Single-father Households
How do Children of Single-Father
Households Fare Relative to Children of
Two-Parent Families?
Juveniles committed to juvenile prisons (Texas):
Less than 1% are from single father homes
20% are from 2-parent homes
79% are from fatherless homes
As to the welfare issue, might we quote from the Congressional
testimony of David Burgess, MSPH (Ways and Means Committee,
1995): "... welfare should not be a substitute for father, instead
father
should be a substitute for welfare."
Why does David Burgess believe this? Carefully consider what the
above statistics mean. An average of 4% of our nation's children grew
up in single-father households, an average of 30% grew up in
single-mother households, and an average of 60% grew up in
two-parent families, with the remaining 6% growing up with
grandparents, foster homes, uncles and aunts, etc. Children from
single-father households are under-represented in juvenile prisons
by 4
times, and children from two-parent families are under-represented
by
3 times--BUT children from single-mother households are
OVER-represented by TWO AND ONE HALF TIMES (2 1/2 x).
Children from single-father households are
under-represented in
juvenile prisons by 4X.
Children from two-parent families are under-represented
by 3X.
Children from single-mother households are
OVER-represented
by 2.5X.
This means that children from single-mother households are 7.5 times
more likely to end up in juvenile prisons than children of two-parent
families.
AND--that children of single-mother
households are ten times more likely
than the children of single-father
households to end up in juvenile prisons.
If children of single-father households are less likely than children
of
two-parent families to go to juvenile prisons, then it is probable
that
they also fare much better in other areas as well (in education, morally,
in religious values, financially, socially, psychologically, in future
income
and tax paying potential, etc.)
The goal of the Fathers' Manifesto is not to shift children from
single-mother households, or
worse from two-parent families, to single-father households.
The goal is to eliminate
fatherlessness by discouraging divorce,
and this requires that the financial and moral
incentives to break up families be removed from the 85% of the
mothers who currently file
for divorce each year. Feminists object that all this would do
is shift the children from
single-mother households to single-father households. We
disagree. Experts disagree.
Worldwide and historic statistics support that a presumption of father
custody would reduce divorce by 90-95%, which would be a noble
and important accomplishment. But if the feminist critics are
correct (a
real first), and if the number of single-father households did increase,
then the above example of how well children of single-father
households fare suggests that the long term benefits would be of even
greater benefit to society than merely ending fatherlessness with
two-parent families.
Overshooting the goal would be a good thing for children, and for
society.
And for the first time, the feminists would be right.
Probability of Imprisonment
|
% Prison Population |
% of All Families |
Factor |
Relative to 2-parent Household |
| Two Parent Family |
19% |
60% |
1:3.2 |
1X |
| Single Mother Household |
75% |
26% |
2.9:1 |
9.3X |
| Single Father Household |
1% |
6% |
1:6 |
0.5X |
| Grandparents, Relatives |
2% |
6% |
1:3 |
1.6X |
| Other (Foster, CPS) |
3% |
2% |
1:1.3 |
3.2X |
| 
