all manner of religion. In practical terms, our taxpayers are funding the creation of social ills and then forced to pay for it on the back side with costly welfare programs. Future generations will look back one day and be amazed at how truly barbaric our domestic relations courts once were. A scheme of laws and processes derived from feudal equity doctrines has been retained which features loving parents engaged in brutal contests over their offspring in a public arena. A winner-take-all battle for custody leads to overregulation of families by the state and marginalization, alienation or outright extinction of one fit parent from the children’s lives. Anal investigations of the combatants’ backgrounds by self serving advisors incite further controversy to last a lifetime. It is a spectacle reminiscent of the Roman Coliseum. No person or entity has ever been able to achieve a comprehensive study of the vast detriment which this archaic custody and support system has had upon our society. Any such effort would assuredly be stymied because custody and unequal parenting are highly profitable. Yet common sense dictates that our nation could be well served with sweeping reforms here in our least scrutinized branch of government. We can put a man on the moon, split atoms, engage artificial intelligence and achieve vast breakthroughs in medicine but remain unable to extricate family courts from their nineteenth century practices. www.Facebook.com/AmericanFathers

10 thoughts on “How Many Children Won’t Be With Dad?”

  2. Add my four children to that list, I’m civilly disabled from driving so even if I could own property I couldn’t use it legally, I couldn’t afford gas or insurance for a automobile unless I lived in that vehicle and that’s risky because police patrol for that type of liberty violations, I’m on social security disability benefits… I had more when I was homeless and coming off meth and eating from trash cans… Although that would be used against me to keep my children from seeing or living with me, that brings up this question… When my ex’s had no place to stay didn’t they get ALL THE HELP FROM WELFARE and why am I not afforded with the same liberties? Is it just to discriminate against me or so the mom and state and country and county and city employees would always have a great excuse to use in their premeditated kidnapping??? It’s evil to think that’s why, however… It’s the reality of these facts. It’s hurtful and defeating to believe it’s actually like this…. On Jun 18, 2016 12:36 AM, “Americans for Equal Rights for Fathers” wrote:

    > afla2016 posted: “As Father’s Day 2016 approaches, it’s time to take stock > of how many children won’t experience the joy of giving their dad a gift > and the smile, hug and kiss that follows. More than 24 million children, 1 > in 3, grow up without their biological father. ” >

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