Impact of Fatherlessness

Fatherlessness represents separation. Twenty-four million children (one out of three) in America live in biological father-absent homes. The trends have been tracked from 1960 to the present and show no signs of abatement. The adverse effects are devastating. Forty-three percent of United States’ children live without a father (this does not contradict the statement above—biological and geographical carry equal value impact). Ninety percent of homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes, thirty-two times the average.

Fatherlessness represents violence.

Eighty percent of rapists motivated by displaced anger come from fatherless homes. We can anticipate that statistics have not improved with ongoing measurable, significant subsets that show uncontrolled anger as a continuing trend in the world, violence.

Suicide, runaways, behavioral disorders, rapists, high school dropouts, chemical abuse, juveniles, and prison inmates are all forms of violence.

Fatherlessness represents self-denigration and poor self-esteem.

According to the US Department of Health/Bureau of the Census, 63 percent of youth suicides occur in fatherless homes. Eighty-five percent of children with behavioral disorders are raised in fatherless homes, which is fourteen times the national average.

Fatherlessness represents minor achievement and social skills.

Seventy-one percent of high school dropouts come from fatherless households, which is nine times the national average.

Children raised in single-parent homes or stepfamilies report lower parental educational expectations, less parental monitoring of schoolwork, and less overall social supervision than children raised in intact families. Children from low-income two-parent households outperform students from high-income single-parent households. Two-parent households produce nearly twice as many high achievers as one-parent households. Seventy-five percent of adolescent patients in chemical abuse treatment facilities are from fatherless homes.

Fatherlessness represents a higher use of correctional facilities and personnel.

Eighty-five percent of all youth in state-run institutions were discovered to be fatherless.

Only 13% of juvenile delinquents come from families where both the biological mother and father are married.

Fifty-five percent of men incarcerated in state prisons and 63 percent of men incarcerated in federal prisons reported having at least one child.

Fifty-eight percent of those polled said they had children under the age of ten.

More than half of all parents incarcerated in state prison had never married.

Fatherlessness represents a higher risk of chemical abuse.

Columbia University researchers discovered that children living in two-parent households with a poor relationship with their father are 68% more likely to smoke, drink, or use drugs than teens in two-parent families.