by Eric Payne
Excerpted from DAD: As Easy As A, B, C!
The National Fatherhood Initiative is an organization charged with improving the lives of children by increasing the numbers of involved, dedicated and committed fathers. They have a vast amount of resources and statistics regarding fatherhood at their disposal. The following are just a few.
According to 2009 U.S. Census Bureau data, over 24 million children live apart from their biological fathers. That is 1 out of every 3 (33%) children in America. Nearly 2 in 3 (64%) African American children live in father-absent homes. One in three (34%) Hispanic children, and 1 in 4 (25%) white children live in father-absent homes.
In 1960, only 11% of children lived in father-absent homes.*
And what are the consequences of the above statistics?
Children who live absent their biological fathers are, on average, at least two to three times more than their peers who live with their married, biological (or adoptive) parents to:
- Be poor
- Use drugs
- Experience educational problems
- Experience health problems
- Experience emotional problems
- Experience behavioral problems
- Be victims of child abuse
- Engage in criminal behavior*
Personally, I am committed to never being the cause of any of the above statistics.
A Dire Necessity
Being a father is far more than a mere obligation or begrudged responsibility. It is in fact a dire necessity in today’s society.
Sadly, it doesn’t take much thought or intention to make a baby. Maybe if it did people would consider the consequences of their actions more seriously. Maybe they might even spend more time taking themselves seriously. Becoming a father is a matter of biology — procreation 101, but becoming DAD is a determined decision. Yours! It is the trial and error, day-in-day-out effort a man makes and sticks to for the long haul, taking the good with the bad, and the joyous with the absolutely dreaded. It would be nice to have big muscles, have skin as tough as steel or be able to leap tall buildings. I dream daily of being able to stick to walls and own a Batmobile, but this just wasn’t in the cards for me. As DAD it doesn’t matter what you look like. You can be short, tall, skinny or fat. Being DAD means wearing a lot of hats — protector, provider, servant, administrator, caregiver and (gasp) nurturer. There are days when you have the luxury of choice.
Then there are those days when the hats choose you”...
Being DAD is singularly one of the greatest and most meaningful experiences a man can have. But without out a doubt it is one if not the most challenging — to be in charge of another human life, guiding and grooming it from infancy to adulthood. If we knew what we were in for at the onset I’d wager most of us would never sign up. Thank God we get to learn and master our craft one day at a time. Thank God we have 9 months before baby arrives (depending on when the news breaks) to get a head start on getting our heads and our acts together.
Thankful, Not Thankless
Occasionally I receive accolades via emails and comments from the people who read my blog about my joys and trials as a father. I often shudder at the praise and think if they only knew how much effort I exerted to simply contain the chaos. If they only knew how much I feel like a I’m a chicken running around with my head cut off, how hot sweaty and stinky I get doing my best to get these kids where they need to be on time, or how disorganized I sometimes feel. If they could truly appreciate how thankless this job can sometimes be then maybe they might think differently. But then again maybe they do know and are just thanking me for letting them know they aren’t alone. This in turn lets me know I’m not alone either.
Whether you are a man who needs some perspective on raising your child; whether you’re a woman searching to learn more with that man you live with but may not talk as much as you’d like; whether you are at the beginning, the middle, or the never ending-end of your life as Dad, I want to thank you for caring enough about yourself and your family to do more and to do better. It has been said over and over again that anyone can be a father, but it takes a special man to raise a child. I want to thank the dads who take the time and make this effort. Thank you for wanting and doing better. By embracing and investing in fatherhood, you are investing into the next generation of adults. You are investing into your children — our most innocent and precious of resources.
At the beginning of the day and at its end there are there are no perfect dads”...only real ones.
Long live fatherhood!
* Source – For more on fatherless and its destructive impacts on families and communities versus the positive impacts of fatherhood please, visit the National Fatherhood Initiative at www.fatherhood.org.
BMWK family, if Dad is in your life and/or the lives of your children, how will you be celebrating Father’s Day? Dads, how has being a father influenced your lives?
Follow Eric on Facebook and Twitter. He is the author of DAD: As Easy As A, B, C! coming this Fathers Day 2011, the author of two books of poetry and short stories and has written the articles Investing In An Emotional Letdown and Really Home Alone. He keeps it candid about being a man, dad and husband on his blog, Makes Me Wanna Holler.com.
Thank you for this. My husband is very involved in a local fatherhood support group and I think this book will make an excellent gift for him, aside from the gift of being the very involved father to a lovely four year old daughter.
Very insightful post E. I wish every brother chasing a skirt would write those words on their hearts. Continue the GREAT work as a DAD and advocate for fatherhood.
P.S. Extremely demands have prevented me from reading the galley as I promised.
I have to ask why we are blaming men. After all, 2/3rds to 3/4s of all divorces are sought by women, not men. Unless men are having affairs with other men, men and women are equally unfaithful.
So how much of the fatherless problem is due to men walking out, and how much is due to men being FORCED out by a wife who simply no longer wants her husband?
In another entry, you posted about how most black children were not born to single parent homes. So that means most are born with both parents. If that changes later, why? In some cases it’s dad’s misconduct. But most divorce cases don’t involve marital misconduct on the part of the party RESPONDING to the divorce. They may or may not include misconduct on the part of the one seeking divorce. Certainly, if we believe in God, a spouse who chooses to divorce her faithful, non-abusive husband is engaged in marital misconduct.
As a dad who didn’t beat, didn’t cheat, loved his wife and kids, but is now a visitor due to her affair and the courts complicity, not caring about her marital fidelity when choosing who is the best parent for the child, just as you questioned the stereotypes about black folks in the US, I have to question the stereotypes about men.
Those stereotypes that say men don’t care about their families, or that they are relationally challenged, or that they cheat more than women (really, they are having affairs with men, not women???)
It’s time we seriously question the gender based stereotypes as well.
For every single dad you see out there, odds are 2/3rds to 3/4s of them didn’t even want the family to break up. But in an era of no-fault divorce, there is nothing such a dad can do when his wife decides she no longer wants him for a partner. If his experience is like mine, instead of helping him and confronting her while she’s having her affair, or just emotionally walled him off, they’ll blame him.
My pastor actually asked me what I did to force my ex-wife to have an affair.
So before we blame fathers, let’s take a look at the facts. Men and women are both sinners. None more righteous than the other. It’s time we stop blaming men for the choices their wives make, and stop assuming that if a man is divorced, it’s because he was poorly behaved. Odds are he was no worse behaved, on average, than the wife who was the one most likely to choose the divorce action.
I have to agree with you Tony. Men are not always the reason why they are not in their child’s lives. I continuously find myself trying to talk to the younger mothers about making sure they do everything in their power to keep the lines of communication open with their childrens’ fathers, stop the negative comments and blocking him from being involved. When we choose to have children we are responsible for every aspect of their lives. I was reading some information about child custody a few years back and one of the criteria for the judge to look over is which parent is more likely to make sure that the child has a healthy relationship with the other parent…even without a court order it is something that should be thought about when the husband/wife or boyfriend/girlfriend relationship is coming to a close. Outside of being a wife and a mother I am also a stepmother who knows all to well the walls that have been placed to keep my husband out of their lives, I can honestly say that many of the walls seem to be built with no thought as the mom tried to have the same horror stories as her friends, sisters, and cousins not realizing the negative impact it has had on the children.
I have to agree with you Tony. Men are not always the reason why they are not in their child’s lives. I continuously find myself trying to talk to the younger mothers about making sure they do everything in their power to keep the lines of communication open with their childrens’ fathers, stop the negative comments and blocking him from being involved. When we choose to have children we are responsible for every aspect of their lives. I was reading some information about child custody a few years back and one of the criteria for the judge to look over is which parent is more likely to make sure that the child has a healthy relationship with the other parent…even without a court order it is something that should be thought about when the husband/wife or boyfriend/girlfriend relationship is coming to a close. Outside of being a wife and a mother I am also a stepmother who knows all to well the walls that have been placed to keep my husband out of their lives, I can honestly say that many of the walls seem to be built with no thought as the mom tried to have the same horror stories as her friends, sisters, and cousins not realizing the negative impact it has had on the children.
I have to agree with you Tony. Men are not always the reason why they are not in their child’s lives. I continuously find myself trying to talk to the younger mothers about making sure they do everything in their power to keep the lines of communication open with their childrens’ fathers, stop the negative comments and blocking him from being involved. When we choose to have children we are responsible for every aspect of their lives. I was reading some information about child custody a few years back and one of the criteria for the judge to look over is which parent is more likely to make sure that the child has a healthy relationship with the other parent…even without a court order it is something that should be thought about when the husband/wife or boyfriend/girlfriend relationship is coming to a close. Outside of being a wife and a mother I am also a stepmother who knows all to well the walls that have been placed to keep my husband out of their lives, I can honestly say that many of the walls seem to be built with no thought as the mom tried to have the same horror stories as her friends, sisters, and cousins not realizing the negative impact it has had on the children.