Father’s Initiative: Bringing Stability To Children’s Lives

This week's focus is on the power of fatherhood. Share your comments, along with putting words into action.

Father’s Initiative: Bringing Stability To Children’s Lives

  This is the season to especially honor fathers. People, as part of the Father’s Day weekend, prepare delicious meals; purchase nice gifts; and make special visits for their fathers.

  An initiative fathers should take in light of the holiday is: bringing stability to their children’s lives.

  Fathers are the seeds of progress for their future generations.

  Fathers are the bows that embed firmness and flexibility to point their arrows—their children—in the proper direction they should go.

  Without a bow, an arrow is lifeless. God Almighty is the Steady Hand who holds the bow and arrow in place for a perfect bull’s eye shot.

  A child’s stability, security, acceptance and guidance come from his father. This does not mean mothers may not carry the same traits. There are a host of mothers who have raised children to become productive citizens.

  What must take place is fathers taking responsibility for the children they help bring into this world.

  There are some amazing statistics that warrant a serious and immediate change in society.

  The U.S. Census Bureau reports 24 million children in America—one out of every three—live in biological father-absent homes. Nine in ten American parents agree this is a “crisis.”

  Consequently, there is a "father factor" in nearly all of the social issues facing America today. But the hope lies in the fact that children with involved fathers do better across every measure of child well-being than their peers in father-absent homes.

  In a study examining father involvement with 134 children of adolescent mothers over the first 10 years of life, researchers found that father-child contact was associated with better socio-emotional and academic functioning. The results indicated that children with more involved fathers experienced fewer behavioral problems and scored higher on reading achievement. This study showed the significance of the role of fathers in the lives of at-risk children, even in case of nonresident fathers.

  Children in father-absent homes are almost four times more likely to be poor. In 2011, 12 percent of children in married-couple families were living in poverty, compared to 44 percent of children in mother-only families.

  Data from three waves of the Fragile Families Study was used to examine the prevalence and effects of mothers’ relationship changes between birth and age 3 on their children’s well being. Children born to single mothers show higher levels of aggressive behavior than children born to married mothers. Living in a single-mother household is equivalent to experiencing 5.25 partnership transitions.

  Infant mortality rates are 1.8 times higher for infants of unmarried mothers than for married mothers.

  Even after controlling for income, youths in father-absent households still had significantly higher odds of incarceration than those in mother-father families. Youths who never had a father in the household experienced the highest odds.

  A study of 109 juvenile offenders indicated that family structure significantly predicts delinquency.

  Being raised by a single mother raises the risk of teen pregnancy, marrying with less than a high school degree, and forming a marriage where both partners have less than a high school degree.

  A study using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study revealed that in many cases the absence of a biological father contributes to increased risk of child maltreatment. The results suggest that Child Protective Services agencies have some justification in viewing the presence of a social father as increasing children’s risk of abuse and neglect. It is believed that in families with a non-biological (social) father figure, there is a higher risk of abuse and neglect to children, despite the social father living in the household or only dating the mother.

  Even after controlling for community context, there is significantly more drug use among children who do not live with their mother and father.

  The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth found that obese children are more likely to live in father-absent homes than are non-obese children.

  Father involvement in schools is associated with the higher likelihood of a student getting mostly A's. This was true for fathers in biological parent families, for stepfathers, and for fathers heading single-parent families.

   The statistics are not a tell-all for every single child and parent in America and around the globe. The data does show the desperate need for father to step up and fill the huge gap that fatherlessness brings to communities.

  There is no excuse for a father not fulfilling his daddy duty: providing children the resources to live positive and productive lives.

   Millions of males have been given the keys to fatherhood. Now is the time to use the key to unlock the potential in the lives of their children as well as other children they come into contact with.

  Take the initiative to put the bow into action, pointing arrows in the direction of divine purpose and good success.